For Pence Construction, a Salem commercial contractor, this year marked the first time a construction project hinged on dimmer switches. All other supplies are in, but Brent Pence, owner and senior project manager, said they can’t have dimmable light switches in hand until August. “My whole project ties into this[Read More…]
Ardeshir Tabrizian
Big jumps in food prices hit Salem restaurants, institutions
Annette’s Westgate Cafe goes through about 330 pounds of bacon a week. It’s a staple for the Salem restaurant on Northwest Edgewater Street, which has been serving hearty meals for 15 years. Owner Brian Kato Dilks said many of the proteins served at Annette’s are bought on six-month or year-long[Read More…]
Middle schoolers create art for micro shelter residents in months-long project
John Marshall, a pastor at Salem’s Church at the Park, said local middle school students have had a conversation over the past four months that he never heard in 12 years of Salem-Keizer public education. He said Howard Street Charter School has encouraged students to think critically about what it[Read More…]
Marion County spending $14.3 million to construct new Health and Human Services building
Marion County officials are spending $14.3 million to build a new Health and Human Services building next to the existing location on Northeast Center Street. County officials say it’s a one-time investment that could help save hundreds of thousands in annual costs for space currently leased across several different locations.[Read More…]
Contracted state hospital worker punches patient following racist slurs, hospital reports say
The Oregon State Hospital on May 28, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) A contracted worker at Oregon State Hospital last month punched a patient who moments before had hurled racist slurs at the staffer. Erik Banks, the contracted mental health technician, was “removed from our facility and instructed not to return,”[Read More…]
Salem area gets federal housing funds for homeless, domestic violence victims
Jayne Downing, executive director of the Center for Hope and Safety, stands in the building’s office in 2019. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Marion and Polk counties are getting around $1.3 million in federal money to help get people who are homeless or victims of domestic violence into stable housing. In addition[Read More…]
Salem City Council approves new subdivision proposal on historic Meyer Farm
The Salem City Council on Monday narrowly approved a scaled-back plan by a developer to build over 100 single family lots on the historic Meyer Farm property in south Salem. The council voted 4-3 in favor of the city planning administrator’s approval of the proposal. Plans for the property have[Read More…]
Man who died after confrontation with Salem police was homeless, had lifelong mental illness, family says
Rachel Coble saw her brother two weeks before he died in a confrontation with Salem police officers. After living in his car at Northgate Park for a year – and decades of struggling with addiction – Richard Meyers looked well. Meyers told Coble he’d been seeing a woman who he[Read More…]
State hospital embroiled in contempt proceedings for not admitting mentally ill people court-ordered to get treatment
Attorneys have brought nearly a dozen contempt of court proceedings against Oregon State Hospital in the last three years, arguing hospital officials didn’t admit people with mental illnesses to get treatment ordered by judges. In four instances, judges found the hospital and Oregon Health Authority, its parent agency, in contempt[Read More…]
Salem’s wait list for housing vouchers dwindles, but years-long pause on new applications still stands
More than three years after Salem stopped taking waiting list applications for public assistance to get into housing, residents will still have to wait up to four years for an affordable place to live. As of Oct. 28, 7,578 people from 3,207 households are on the Salem Housing Authority’s waiting[Read More…]
