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What’s making news in Salem you might have missed

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Good morning…

From belly dancers to street musicians, we tipped you in recent days to some interesting entertainment choices around Salem.

Western University of Health Sciences Lebanon Oregon

We continue to crank up our efforts to help you answer: “What’s there to do?”

You’ll certainly want to put downtown on your calendar for Friday, June 21.

As reporter Joe Siess found, organizers of Make Music Salem have booked 191 bands and performers at 52 venues. Most are downtown with a scattering of other locations around Salem.

And reporter Abbey McDonald had a report that was read as good news by many of you. She told about plans for free Movies in the Park this summer, a program saved from city budget cuts.

Speaking of entertainment, a columnist shares the story of the man who built the Elsinore Theatre. Pressed about cost overruns back in the day, the man replied, “We are trying to build for Salem a theatre that will be worthy of her for at least some time to come.”

On the city government front, our team kept a close eye on key decisions.

Abbey McDonald explored the latest issues around putting a professional baseball team in play at Bush’s Pasture Park. She then tracked how a local city advisory group acted on the plan.

Joe Siess reported on the cost of pay raises awarded to city police officers ­– and a decision to give the Salem Airport a new, grander name. He also detailed how the city plans to use a windfall from a national drug settlement to pay for outreach workers.

Managing Editor Rachel Alexander wrapped up her popular profiles of graduating seniors from local schools. These stories are inspiring for the character of the students – and the choices some made to dig themselves out of trouble.

Readers, for instance, seemed enchanted by the story of Liberty Rodgers, who graduated from Roberts High School with the ambition to be an underwater welder. She had a rough go, and she knows it, to get to that diploma.

“I realized that I want to do things with my life and I don’t want to live how I had been,” she told Salem Reporter.

Isabelle Zaragosa was tested by a youth military camp in central Oregon that set her on a path to graduate from McKay. As our story shared, “Zaragosa said the military regimen was so intense that classes served almost as a break.”

We pulled all these profiles into one place so you can scan them anytime with ease.

On the public safety front, reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian clocked in with developments in two high-profile crimes in Salem. A third teen has been charged with a role in killing a family’s cat, an act caught on video. And a man accused of attacking employees at Highland Elementary School caught a break from a dispute between state and federal judges.

The most important work we delivered in recent days was the series “Bobby’s Choices.”

Ardeshir Tabrizian worked for months on this, resulting in three parts that make for riveting but compassionate reading. We consider this story of how a 16-year-old came to engage in a deadly shooting with Salem police our duty to you and other readers.

You can find all three parts in one place so you can read them anytime. Please do so. This is information every citizen should have. (Tabrizian, by the way, will be on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” radio program on Monday to discuss the series.)

In an Editor’s Note, I take readers behind the scenes of the work that went into this.

Remarks from readers have rolled in. Here’s a sampling:

• “It’s a profoundly sad story, but it’s so important to share for those of us who don’t know much about the forces that came to define his life.   Thank you most sincerely for a difficult job very well done.” 

• “I appreciate that Salem has local and in-depth coverage of issues and stories such as Bobby’s.”

• “Great in-depth article about a tragic and not untypical life.  So, we turn to how to better deal with the emergence of youth gang and crime activity.”

• “Excellent storytelling and GREAT to see Salem Reporter picking up the mantle of investigative reporting in this city.”

We appreciate the trust readers put in us. We’re working hard to give Salem the kind of news coverage so long missing from the community.

As always, thank you for reading and feel free to reach out to me anytime at [email protected] with ideas, questions or concerns.

–Les Zaitz, CEO and editor, Salem Reporter

If you like the work we do, you can help…

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Salem Reporter’s new team includes, from left, Les Zaitz, Rachel Alexander, Abbey McDonald, Ardeshir Tabrizian and Joe Siess. (LAURA TESLER/Special to Salem Reporter)


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