tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post7311687215997098571..comments2024-03-25T17:49:41.408-07:00Comments on Salem Breakfast on Bikes: City Council, July 28th - To Demolish Howard Hall?Salem Breakfast on Bikeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15618055627843335993noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-58786003964561576932014-07-29T20:44:01.289-07:002014-07-29T20:44:01.289-07:00Thanks again for stopping by, Deborah!
A few more...Thanks again for stopping by, Deborah!<br /><br />A few more thoughts...<br /><br />The main problem here is the Hospital's commitment to vast oceans of free parking.<br /><br />One important thing that health care professionals can do is to call on the Hospital and the School District to enact, and to educate parents of children about the benefits of, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/transportation/vmt_strategy.htm" rel="nofollow">these "Healthy Places" recommendations from the Center for Disease Control</a>:<br /><br /> -Consider policies that reduce vehicle miles traveled; these policies can include vehicle miles traveled tax, tolls, or congestion pricing in downtown areas.<br /> -Implement parking pricing schemes.<br /> -Reduce the availability of on and off street parking to encourage alternate forms of transportation.<br /> -Create alternatives to single occupancy vehicle travel through the improvement of multimodal transportation options, including carpools, vanpools, public transportation, and active transportation—any self-propelled, human-powered mode of transportation.<br /><br />If the Hospital charged for parking, especially for employee parking permits, they would better allocate the existing parking supply and also be able to redevelop the blind school property with things that generated more value than surface lots devoted to free parking. They would not need so much additional parking.<br /><br />The current plan at the Blind School calls for 87 parking stalls above the maximum permitted by Salem code. In these 87 stalls an adaptive playground could easily be built. (See diagram inserted into text - there's room for at least 5 playgrounds!) By design or by accident the Hospital engaged in a divide-and-conquer strategy, pitting preservationists against people with disabilities. The fact is, there is room for both Howard Hall and a playground.<br /><br />No one has said there should be no playground, it is important to note. It seems clear this is a great need in the community.<br /><br />But it should come at the reasonable cost of superfluous parking lot space, not at the cost of an irreplacable historic building.<br /><br />As specific projects or calls to action, we are at a bit of a lull just now. Candidate projects for a significant source of state funding didn't make the final list just announced, the City has already made selections in the bond surplus projects, and it seems like we are "in-between" on a lot of funding sources right now.<br /><br />But one can always ask one's City Councilor for a commitment to move forward on a full-fledged family friendly bikeway in Salem.<br /><br />Thanks for visiting and for the dialogue!<br /><br />More conversation to come!Salem Breakfast on Bikeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15618055627843335993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-304199523979637812014-07-29T15:38:22.517-07:002014-07-29T15:38:22.517-07:00Thanks, Deborah!
Will circle back later for a mor...Thanks, Deborah!<br /><br />Will circle back later for a more considered response later this evening...but note that there's a graphic inserted just now you might not have seen in previous posts. It's at the center of the claim the Hospital should easily be able to accomplish both goals: save Howard Hall and build adaptive playground.Salem Breakfast on Bikeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15618055627843335993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-68345009210921107532014-07-29T15:13:10.668-07:002014-07-29T15:13:10.668-07:00Hi all,
I'm a fan of Salem Breakfast on Bikes,...Hi all,<br />I'm a fan of Salem Breakfast on Bikes, I love Salem, I love historic buildings and I fully support the hospital's plan to demolish Howard Hall in order to build an outdoor therapeutic area contiguous with the new rehab facility which will include an adaptive playground. <br /><br />I've never posted on your blog before (actually I don't think I've ever posted on anyone's blog before) but am doing so now to address a few points made in your post about "Our medical corps" and the “boilerplate” letter that I submitted on behalf of myself and a number of pediatric providers from Childhood Health Associates of Salem (CHAOS).<br /><br />I first learned about the hospital’s plans at the May 27 Family Resources, Support and Training (FRST) workgroup meeting of the Marion-Polk Coalition for Special Needs Children. Marybeth Beall is the facilitator of this group as well as a number of other community health improvement groups. Marybeth and other members of the FRST workgroup had already provided testimony in support of the proposed therapeutic adaptive playground. Following the meeting, I decided to write a letter of support for the hospital’s proposal and then never got around to it. After learning that the hospital’s plans had been rejected, I once again decided to write a letter of support. However, given my propensity to procrastinate, I asked Marybeth if she would provide a petition-style letter that could be submitted by anyone who wished to show support for the hospital’s proposal. You wrote “It might not be surprising that the same boilerplate appears in this letter and several others. Clearly it was furnished by the Hospital as a template or petition.” In fact, the letter was drafted by Marybeth Beall at the request of myself and other members of the FRST workgroup. <br /><br />How did CHAOS providers end up signing this letter? I am married to a CHAOS pediatrician, Ken Carlson. My closest friends are pediatricians at CHAOS. I took my letter over to CHAOS and convinced a number of providers to sign in support of the hospital’s plan. <br />“Bike and Walk Salem or Safe Routes to School have not roused "Pediatric Healthcare Providers" to this extent.” The CHAOS “Pediatric Healthcare Providers” were “roused…to this extent” by my physically taking the letter to CHAOS, talking to as many providers as I could catch and asking them to sign. Some providers declined to sign despite my heartfelt wheedling and cajoling. <br /><br />The hospital did a truly lousy job in garnering local support for this much-needed, valuable community resource. Had the hospital actually made any effort to engage the families of special-needs children and adults there would have been an outpouring of organized support for the hospital’s proposal. <br /><br />The providers at CHAOS are a great group of people and I am dismayed that, in signing a letter supporting the creation of a therapeutic, adaptive playground, they can somehow be seen as displaying “more concern for parking lot expansion than they do for the fact that car crashes are a leading cause of death for kids, and that the lack of walking and biking to school a significant obesogenic factor and ingredient in adult public health problems.” It’s unfair and untrue.<br /><br />“I know some of them contribute to local bike safety education efforts, but there's a disconnect here between macro urban strategies for healthy kids and the micro scale of a single adaptive playground.” It is disingenuous to suggest that support for the hospital’s proposal indicates a lack of interest in community health and wellness endeavors. Please, please, please invite local physicians to the planning table! Let docs know where to show up and how to help. If nothing else, draft a boilerplate letter for healthcare providers to sign when you need their support on an issue. <br /><br />I’ll show-up and I guarantee there are other community-minded docs who’d be willing to help. <br /><br />Thanks and keep up the great work, <br />Deborah Carlson, MD <br />Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist<br />drdebcarlson@gmail.comAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09321963595582729557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-71501194685653682612014-07-28T22:10:38.204-07:002014-07-28T22:10:38.204-07:00Looks like it was a unanimous vote to overturn.Looks like it was a unanimous vote to overturn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-29360367608439330332014-07-28T09:59:07.127-07:002014-07-28T09:59:07.127-07:00@Curt - Norm Gruber, the hospital CEO, submitted a...@Curt - Norm Gruber, the hospital CEO, submitted a clarification - <br />http://www.cityofsalem.net/Departments/CommunityDevelopment/Planning/Historic/HowardHallDemolition/Documents/Gruber%20Letter.pdf<br /><br />saying the hospital "concurs with, and agrees to be bound by" the conditions proposed by city staff.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-75857369198469144162014-07-27T09:27:35.477-07:002014-07-27T09:27:35.477-07:00A reader sends a comment by email:
Re: But then y...A reader sends a comment by email:<br /><br />Re: But then you get to zoning and permitted uses. Talk about Ptolemaic epicycles! We really should transition to something more like a form-based code - something with less on "what you do" and more on "what it looks like." Our modern successor to exclusionary zoning just looks like a charlie foxtrot, and the more we try to salvage it, the more complicated it gets.<br /><br />"<i>But of course. It is through control of what people are allowed to do in their buildings that the unspoken, unrecognized, pervasive auto domination reaches its peak, since 99% of the fights supposedly about building use actually arise out of concerns about how many and what kinds of motor vehicles the building use will foster.<br /><br />In other words, because we won't openly talk and think about how auto ism has degraded Salem and how making autos the center of all planning and zoning, we wind up tearing great gaps in our city, while spreading out uses so much that it's hard for anyone but the autoists to make use of things, because our code is an indirect, feeble attempt to grapple with the negative externalities of living in a city that puts cars ahead of ahead of people in priority. <br /><br />As long as building uses are licensed and regulated but all persons* are assumed to have a god-given unfettered right to go anywhere in Salem in a private auto, we will continue to degrade Salem, squandering our money and dissipating our heritage, making Salem look like countless other soulless, charmless places. That's what our building code aims for, and by god it's working.<br /><br />(*Since the official view is that only people wealthy enough to have their own private auto deserve any consideration, it's accurate to say that Salem feels it right to provide all persons with full access to all parts of town ... Car owners are the only persons who count, and so they're the only persons period.)</i>"Salem Breakfast on Bikeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15618055627843335993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-21086193783943120592014-07-26T22:04:28.215-07:002014-07-26T22:04:28.215-07:00The pediatricians petition is small and nearly all...The pediatricians petition is small and nearly all the signatories are from Jefferson and Turner. Salem pediatricians are conspiciously absent.<br /><br />In his testimony two weeks ago, the Salem Health CEO declined terms that the conditions proposed by the city for a demolition permit. They are not committed to this playground.Curtnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-85986579833772354232014-07-26T19:26:24.150-07:002014-07-26T19:26:24.150-07:00And while we're at it:
What distinguishing fea...And while we're at it:<br />What distinguishing features were in the house where George Washington grew up that made it of any particular historical value?KandNhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08982514439893158594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-5115468221614570732014-07-26T16:21:01.647-07:002014-07-26T16:21:01.647-07:00"Howard Hall has no value to the history of t..."Howard Hall has no value to the history of the school...there are no distinguishing features, either inside or outside of Howard Hall, to show it was ever a place that housed and educated blind students."<br /><br />With this statement, Salem Hospital shows a callous disregard for the memories of many hundreds, maybe thousands, of Oregonians who spent a portion of their youth at Howard Hall between 1923 and 2009. Their experience of Howard Hall was quite different than that of sighted persons. It had nothing to do with "distinguishing features" of the architecture. Howard Hall was home. Some of them have testified. Will their voices be heard? Do they matter?Jim Scheppkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04077003905171156283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-21345872880950550152014-07-26T14:08:17.543-07:002014-07-26T14:08:17.543-07:00It struck me, while driving past the yawning hulk ...It struck me, while driving past the yawning hulk of the slowly transforming Boise Cascade building, why is it worthwhile to turn/reinvent that humongous concrete cavern into something to benefit the community and not do the same for Howard Hall? <br />Howard Hall is just begging to be turned into a museum about the history of the education of the blind. If there's space--perhaps a sensory type room. And (my imagination tends to go crazy) wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get it all done not with just local support, but with a kickstarter?KandNhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08982514439893158594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5666195730630249633.post-248787409598193232014-07-26T10:35:43.855-07:002014-07-26T10:35:43.855-07:00Great post. You've gotten me to look at the Ho...Great post. You've gotten me to look at the Howard Hall issue in a different way. I'm planning to testify Monday night, at the council meeting, in favor of preserving Howard Hall. <br /><br />But now I'm leaning toward saying something different from the written testimony I've already submitted. So thanks for the insight.<br /><br />What struck me after reading your post is that we're really talking about a secular form of "soul" and "spirit" here -- the inner side of life, not the outer (both are part of the human experience, of course).<br /><br />People who talk about Howard Hall just being an old broken-down building aren't appreciating that inner side, which is what makes life meaningful rather than mechanical. <br /><br />The same distinction, I believe, lies at the heart of every land use'ish issue in Salem, including the third bridge, downtown parking, riverfront development, a new police facility, and such.<br /><br />Arguments occur over the outer, while what motivates both proponents and opponents of a certain policy position is the inner. This is notably clear in the Howard Hall case. <br /><br />A historic building, as you said, isn't what it is because of the materials that make it up. Nothing on the outside screams "Historic!", just as nothing on the outside tells anyone that the jewelry on my left hand is a wedding ring with lots of significance to me.<br /><br />Take it off, lay it on a table, and it is just a ring. Those in favor of demolishing Howard Hall are making the mistake of discounting the inner life of Salemians. But again, this is where life is really lived -- from the inside, not the outside. <br /><br />(There is no outside within an inside: consciousness.)<br />Brian Hineshttp://www.hinesblog.comnoreply@blogger.com