Voters to pick from 3 to fill city council vacancy 

Three candidates are asking voters in Salem’s Ward 6 for a chance to represent them on the Salem City Council in the election on May 20. 

The council seat, vacated by Mayor Julie Hoy earlier this year, covers the northeastern section of town including parts of the North Lancaster Neighborhood Association, the North East Salem Community Association, and the East Lancaster Neighborhood Association. 

The three candidates vying for the seat include an operations and policy analyst with the Oregon Department of Transportation, Deanna Garcia, a correctional officer with the Oregon Department of Corrections, Logan Lor, and a Salem family law attorney with Johnson & Taylor Law, Mai Vang. 

Vang, a graduate of the Willamette University School of Law who grew up in Montana, interned for City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke and was a policy analyst at the Oregon Legislature. She is supported by the Marion County Democrats and Progressive Salem. 

She moved to Ward 6 in 2022 and currently serves as the vice chair and transportation chair of the North East Salem Community Association. Vang said her priorities include housing and affordability, safety and livability, and economic development. 

Garcia has served as chair of the North Lancaster Neighborhood Association for six years. Garcia said her priorities are public safety, mitigating homelessness, and dealing with the city’s budget crisis. Garcia is endorsed by Hoy, former Salem City Councilor Jose Gonzalez and County Commissioner Danielle Bethell. 

The bulk of Garcia’s financial backing comes from a statewide political action committee representing Realtors and she is also supported by the conservative Marion + Polk First group. 

Lor has no official support from political groups and as of May 2 listed no campaign finance contributions. 

Lor last ran for public office in 2014 against former Salem City Councilor Daniel Benjamin and decided to give local office another try after Hoy’s seat became vacant. 

His priorities include public safety, increasing affordable housing, and mitigating certain social and economic issues in his ward.

Logan Lor

Lor, who is Hmong and from Laos, has lived in Salem for nearly 40 years and came to the United States with his parents as refugees from the Vietnam War in 1986.  

He has served as a board member for the Faith Christian Fellowship Church for 15 years, and also serves on the board of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon . He was once the president of the Lo-Pha Society, a Hmong community organization.

Lor said he prides himself as being the more independent of the three candidates. He recently appeared at a Salem Area Chamber of Commerce candidate forum where he was able to speak directly to voters. 

“There is a difference between me and the other two candidates and it is that I am not endorsed by the major political parties. I haven’t been taking any money from special interests groups,” Lor said. “That means I am not obligated to political agendas or donors. I am here to serve you, the city of Salem. I am running because for too long, northeast Salem, the most diverse part of Salem, has been underserved and overlooked. There is a clear social economic divide in our city and it is time to fix it. Every neighborhood deserves equal investments and opportunity.”

In an interview, Lor said certain socio-economic issues in northeast Salem stem from the high concentration of low-income housing in the area. He said that along with rising crime rates, poor quality schools help create a cycle of poverty for some residents. 

“The people need a way to be able to break the cycle. People can’t break the cycle if you always keep the poor in a poor area. And that is why I decided to break the cycle,” Lor said.

He noted his children were sent to Sprague High School in southwest Salem.

Lor said transparency and being a good steward of public funds are also priorities but public safety is tops. 

“I will always make sure police, fire, and ambulance have their full funding. Because that is the heart of the city. If you take out any of them, you are jeopardizing the safety and security of the citizens in this city,” Lor said. 

Lor supports the property tax increase on the May 20 ballot to help pay for the library, parks, and Center 50+. However, he said the measure only delays cuts unless new revenue is found. He said the payroll tax, voted down by voters, would have been a smarter way to shore up revenue. 

“The payroll tax was a good idea. The way the city council came about it was wrong,” Lor said. “A large portion of the people that work in Salem don’t live in Salem.”

Lor said he values the library, parks, and Center 50+ and said those services increase livability for citizens. He is also sensitive to people’s economic struggles and wariness to take on more of a tax burden. 

“With the way the economy is going, the options are pretty slim. Because people need to put food on the table. People are worried about their everyday lives. The expenses that they have to pay every day. That is one of the reasons why I feel like the levy might not pass,” Lor said.  

Lor said he values transparency and public trust especially given recent events at the city like the abrupt resignation of former Salem City Manager Keith Stahley.  

“If you violate that, you are not going to have the support of the community,” Lor said. 

Mai Vang

Vang, a first-generation Hmong-American, grew up in Montana and was raised by her parents who came to the United States as refugees. That experience made her deeply rooted to her community and motivates her to give back through public service. 

She said she learned how government functions during her time as a policy analyst at the Oregon Legislature and interning at City Hall. She said her involvement with her neighborhood association also motivated her to seek public office. 

Her top priority, she said, is making housing more affordable. She is a renter.

“I think sometimes when we talk about affordable housing, the issue or the conversation about affordable rent doesn’t necessarily come up,” she said. “I think bringing that perspective to city council is important,” Vang said.

Vang said the city is moving in the right direction to increase affordable housing. More could be done to streamline the city’s permitting process and to accommodate developers to fast track more units, she said.

“I think the first step that I as a city councilor would do is to step into those conversations and continue those conversations,” Vang said.

She said a variety of issues including financial struggles, mental health, and addiction, all combine to lead to homelessness. She said the issue is complex and will take collaboration to find solutions.

“Those are all really multifaceted issues that require more than just the city and the city council to be able to address and I think that is why being able to come to the table and listen to solutions and work with different groups of people is really important,” Vang said. “One person isn’t going to fix the problem, it’s going to take a community.”

Public safety is also a top issue for Vang, and she said when people call 911 they expect a response. She said one possible solution to budgetary constraints on public safety resources could include more collaboration with neighboring jurisdictions like Marion County and Keizer.

Vang said she supports the city’s proposed tax levy. 

“I believe that the library, Center 50+, and parks provide crucial public safety and a third place to allow Salemites a place to just exist,” Vang said.

Vang said the levy is a short-term solution to a bigger systemic problem that is outside of Salem’s control. She said as the vice chair of the North East Salem Community Association she has found herself regularly explaining the city’s nearly $14 million budget deficit to residents. She said one of her goals as a councilor would be transparency. 

“The core of it at city council is to help relay some of that information and dispel any notion that it is a mismanagement of money or that the city is not really doing what it needs to be doing,” Vang said. “Even at my neighborhood association there were still some questions up until the end of February that were like, ‘Why are we in a budget deficit? Isn’t it just a mismanagement of funds?’”

Vang has been endorsed by U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, state Sen. Deb Patterson and Khanh Pham, state Rep. Tom Andersen and Lesly Muñoz, and Salem City Councilors Linda Nishioka and Micki Varney. 

Vang said the people and groups who support her also share the same values and she stands behind those values.

“Even though these are my values, I am not here to make somebody feel bad about how they see the world. In fact I want to invite them to the table and have a conversation so that we can discuss if there is any middle ground,” Vang said. “I think that a lot of people who live in Salem, love Salem and want to make it a great place to live…and we can figure out how to get there by talking to each other.” 

Deanna Garcia 

Garcia said she understands Ward 6 from being a long-time resident involved in her community. 

Garcia said she is ready to take on the persistent challenges facing the city such as homelessness and the deficit. “To be honest, the budget constraints are definitely not a draw for somebody wanting to dip their toe into being an elected official on council, but I’m up for a challenge,” Garcia said. 

Garcia said her primary concern is public safety. That is about more than adding police officers on the streets, she said. 

“When you say public safety, it doesn’t just mean law enforcement. It means the fire department. It means first responders. Emergency response. Ambulance. And it also includes the dispatch center,” Garcia said.

She said homelessness is a critical issue for the northeast area of town. If elected, she would seek to join the Mid-Valley Homelessness Alliance to advocate for more resources for her ward. 

“We are not getting our fair share of the services that are needed. Yes, I see that there is an issue downtown with homelessness. But we have it here too,” Garcia said. 

She said she believes homelessness results from a combination of factors including economic, mental health, and substance abuse. She said collaboration with Marion County to ensure programs exist to mitigate homelessness would be one of her approaches. 

Garcia leads the race in campaign funding, drawing most of her money from the Oregon Realtors Political Action Committee. Garcia said her financial backers will not influence her service on the city council. 

“I’m coming in as nonpartisan. I know that a lot of people try to paint individuals into a certain party light,” she said. “I’ve even been showcased in social media and different media coverage as the pro-business or conservative candidate. That is not who I am.” 

She said as a single mother with a public employee salary she couldn’t run without the financial support she has received. 

“I am not pro-business, I am not pro-Realtor, pro-developer. I am pro northeast Salem,” Garcia said. “I have people supporting me that are actual leaders that have performed in northeast Salem or who are from northeast Salem that are backing me.” 

Garcia is supported by Mayor Julie Hoy, County Commissioner Danielle Bethell and former Salem City Councilor Jose Gonzalez. 

“I understand the struggles that Northeast Salem faces and I want to be a catalyst for change in Ward 6,” she said at the Salem chamber forum. “Northeast Salem needs a counselor who has a proven track record of making things happen. That’s me.” 

Garcia is also endorsed by the Salem Professional Firefighters Union, the Salem Police Employees Union, the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, the Mid Valley Association of Realtors, and the Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties. 

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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