Unsurprisingly, in 1921 Salem Papers got the Tulsa Massacre all Wrong

At the end of four days of news coverage, the morning paper here gave a verdict on the Tulsa Massacre in 1921: "Negros held to blame. Radicals said to have inflamed hatred."

June 4th, 1921

The anniversary of the massacre, coinciding with a year of BLM protest, has prompted widespread attention to a revised understanding of the massacre. NY Times published a moving and detailed interactive on the loss and destruction.

The Wall Street Journal also published a long interactive piece on "Black Wall Street," and they summarized:

One hundred years ago, white mobs burned Tulsa’s Black neighborhood to the ground. Thirty-five blocks were leveled. Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed. As many as 300 were killed.

In pop culture, there was the Watchmen series a year ago. Here the paper printed something on its impact in contemporary politics.

Yesterday's paper

Perhaps there will be more on Sunday or early next week.

The news here a century ago got it fundamentally wrong, distorted by the general commitment to white supremacy. (Salem clips in order of publication.)

Robert Lindsey Obituary may Omit Important Recent History

Back in October, there was an apparent hit-and-run on Windsor Island Road.

At the time, Keizer Police said in their second report:

On Friday, October 9, 2020, 70-year-old Andrew Otho Polston, of Keizer, was lawfully riding his bicycle north on Windsor Island Road when he was struck and killed by a northbound 1973 Dodge van driven by 93-year-old Robert E. Lindsey, of Salem....No arrest has been made.

This second report doesn't say anything about hit-and-run, but the very first report suggested it:

Officers found a 70-year-old man deceased at the scene, an apparent victim of a collision with a vehicle. The vehicle that struck the man did not remain at the scene...

Today there is news and an obituary about a former Mayor, Robert Lindsey, also 93. There never was any follow-up on the crash and any subsequent citations. The obituary mentions no crash.

via Twitter

But it very much still seems like there is a story here, and the inattention may be a casualty of our shrinking news staffs as well as youth and lack of local knowledge in new reporters. 

The inattention might also a consequence of our autoism that sees fatal crashes as a tolerable level of collateral damage for using our roads and cars. Just an "accident."

The obituary says "He had been living independently at the family's hazelnut farm in north Salem up until about a week before his death."

There might also be more of a story here about seniors and mobility and just what constitutes "independence."

All in all, there is a nagging feeling that the matter is very incompletely told.

Market Street Cottage Cluster for Seniors Perhaps Still Distant from Shopping

With the parklets and Geer Park on Council agenda, I didn't look closely at the Market Street properties on the agenda, and Salem Reporter has a nice note about the plans there.

via Twitter

Properties that can be found for below-market price are rare, and it's great the City and United Way are able to coordinate on this.

Across the street from Swegle School

Still, even if the locations aren't utterly car-dependent, they might not be the best for seniors with mobility issues.

Market Street here was recently realigned, which is why the lots had been acquired by the City and now are surplus, so at least some of the sidewalks are brand new, but Market Street is still zoomy and not exactly inviting for walking.

Market Street here is not exactly friendly for walking

Parking, Gas Stations and Gas Tax, City Maintenance Bond: Meetings this Week

Is this the year we finally get real about parking reform?

The Downtown Advisory Board meets on Thursday the 27th, and they are looking again at our broken downtown parking system. Since the last pass at reform, more big box stores have closed and are no longer paying into the parking tax fund. Cleaning and maintenance costs have also risen. The current parking tax system is broken and unsustainable and City Staff propose we transition to a paid parking system. This deserves very serious consideration.

Is this the year?

We should remember that both Liberty Plaza and the JC Penney building were connected with covered skywalks to the Chemeketa Parkade, full of free parking. Free parking can't get any more convenient that that! And yet copious free parking has not been any guarantee of success for those businesses and sites. 

We should not be afraid to eliminate free parking so that we can focus on resources that actually improve the prospects for downtown business. 

Things like housing! If we want more customers downtown, we should have more people living downtown. Downtown should be a live-in destination rather than drive-to destination.

Moving to paid parking is the right move. Maybe this year we can finally do it. (See previous notes on downtown parking here.)

New Book on Salem Architect Walter D. Pugh out Monday

Hey, here's some very pleasant news!

New book on Pugh

Yesterday online the Oregonian ran a feature on a family genealogy story with an important Salem angle, architect Walter D. Pugh. They led with an image of the family at Eugene's Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson House, designed by Pugh, and just up the hill from the Eugene Amtrak Station.

At Pugh's Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson House

The family history project turned into a book, and the cover of it uses images of our old City Hall and of the current building of the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, now the Willamette Heritage Center.

Some Ways Parking Distorts our Analysis of the City and Our Salem Project

Three recent comments on zoning proposals for Our Salem show efforts to protect parking and driving, and swerve away from the central matter, that in order to make reductions in carbon pollution, we must reduce our car travel substantially. The comments are not totally wrong, and they engage some of the issue, but avoid really grappling with it.

By still focusing on the accommodation of cars as if that still was the primary thing, we lose sight of the fact that cars are tools, means rather than ends, and miss the real primary ends of housing for people and reductions in greenhouse gas pollution.

Regional vs City Housing

One incoherence is a slippage, perhaps deliberate, between regional housing and city housing.

It says that if we don't offer housing at the right price here in Salem, we force people to outer communities like Monmouth, Independence, Turner, Stayton, and Silverton. People commuting to jobs in Salem make longer drives for more VMT and more carbon pollution.

This emergent criticism of Our Salem, then, also functions as way, intentionally or unintentionally, to try to greenwash single detached homes on the edge of the city. It is also something of a divide-and-conquer strategy, pitting housing against emissions reductions.

from the Realtors

We saw it in a letter from the Home Builders Association on a recent and contested annexation in South Salem, and here it is again from the Realtor Association offered in formal comment on the zoning concepts for Our Salem.

City Council, May 24th - New Parklet and Street Dining Regulations

Also on Council agenda for Monday is a proposed renewal and extension of a "Sidewalk Café/On-Street Platform Program."

In the body of the Staff Report, and in the new guideline booklet, they talk about "parklets," but the main title of the agenda item is about "platforms," and the City slips between the two. That is interesting and perhaps a small item of concern.

Cover and interior page from the new City guidelines

It is not obvious that the new standards are meant to be easy and convenient, however. It looks, in fact, like it could be a bit of a Potemkin program, something the City can "say" is available, but which has enough red tape and cost that few will actually use it.