Jockey Earl Sande was Front Page News 100 Years Ago, Later Buried Here

 One hundred years ago, a jockey and horse match race were front page news.

October 21st, 1923

About it wikipedia says:

On October 20, 1923, one of the most significant match races in worldwide thoroughbred racing took place at Belmont Park on Long Island, New York with a purse of $100,000 up for grabs in a special race called the International Stakes, set to run 1 ½ miles. The two horse race brought the Kentucky Derby winner against vs. the Epsom Derby winner, Papyrus....

Zev's victory marked the first time a Kentucky Derby winner defeated an English Derby winner.

An important reason there was so much local attention was the jockey riding the winning horse, Earl Sande, had parents who lived here in Salem. His mother was also featured on the front page.

October 21st, 1923

The year before, his holiday visit was featured on an interior page.

City Council, October 23rd - Overlays and Sidewalks

At Council on Monday is final action on the compromise measure for the overlay zones along Commercial Street by Bush Park and the Cemetery.

Compromise on the overlay zones

Broadly, Councilor Nishioka's motion looks like successful legislation and compromise:

To eliminate the Oxford-West Nob Hill, Oxford-Hoyt, and Hoyt-McGilchrist Overlay Zones and amend the Saginaw Street and Superior-Rural Overlay Zones to increase the maximum height to 45 feet and remove all other use and development standards in these two overlay zones.

It's an improvement and addresses some, though not all, of the objections. Because the Oxford-Hoyt overlay has split underlying base zoning, it already has a height limitation even without the overlay, so neighbors' objections to height there is already accommodated. This allowed the matter of height to be finessed in the Oxford-West Nob Hill overlay and in the Hoyt-McGilchrist overlay.

Apartment zoning across from overlay

It was a little surprising, though, that it seemed necessary to retain height limits in the Saginaw Street overlay near Mission Street. That is mostly across the street from apartment zoning, and honestly seemed like the easiest overlay to delete altogether. But apparently that was not the case.

In any case, the resolution is incremental progress and it falls within the range of "what reasonable people can disagree on." On to the next thing!

New ramps at Winter and D Streets

There's an update on the City's Sidewalk Repair Program. One report shows the work on sidewalk and ramp repairs done in 2023, and another lists locations planned for work in the next six months. It's nice to see the cracks, heaving, and gravel fixed up!

Somewhat related is a process proposed to select and prioritize sidewalk and crosswalk work funded by the bond.

Cordon Road Study Thumbs Nose at Climate: At the MPO

The Policy Committee for our local Metropolitan Planning Organization meets on Tuesday the 24th, and in the minutes to last month's meeting are finally some details on the plan for Cordon Road. The Cordon Road website is not being updated, and the draft plan not yet published for public comment. It's a little weird.

Here's a map keyed to minutes from the last meeting. (The map here is a composite from materials published separately.)

South of Silverton Road widened

South of Silverton Road the study recommends full widening to four lanes.

A "hybrid" design is preferred

The recommendation for widening to four travel lanes just utterly ignores our need to reduce driving traffic in Salem.

First level Climate Goals: A 10% reduction

That the study was going to ignore climate was strongly implied from the start:

• "Cordon-Kuebler Corridor Study Already Hinders Climate Goals" (2022)
• "Our CAP calls for Supporting Alternative No. 3 in Cordon-Kuebler Corridor Study" (2022)

They also sprinkle in several roundabouts.

Oregon Electric Klan Special to Corvallis Stops in Salem in 1923

At the same time as the American Legion was unable to condemn the Klan explicitly at their national convention in San Francisco, some Salem Klan members were getting on an Oregon Electric Special to Corvallis for an initiation and parade. The morning paper seemed a little eager to help promote it.

October 18th, 1923

The language of "naturalization" and the pile-up of Ks are interesting in the Albany ad.

Albany Evening Herald
Oct. 15th, 1923

There were no similar ads in Salem papers, but the morning paper did feature notices for the Oregon Electric special train, which they seemed to understand as a public service. The afternoon paper also mentioned it, but it was a short item buried in a list of similarly small items, and did not give it a full headline.

October 18th, 1923

Indeed, a few days later the morning paper started listing the Salem parade and meeting on November 10th in a daily calendar of events. They did not seem to find anything very objectionable about it.

On the Nasty Origin of Conspiracy-based Criticism of Walkable Neighborhoods

In the last week or so you may have seen a story at NPR on 15 minute cities, "It's a global climate solution — if it can get past conspiracy theories and NIMBYs."

at NPR

Willamette University historian Seth Cotlar picked up on it, and wrote about subtexts and maintexts for a great proportion of the criticism, commenting on "The 55 year history behind the conspiracy theories dogging today's advocates of 15-minute cities."

via Rightlandia

His research, which he was documenting on twitter, before it was eMuskulated, and now is sharing on substack, focuses on Walter Huss, who managed to become Chair of the Oregon GOP for a brief period on the late 70s.

August 13th, 1978 and March 13th, 1984

At the time Huss was regarded as a fringey nutjob, but his temperament and interests have become mainstreamed now. He was forerunner, not fringe.

In public he presented as a "common-sense conservative," an ostensibly reasonable White Christian Nationalist, and in private he was much, much worse.

Spot Problem or System Problem? Safer Streets Map is Limited

When the City announced this week with great hoopla a new interactive map for "Safer Streets," the first thing that came to mind was the busted up crosswalk stop sign on Market Street at Winter, on the formal Neighborhood Greenway, and right at the Elementary School.

They finally gave up on replacing the sign!
School crosswalk on Market at Winter

Some combination of the City and School District seem to have decided to abandon the stop sign and stop replacing it because drivers keep hitting it.

But that should be a sign the crosswalk needs further hardening! It needs more, not less. Removing the sign is bass-ackwards.

So the intersection of Winter and Market was a logical place to comment and make a request.

At Winter & Mission: Rejected!

But even though the map's name is "City of Salem Neighborhood Traffic Concern Reporting Portal" you can't report this! It kicks you out to another map and set of forms. Screw that. That's just another, counterintuitive barrier, more administrative sludge.

The City should consolidate maps and just employ one single reporting tool.

The whole thing is too limited, in fact. The City clearly envisions it for spot reporting on a very limited menu of problems. Citizens are already enlarging its scope, and some tried to focus more on corridors.

Notes on Walk to a Park Day

In the press and city PR for National Walk to a Park Day this week, the City underlined that only half of residents live within a 10 minute walk to a park. Here are some meandering notes on that - a walk, as it were.

Crossing Liberty near Skyline - via FB

Wednesday paper

Proximity alone is not always an inducement or barrier. The quality of a walk matters also! Does it feel comfortable and safe? Often enough a 20 minute walk on pleasant streets beats a 10 minute walk along a dusty, zoomy stroad.

The City said

Salem joins the Trust for Public Lands and its 10-Minute Walk initiative to build quality parks close to home and eliminate the park equity gap.

It would be helpful to learn more about the 51% statistic (and its reciprocal, 49% live within a 10 minute walk). 

The Trust for Public Land itself appears to make a different claim, and suggests 71% of Salem residents live within a 10 minute walk. That's a non-trivial gap of more than 20%!

Trust for Public Land assessment

In the 2013 Parks Master Plan, the deficiencies seemed to be clustered in unincorporated Marion County, east of I-5.

Proposed parks, 2013

Additionally, however, there might be data weirdness. The Trust for Public Land map for Liberty School and Wendy Kroger Park looks very odd. (This cropped up in the first instance of the map from 2020.)