An Unbalanced Bookshelf: Charles H. Carey's History of Oregon in Proposed Mural

The proposed critter and bookshelf mural for The Rivers on Court and Front Streets downtown has occasioned a good bit of comment, mostly positive, some of it as a useful newspeg for criticism about the Library's weeding policy and the questions about the current status of the Hugh Morrow Collection.

As it turns out, one of the books seemingly represented in it came out exactly 100 years ago.

History of Oregon by Charles Henry Carey at No. 1

I am pretty sure the three volume set indicated at No. 1 is the History of Oregon by Charles Henry Carey. The Salem Library appears to have one set, in the catalogue anyway, if perhaps not on the shelves. (Published in 1922, it is out of copyright and also is digitized here: Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3.) 

It was a notable work a century ago!

Oregonian, October 1st, 1922

But while it is still useful today for some purposes, especially as it contains capsule biographies helpful with caution in genealogical research, it is not one we would generally regard as authoritative today. Notice in the Oregonian words like "romance" and "lore." To say "lore of state exalted" is to say there is an ideological aim, even propaganda aim, for the work. 

The process of "quieting the Indian title to the soil" is discussed with fairness to both sides.

Yet "quieting the Indian title" already shows where the balance of power is, and on whose side "fairness" is supposed to reside.

Its main use today might be as an historical document of settler colonialist historiography, rather than as a standard source for a contemporary narrative of history. Still, in both direct and indirect ways it is an important text for understanding local history.

Center St Bridge Seismic Pushed out to 2027

You may recall that the October MWACT agenda listed a check-in on the Center Street Bridge seismic project.

Project sheet from 2019

The agenda item had said the "Construction year is estimated to be in 2025."

Oct. 2022: "Construction year...in 2025"

The presentation disclosed the project has been pushed out two years now to 2027, and as I read it the tone of the update suggests more delay is possible. It doesn't read as expressing firmness or urgency.

Mayor Hoy Signals Interests when Meeting Mayor Wu of Boston

Late this week the City blurbed Mayor Hoy's participation in a "Harvard program for new Mayors."

It's not the first time a Mayor has gone to some kind of conference or gathering that might be described as professional development or continuing education. So it wasn't necessarily remarkable in that way, but perhaps its location right at the beginning of a tenure was a little remarkable.

You may recall Mayor Bennett going to Boise to "to review its downtown layout and revitalization efforts" in 2016. We never heard a peep in public about what he might have learned. In 2013 Mayor Peterson attended an Institute on City Design. That didn't seem to bear much fruit either. These trips and conferences don't ever seem to have ripples, at least ones visible publicly.

By contrast, Mayor Hoy immediately pointed to a reformer and to a world outside of Salem and outside of himself. He seems to relish the learning and show openness to new things.

via Twitter

Mayor Wu of Boston is an interesting figure in transportation reform. I have not paid close attention to her, but maybe more will be warranted.

via Twitter

In a Q & A published on Boston.com she said:

I don’t see cars as the enemy. I see traffic and wasted time as the enemy. Pollution is the enemy.

Look, I’m in a multigenerational household. I have two young kids. I know the way that our streets are currently designed. We get in the car to go places as well. And so, it’s not an all or nothing proposition to say we need to make changes so that our whole system and the many ways that people get around all fit together.

Getting rid of traffic is an urgent issue. It is choking the growth of our economy. It’s making our housing market more strained. It’s affecting so many aspects of people’s day-to-day lives. It’s miserable to be stuck in traffic to get to work, and that makes it harder for companies to locate here or for young people to connect with the internship opportunities and social activities and resources that we’re trying to create for everyone all across the city.

She's also got attention in large, mainstream and national publications, and underlined themes on transportation and change.

City Council, December 5th - Housing Crisis and Road Safety

With the holiday season, Council meetings come in a rush, one-two-three in consecutive weeks. They meet again on Monday.

A couple of items on our housing crisis lead the way.

They will extend "Emergency Declaration related to unsheltered residents through December 31, 2023." This will help get the microshelter villages and safepark site up and going.

Perhaps emboldened by recent action in Portland and Bend, they will also start a "policy review" on "unsheltered homeless." On the surface this looks like it will include the search for ways to criminalize people camping. Others will have better things to say on many of the details. I want to focus on one element:

What reasonable options exist to the City to protect human life by restricting outdoor sheltering near busy or high speed roadways?

We should remember that being sheltered in a single-detached house with a mortgage is no guarantee of safety.

The house was no protection, in 2017 via Twitter

Speed is the problem. We should protect human life by curbing car abuse and jaydriving.

Front page this week

Here's a larger list of deaths during the phase that prompted the declaration of emergency.

Killed in 2022

• George Heitz and Moira Hughes (inside their own home)
• Jowand Beck, Luke Kagey, Joe Posada III, and Rochelle Zamacona (camping on Front between Union and Division)
• Unknown person (on Cordon Road)
• Unknown person (on Lancaster Drive)
• Unknown person (on Lancaster Drive)
• Charles Dwayne Hatfield (I-5 in Linn County)
• Wesley James Crossman (RR)
• Vince Edward Fouts (Woodmansee Park lot)
• Cassandra Sullivan (I-5)
• Cynthia Lynn Perry Rizzo (Sunnyview Road)
• Kelly Joseph Fields (Cordon Road)
• Michael Ernest Summers (I-5)
  

Killed in 2021

• Unknown person (I-5 and Market Street interchange)
• Rachel Bunting (while operating a bus for Cherriots)
  
• Blake Saville (on bike)
• Christian Kennedy (on Silverton Road)
• Galina Dvorskaya (south Commercial)
• Marlene Moreno (downtown crosswalk)
• Becky Dietzel (on North River Road)
• Unknown person (on Church St downtown)
• Aleta Pierre-Kelly (Mission Street)
• Eileen Johnson (on bike)
• Unknown person (on bike crossing Salem Parkway)
• Anthony Garza (on bike, crossing I-5)
• Christine Klug (on I-5)
• Unknown person (Lancaster Drive)
  

Killed in 2020

• Jaime Le Ann Hall (on skateboard) 
• Sharon Pritchard
• Mario Lopez-Lopez (walking a bike)  
• Unknown person via SJ (on I-5 near Market St)
  
• Andrew Otho Polston (biking on Windsor Island Road)
• Jolene Braasch Berry (on bike)
• Richardo Morales Avila (in McMinnville)
• Octavious Calloway (on I-5 near Market St)
• Selma Pierce
• Hermilo Mata Jr.
• Unknown person (on mobility scooter) 

Some of these, particularly those not named, were likely camping, and are people envisioned as subject to the "policy review."

But our problem with death in or near the roadway is fundamentally a driving problem, not always, or even often, an "outdoor sheltering" problem. 

Both I-5 and railroads are access controlled, and those operating vehicles on them have long stopping distances. They do necessarily imply different standards than for urban streets. But a busy street like Lancaster Drive or Front Street is still an urban street, and we should not apply the same standards we would on I-5.

Hopefully Council and Staff will undertake this review with nuance, not victim-blaming, and properly center the fact we have a driving problem also.

Director of Public Works to Retire

Salem Reporter has the scoop!

via Twitter and Salem Reporter

Director of Public Works Peter Fernandez has announced his retirement.

We'll probably come back to this, but he leaves a real mixed legacy. 

Most discussions will tout the accomplishment of the bond measures, one in 2008 and the most recent one, and the success on the cyanotoxin and water treatment problem. The Woodmansee Park aquifer project is notable. There might be Willow Lake successes also that should be noted. Probably there are nuts and bolts operational details that deserve to be surfaced also.

An opportunity refused in 2013

But here it was the stubborn attachment to the Salem River Crossing and the refusals to advocate more forcefully on provisions for non-auto travel and on greenhouse gas emissions that linger in memory. Transportation things too often were oriented to the previous century and to automobile travel.

The City will have a chance to make a new hire, and from outside might be best. A fresh perspective and a stronger commitment to curbing our emissions from transportation would be helpful. The new City Manager also might like some new thinking.

We'll see how it all shakes out, and again there may very well be more to say later in a longer assessment.

Addendum, December 1st

As a pleasant tangent is the news that ODOT has pushed out more control over local speeds.

Front page today

Hopefully that will be a tool embraced by a new Director.

ODOT Wildly Overengineers Early Concept Drawings for OR-22 and OR-51 Project

A reader from our 350org chapter wrote to suggest that the project for OR-22 and OR-51, which has been holding an online Open House this month, was worth more notice.

4 possible sets of roundabouts and ramps

In particular, they suggested ODOT was wildly missing on the spirit and intent for reductions in emissions and VMT.

They are right!

Everson House actually the Small House: A Gap in the Historic District and a Hearing on Short-Term Rental Proposal

Back around 2015, as the debate over Howard Hall had found its sad conclusion, the Hospital had purchased the house across the street at 795 Church Street SE, now called the Everson house of 1935 in the Historic District, and wanted to turn it into some kind of short-term stay facility. There was at least one Hearing at the Historic Landmarks Commission. (The process, which I did not follow closely, may have had more turns.)

795 Church, corner of Mission and Church

Apparently they have sold it, and a new owner wants to turn it into a "short term rental."

Hearing Notice

On the one hand this would be a subtraction from our housing stock and might be criticized on those grounds. On the other hand, Mission Street is changing and an even better use for that corner might be a small apartment block.

The Historic District, however, has an explicit aim to foil that kind of change as "encroachment" to be defended against.

The history of the house shows the thinness of our concept for the Historic District, and undermines some of the importance attached to it. Rather than arguing for or against the short-term rental proposal, I want to push against the way we understand and use Historic Districts.

When the Historic District was originally nominated nearly two full generations ago in 1986, historians and authors had very little to say about any significance for the Everson house and described its importance as "secondary." They identified the Eversons as the current owners, but did not at that time ascribe any significance to the Eversons in the historic context of the house.

In the Historic District Nomination

It's a nice older house in the generic sense of "old house," but did not seem to say anything significant about Salem history.

So to call it the "Everson House of 1935" is almost certainly an inflation of historical significance. It's a bit of bluster to conceal gaps in our knowledge, actually.