VOTE 2024: Brown, Hoselton running for northeast Salem council seat

Voters in northeast Salem will be electing a new city councilor to represent an area that includes the Highland, North Lancaster and Northgate neighborhoods. 

Irvin Brown, a state policy adviser and chair of Salem’s city budget committee, and Michael Hoselton, a paralegal and Northgate Neighborhood Association board member, are running for the seat. 

The race is nonpartisan, and the position is an unpaid volunteer job. Councilors serve a four-year term.

The seat is currently held by Councilor Jose Gonzalez, who was elected to city council in May 2020. His term ends on Dec. 31, and he isn’t seeking re-election.

Here are their perspectives on key Salem issues, including the city’s budget shortfall, homelessness and public safety, below.

Background

Brown

Brown took a job at the Oregon Department of Education and moved from Portland to Salem six years ago, and has lived in northeast Salem for five years. In Salem, he’s worked as a legislative director and as apprenticeship jobs coordinator for the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.

One of seven siblings growing up in Louisiana, Brown enlisted in the U.S. Navy at 17 and served as a non-commissioned officer and an aviation warfare specialist. After his service, Brown went to college and in 2018 became the first African American to earn a doctorate from the University of Portland. He studied education.

“When I think about service, or having a spirit of servitude, I really kind of go back to my parents,” Brown said, with his father and several family members serving in the military. “My parents really instilled in all the kids: ‘Hey: get an education, and learn how to work hard and give back.’”

He said that no paycheck comes with being a city councilor, but he said he enjoys such work. Brown said his current job in policy development at the state level has given him a “good GPS system” in compromising. 

“I’m a firm believer that if you’re going to have any form of compromise, you got to have a spirit of collaboration and humility,” he said. 

Brown said he wants to see better community engagement and inclusiveness in the city. Of more than a dozen people who recently testified about the library at the budget committee, he said none were from Ward 5, and few were people of color.

“Ward 5 has a lot of poverty in it. We have a lot of single parents, we have a lot of retired folks,” he said. “I firmly believe, and I heard this from them, that sometimes they feel like the city has kind of forgotten us.”

To get more people involved, he said that he wants to encourage participation in neighborhood associations. He also wants to improve relations with the county, like meeting monthly with county leaders about community violence in unincorporated parts of east Salem.

His other top issues are Salem’s homeless community and public safety, which he said go hand in hand.

“I’m concerned because there’s not enough first responders on the street,” he said.

He’s done several ride-alongs with first responders, and said that calls to address mental health issues impact their workload.

Brown said that he and his opponent believe in the work they’re doing, but have different approaches. Brown has been working toward the council position for several years and making plans for what he can get done.

He said that representation matters, and as councilor he’d make marginalized voices a priority, and also give young people someone to look up to.

“Not only am I coming to the table with the knowledge of being a policy adviser, but I’m coming to the table as someone that is a strong collaborator. I’m coming to the table as someone that is willing to approach a topic in a nonpartisan way. I’m coming to the table as someone who understands how to utilize an equity lens,” he said.

He said by the end of his term, he wants to see Salem out of debt, working in partnership with the Salem-Keizer School District and with more women and people of color working as first responders in the city. He said he wants to see more affordable housing and more support for mental health.

In 2017, the state’s Teacher Standards and Practices Commission investigated a complaint that Brown had, while working as a Bible teacher at Westside Christian High School from 2008-2012, hosted sleepover events with students at his home and attended others at other homes.

Brown said the events were Bible study groups with parental supervision. There was no allegation of child abuse. 

In 2020, Brown stipulated to a state order that found he engaged in gross neglect of duty and fraud or misrepresentation. The commission’s order said Brown in 2018 confirmed he participated in sleepovers during a school district investigation, then a year later told the state commission he hadn’t. 

In a recent interview, he described the investigation as stressful and traumatic.

“As a person of color, having lived through quite a few racialized incidents, I forgot some things, spoke too soon, I spoke out of place,” he said. “I know how it reads.” 

The commission put him on probation for one year.

Brown said the investigation was a difficult time in his life, and he stipulated the order because he felt that his race played a role in the complaints, and he wanted to give more of his perspective.

“I think that there were some people that were really trying to label me as something that I wasn’t,” he said. 

He said the experience improved his ability to advocate for others. He said his state license is in good standing, verified by state records which show an active principal license. Since 2018, he has worked in education policy development.

“Focusing on the past is not a priority. Following the investigation, I did additional training, grew as an educator, and carried those lessons forward,” he said.

Hoselton

Hoselton moved to Salem’s Ward 5 from Mt. Hood Village in 2020 for a job as a paralegal at the Sherman, Sherman, Johnnie and Hoyt law firm downtown. 

Hoselton tells people his work in law started at age five, when he was homeschooled and often in his father’s law office. He worked for his father, a bankruptcy attorney, during high school and started working in civil litigation when he moved to Salem. He currently works as a paralegal at the Oregon Department of Justice.

Hoselton joined the neighborhood association in 2021, after a neighbor knocked on his door to ask for help petitioning for new speed bumps on the street where he lives, Northeast Stortz Avenue. He got involved in the effort, and the city installed the bumps a year and a half later.

He said his other work as a board member included applying for park grants, and collaborating with the Hallman Family Council to put on Fun Fridays at Northgate Park. That event brings families to the park and improves safety by building relations among residents and police.

With the association, he also helped collect signatures to get the repeal of the payroll tax on the November ballot. He said council’s decision to impose the payroll tax compelled him to run for council, but he’d been thinking about it for several years.

“I just don’t think the city’s being run very well. I think it has an image problem. People feel like they don’t listen, that they don’t want to help people and that they’re not very honest,” he said. “To an extent, I think all of those things are true. We need a more proactive council that will be independent of the city manager.”

Hoselton said the top issues Ward 5 faces are the cost-of-living crisis, homelessness and crime.

“In 2021, there were three shootings within three blocks in three months,” he said.

He said he recently met a shooting victim while canvassing who has permanent nerve damage.

Hoselton said that his paralegal experience trained him to process large amounts of information quickly and to come up with strategies to accomplish goals. He said that he will bring a long-term planning approach to budget planning, which he said he hasn’t seen from his opponent.

Hoselton said that he’s the best fit to represent Ward 5 because he’s “just a regular guy” and government worker who’s involved in the community and spends a lot of time working with retirees in the neighborhood association.

He said that during his term he wants to balance Salem’s budget and stabilize its revenue. By the end of it, he also hopes to see a safer community with fewer shootings.

Getting the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz’s planned casino built is one of the central goals of Hoselton’s campaign. The Siletz tribe has planned for years to build a 20-acre casino in northeast Salem just off Interstate 5.

Gonzalez, the incumbent councilor, opposed the project, saying it would be “prime time real estate” for trafficking, and last April Gov. Tina Kotek said she does not support the expansion. The project remains under review by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

“It’s a good project for north Salem,” Hoselton said, which he said has not seen extensive infrastructure and business investment. The casino would be a $150 million investment to replace a “decaying parking lot, while generating thousands of jobs and tourism revenue.

He said that he understands why people don’t like casinos, and personally doesn’t like them. But he believes that the project would benefit northeast Salem, noting that the tribe has addressed concerns about infrastructure and community impact.

Budget

Brown

Brown, who chairs the city Budget Committee, said that he will listen to the options from the revenue task force. The task force will meet through June to explore new ways to bring money into the city, including with a community survey.

“There may not be anything new that the budget committee, we haven’t talked about before. But I think there’s value in listening to this committee because it’s comprised of people,” he said. 

Brown voted for the payroll tax as vice chair of the budget committee, and helped lead the “Save Salem Campaign” to promote it ahead of the November special election along with Councilor Virginia Stapleton and Ward 1 candidate Paul Tigan. The payroll tax, which would have taxed wages earned in the city above minimum wage to fund city services, overwhelmingly failed at the ballot box.

“When I think about the decisions we made last year to save Salem, I don’t apologize for those because unfortunately today we are now having to do those things that we didn’t want to do as a city,” he said.

He said that he considers the payroll tax move a success because of the conversations it generated. He said he would support bringing a new tax, especially one that funded public safety, to the voters if the task force so recommended.

“If I had to pay more to make sure that someone shows up at your house to take care of your spouse, your mom, your dad, your child, I will gladly pay it. Because I’m okay with paying for that because safety is priority,” he said.

When it comes to cutting city spending, he said he believes the library is essential, and doesn’t want to pit it against public safety. He supported the option to keep the library at its current staffing levels for another year, and said he wants to pursue federal grants for sustained funding.

The proposed library staff cuts would have mostly impacted recently-hired Spanish speakers, which Brown said didn’t feel right. He said that he wants to apply an equity lens to city processes, which would take such factors into account.

“If you’re going to cut one department, and that department is comprised of mostly people of color, that’s a problem,” he said. “If most of our Spanish speakers are working in the library and we cut their hours? Can you imagine how that is going to impact their families? … Historically it’s going to be brown and Black families that are hit the worst when it comes to taxes or loss of jobs.”

He said he also wants to see the state contribute to city revenue to make up for its exemption from property taxes. He would press Gov. Tina Kotek for help now.

“Governor, can we sit down at the table to talk about how you can pay for your property and land? Can you cut us a check?” he said. 

Hoselton

Hoselton said that Salem needs to reorganize its budget, and that too much city money is set aside in savings or reserves.

“We’ve spent 25 years refusing to acknowledge the reality of Measures 5 and 50 and hoping that we would just figure out ways to make more money,” he said. “We do make 50% more than we did 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation, but it’s tied up in all these different funds.” 

The city aims to save 15% of the general fund budget for emergencies and unexpected costs.

Hoselton wants to cut daily operating costs and determine where redundant work is happening.

In his Voter’s Pamphlet statement, Hoselton asserted that the city’s total revenue is more than its total costs. In an interview, he said that potential general fund revenue is locked away for special purposes, such as urban renewal.

Hoselton said that he wants to move more city programs into the general fund, giving councilors more places to consider spending cuts. He would do so with the emergency services fund, which pays for ambulances, and he wants to see some of the projected profit from the city’s incoming takeover from Falck Ambulance go toward the general fund rather than staying in emergency services.

He said the city could gain new revenue from the proposed gambling casino. He also wants to press the state to chip in, building the case to do so by detailing expenses the city incurs caring for state property.

Hoselton said police and fire would be his priority for the next budget.

“I want to keep the library open as much as possible, but if the budget committee chair puts a gun to my head and tells me I need to shoot a policeman, a firefighter or librarian, then I would rather shoot (the chair), but the library is unfortunately the one that gets cut,” he said.

Homelessness and housing

Brown

Brown said he wants to see more collaboration between city and county leaders over homelessness.

He supports a 24-hour mobile crisis response team in Salem, which would pair mental health workers with addiction recovery mentors to respond to some crisis calls instead of police. The county launched a similar program earlier this year, but it has seen few calls due to a slow rollout and lack of awareness, organizers said.

“I think that we can do more of that, where you don’t have to overtax or overburden our first responders,” he said.

He said that he wants new teams to be licensed with training in cultural competence.

Brown said he also wants more affordable housing in Salem, and he also would urge the city to partner more with county officials to develop more mental health facilities.

Hoselton

Hoselton said that the city doesn’t have the money to continue dealing  homelessness. He would cut such funding as his first choice to balance the budget because it was a recent addition.

“There are other agencies at the county, state and federal level who can help with that,” he said. “And if we can make relationships with them and get them to do the heavy lifting for us, I say that’s great. They’re better equipped in a lot of ways not just because they have the programs and the money, but they have the institutional experience.”

Hoselton said that Salem’s approach hasn’t been effective, using “a lot of money to help not all that many people.”

“This year they’ve gotten 40 people so far into permanent housing, and a lot of that is into Sequoia Crossings, which is subsidized housing. What we really need is for them to get back into normal society. And I know that’s not easy,” he said.

He supports expanding the urban growth boundary and increasing the supply of single-family homes to stabilize prices. 

Public Safety

Brown 

Brown said he wants to collaborate with Gov. Tina Kotekand county officials to address mental health and substance abuse issues in the community. 

“The work of Chief [Trevor] Womack with the Community Violence Reduction Initiative remains at the top of the agenda. And as local officials and first responders work diligently in taking weapons off our streets, I will support their efforts,” he said. 

Brown said dozens of weapons are taken off the streets every year in Salem, and he wants to support stronger background checks and red flag laws that make it harder to buy guns.

He said that as a veteran, he supports the right to have guns. He said one solution to gun violence would be to expand  gun buy-backs, which pay people to turn in their guns to police.

“A month ago, when that young man was shot in South Salem, more of that’s going to happen because we’ve got to figure out: how did that young man get access to a weapon? If we can answer that question, that would be a first start,” he said.

He said that he’d approach the issue as a councilor by bringing in support from state legislators.

He said that the city’s gun violence initiative is on the right track.

Hoselton

Hoselton said Salem doesn’t have enough police officers and firefighters, which has lengthened response times and has stopped responses to things like noise complaints.

He said that police officers and firefighters are working too much overtime, and that adding positions to the police staff would save money while improving retention.

The Salem City Council cut four vacant police positions in February. At the time the department had 15 vacancies, down from 26 a year prior.

“Womack testified in February, before the Council cut the unfilled officer positions, that SPD had been hiring at (the) fastest pace in recent memory and he expected to fill all the vacant positions by the end of the year. Whatever the Chief is doing appears to be working and, in an ideal world, we would get him to fill a lot more positions,” Hoselton said. 

Hoselton said he supports the gun violence efforts but wants the police agency to be more proactive. An example he gave was wanting the city to adopt a nighttime curfew for teens to reduce the number of shootings. He noted Marion County has one but it appears not to be enforced.

Campaign finance and endorsements

Brown

Brown has raised $15,923 as of April 28, according to campaign finance records. His biggest contributors are Nadine Lecheminant ($3,000), Mitchell Canham ($2,500) and Frank Taussig ($2,000).

According to his voters pamphlet, his endorsements include  former state Sen. Peter Courtney, state Sen. Deb Patterson, Marion County Sheriff Nick Hunter, Mayor Chris Hoy and Councilors Virginia Stapleton, Linda Nishioka, Trevor Phillips and Micki Varney. He was also endorsed by Bishop Wade Harris and Ashley Carson Cottingham, a member of the Salem-Keizer School District board.

Brown has also been endorsed by the Salem Police Employees Union, the Marion-Polk Yamhill Central Labor Chapter, AFSCME Local 2067, which represents City of Salem employees including librarians, and the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.

Hoselton

Hoselton has raised $5,158 as of April 28, according to campaign finance records. His biggest contributors are Margaret Hoselton, his mother, ($2,000) and the Mid Valley Association of REALTORS ($1,000.) 

Marion + Polk First, a conservative political action committee, contributed $500 in in-kind spending.

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251

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