PR and Messaging over Substance: City Response to Advocacy Dismays

One of the criticisms we've made over the past few years is that the City seems to prefer to see action on climate and on safety for vulnerable users of the roads as a messaging problem rather than anything that calls for concrete action. The City has seemed to say, "We're doing great! The problem is the citizenry just doesn't understand."

You may recall this "But we're misunderstood" theme from very early in preparation for the Climate Action Plan: "The Salem community is mostly unaware of the overall progress."

"Salem...is mostly unaware of the overall progress"

Other communications have also generally shown what here has seemed an unserious approach that focuses on appearance and signalling rather than on substantive action.

• On empty claims about biking, "City Fun Fact Misses Key Points" (2019)
• This was a dominant theme for 2022, "Planning and Talk and not Enough Walk: 2022 in Review"
• More recent carelessness on biking, "With Image of Salmoning, City shows Unserious Approach to Bicycling" (2023)
• And in the City's own review for 2023, "City's Year in Review Video is a Little Phony"
  
• And a new counter-productive PR project on climate, "Climate Action Plan Committee Starts off in Idle in 2024"

So it was interesting in December to learn about a "show and tell" with advocates.

Our new Public Works Director, Brian Martin, would like gather bike advocacy groups in Salem to discuss active transportation in our City.  He would like to learn more about what is working and what isn’t working in the community.  He would also like to share information on projects the City is completing to improve biking in our community. 

We are looking at holding a 2- 3 hour meeting....We plan to allow each group 10-15 minutes to discuss their goals, vision, projects, and events for biking in the community.

It was a little weird. The invite did not come from Martin, and it also gave a lot of stress to the idea of "sharing information on projects the City is completing," on talking rather than listening. The "But we're misunderstood"/"Salem community is mostly unaware" theme was a bit of a red flag. Similarly, the show-and-tell aspect in a group meeting was also odd. The meeting concept did not give off a good vibe.

It was rescheduled for this spring, and it's actually weirder.

Administrative purchases September 2023

One of the people involved, who looks even like the real organizer of the meeting, is a principal of a Portland PR firm, Parachute Strategies. It turns out in September the City Manager's Office signed a not-to-exceed contract for $350,000 in PR services. It was a mistake not to look into this in December.

The City may not be very interested in a discussion of how to improve biking, bicycle facilities, and bicycle safety! The meeting instead looks like an expression of "But we're misunderstood." There's too much focus here on managing the message. There's even a weird request from the PR firm, again not from the Director, for a pre-meeting meeting separately and individually with the participants.

Before that meeting, I would very much appreciate an opportunity to learn a little bit about you and your point of view on biking in Salem in advance....

WTF? This is kinda bogus, and maybe a lot bogus. It looks like working on spin rather than substance. A classic divide-and-conquer gesture and really managing the messaging. The focus should be on the death and injury on our roads, and building on previous assessments, on data, and not on "your point of view." The City has plenty of data and information on this.

We are failing badly on walking and biking
(A "point of view" from Our Salem, 2019)

Even worse, on Monday the City just canceled a bunch of vacant positions that hadn't been filled.

Vacant positions cut, February 2024

Spending up to $350,000 on a PR agency while cutting City positions that might actually be helpful is not a good look.

At that same Monday Council meeting, Council approved a downtown crosswalk safety project to be funded with $200,000 of downtown Urban Renewal Funds. This matter had been on the January DAB agenda as a "safety improvement project," and I misunderstood this as a new crosswalk, a capital project, rather than a planning study.

DAB, Jan. agenda, Feb. minutes

But this also is something that might have been better funded than a PR agency. Is there an opportunity cost to reallocating URA funding in this way? Maybe not. The Opportunity Purchase Fund appears to be budgeted at $2 million, and 10% of that may not be a big deal. Historically this fund supports things like the purchase of the URA/Saffron block (Block 50) and part of the corner next to Scott's on Commercial and State where the Nishioka building is now. The Urban Renewal Agency purchases lots, sometimes bundles them with adjacent lots, and then flips them for redevelopment.

See:

• On purchasing 129 Commercial SE, now bundled in the Nishioka Building, "City Council, June 10th" (2013)
• More generally, "Downtown Advisory Board to get Update on Opportunity Sites" (2016)
• "City Council, October 23rd - Downtown UGM Block" (2017)
  

So it's hard to say, and the DAB meeting minutes do not give any detail on discussion or debate, how much of an opportunity cost there might be to reallocating these Opportunity Purchase funds to a planning study.

But overall, when money is tight at the City, why are the services of a PR agency a priority?

We want safe streets, not more soothing messaging!