Good morning……

Allow me to help you catch up with Salem news you might have missed.

Consider it Plan B for the city.

Salem city councilors last week kicked around ideas for what to do if the city’s proposed tax on earners is defeated.

As reporter Abbey McDonald recounts, councilors want to avoid “extreme” cuts to city services. That’s been raised as likely with millions in new tax dollars. Councilors looked at furloughs and closing the library for a day. They also dusted off the idea of a committee taking a look again at other ways to raise more money.

Plan A, of course, is for voters to approve the new tax on Salem workers. Only registered voters inside city limits get to vote. That rankles some since the tax would hit workers who earn their paycheck inside the city limits but live elsewhere. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 7.

You can catch all the reporting about this on our website, where the stories have been collected into one place.

 Speaking of City Hall, city officials report that they have 1,780 pending requests for sidewalk repairs. The city has a plan now to tackle that backlog. Salem, by the way, has 815 miles of sidewalks – enough to line both sides of Interstate 5 from border to border in Oregon and still have some left.

And sheltering those without a home is proving a bigger challenge in Salem. Funding isn’t available as in the past, prompting groups to turn to volunteers to operate shelters. That effort is getting a test this weekend as the temperature dropped to 29 in Salem Friday night and was again just below freezing early Sunday.

Volunteers did step up recently in the Gaiety Hill area of Salem, getting acquainted as they cleaned up garbage along Pringle Creek. This isn’t major headline news but it’s this sort of “we can do this” approach by Salemites that makes the community better.

Meantime, developers shared details for a new housing complex that could one day be home to 500 people. As reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian explains, the northeast Salem project won’t be online for some time but it’s another move to fill the housing shortage in town.

Columnist Pamela Ferrara, a research associate with Willamette Workforce Partnership, provides an insightful column looking at the growth in population and the growth in local government. Guess which is growing faster. She has plenty of numbers and charts to explain.

And Willamette University continues to entertain the community with theatrical and music programs. Three generations of Willamette alumni are involved in the latest production, a one-act show called “In the Deep.” Managing Editor Rachel Alexander tells about the show, with performances through mid-November.

Well, that’s your quick sampler of what was making news in Salem last week. You can see all the work of the team – plus additional reports on state issues – on our website at any time.

And I invite you to send along story ideas and tips on matters you’d like to see reported. (And for sensitive information, we can treat you confidentially.) Email our managing editor at [email protected].

Oh, and that cold weather? The National Weather Service is expecting us to get out of the freezing temps after Sunday night. More moderate – and wet – weather is ahead for your week.

­–Les Zaitz, editor, Salem Reporter

PS: We want to grow and add another reporter or two to do even more of this kind of work, but that all depends on getting more subscribers. Please join our team or, If you have the interest and chance, please invite those you know to subscribe. We invest it all back into the operation.