Last week, the Salem City Council voted 6-3 in favor of accepting a $180,000 donation from the Salem Chamber of Commerce and Salem Main Street Association to address concerns about livability and crime. The donation will be used to double the size of the Salem Police Department’s Homeless Services Team from two to four officers. The team responds to unsanctioned homeless encampments and helps connect unsheltered people to wraparound services. In a letter sent to the city council, Salem police chief and the city manager, the business groups said they would consider making another $180,000 donation in six months after “evaluating the effectiveness of this investment.”
The city council had already approved last month spending more than $600,000 to expand the size of the HST and have it operate seven days a week instead of four. The plan also includes adding mental health specialists to respond to certain emergencies and increasing trash pickup to seven days a week. The donated funds will now help offset those costs.
The council’s divided vote to approve that largely anonymous donation comes amid controversy over Salem Mayor Julie Hoy’s decision to join an effort to repeal HB3115. The state law requires local governments to keep regulations on camping on public property “objectively reasonable.”
Salem Statesman Journal city reporter Whitney Woodworth joins us for more details.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Last week, the Salem City Council voted 6 to 3 in favor of accepting a $180,000 donation from the Salem Chamber of Commerce and the Salem Main Street Association. The donation will be used to expand the police department’s homeless services team from two to four officers. The team responds to unsanctioned homeless encampments and helps connect unsheltered people to wraparound services. The vote came after a divided council debated the optics of taking private money for public services.
Statesman Journal city reporter Whitney Woodworth joins us now with more details. Whitney, it’s great to have you back on the show.
Whitney Woodworth: Thanks for having me.
Miller: How did this donation come to be?
Woodworth: So this donation comes after months of meetings and conversations surrounding downtown safety and livability. Following a stabbing that injured 12 people outside Salem’s Union Gospel Mission in June, Mayor Julie Hoy called for action to improve downtown safety. Because the perpetrator and most of the victims in the stabbing were homeless, a lot of conversation is centered around the city’s unsheltered residents. Many downtown business and property owners were outspoken about the impact homelessness was having on their businesses, customers, visitors and employees. They reported harassment, threats, trash, encampments, and an overall perception that downtown was unsafe and unwelcoming.
Business leaders with the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce and Salem Main Street Association first offered money to revive Salem Police’s Downtown Bike Team, which was eliminated last year due to budget and staffing challenges. And after a conversation with city leaders, this evolved into offering $180,000 to fund two police officers for the city’s homeless services team for six months. Actions were already underway to expand the team. Salem City Council voted early in October to use $626,000 to expand the team, increase trash cleanup and create a community health pilot response with the Salem Fire team. And this donation from the business group will offset some of those costs.
Miller: What kinds of arguments were there against the city accepting this money?
Woodworth: So this vote came amid a very contentious council meeting, hours of public comment and council debate preceded the motion to accept the money. Most of the donors have not been publicly identified, something some members of the public took issue with. One resident said it felt like “influence peddling.” Others took issue with the person who was identified as one of the donors, Larry Tokarski, the president of Mountain West Investment. He’s a local philanthropist and a frequent contributor to political campaigns, including Hoy’s. And some thought it would also unfairly target homeless residents and result in more sweeps to appease the donation’s business backers.
Miller: Some officials turned to the Oregon Ethics Commission for input. What were they concerned about and what did the commission say?
Woodworth: So a lot of the members of the public said that Hoy had a conflict of interest because a named donor is Tokarski, who has previously donated to Hoy’s campaign. Hoy previously faced public censure for not recusing herself from a vote involving a company tied to Tokarski. So city leaders sought advice from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission following the calls for Hoy to recuse herself. The commission advised that Hoy’s vote would not constitute a conflict of interest.
One of the counselors also expressed concern over the city not having a written policy on accepting donations and suggested tabling the motion until a written policy could be adopted.
Miller: As I noted in my intro, the ultimate vote was 6 to 3, so a real majority of the council said “yes, we will take this $180,000.” What were the arguments that won the day?
Woodworth: So one of the counselors, counselor Shane Matthews, pointed out that the city previously accepted a donation from the nonprofit Friends of Center 50+ to the city’s senior center that was originally from Mountain West’s Center for Community Excellence. He said their involvement didn’t matter then and it shouldn’t matter now.
And overall, the issue is not about supporting the homeless services team. The team has received across the board support for their trauma-informed approach to cleaning up encampments and parks and rights of way. And ultimately, support for the team won out against concerns expressed by some members of the public and council about the optics.
Miller: How much control will these business groups have over how this money is spent?
Woodworth: So one of the counselors who voted against it, Councilor Linda Nishioka, said she was anxious about the optics of private donations funding police positions, especially with the contingency that the group would only continue donating again in six months if they like the results. Another person was concerned about the discrepancies between the business donors saying it would only fund staff for cleaning up downtown, versus the city’s assurances that the money would be used to fund citywide. City manager Krishna Namburi asserted that the city, not the donors, would guide how the funds are used and that Salem was already on track to expand the team.
Miller: You talked about this briefly, but it’s worth getting a little bit more details about this. How much do Salemites know about the businesses that are behind this, the businesses that have put up their money?
Woodworth: So besides Tokarski, the individual donors have not been publicly identified. The two groups, the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce and the Salem Main Street Association, are known groups in the community. They’re business advocacy groups. The Chamber has been known to speak out against certain initiatives like the city’s proposed payroll tax back in 2023, and it also advocates for some other measures like the livability levy that funded parks and libraries. And Salem Main Street Association focuses a lot on supporting downtown businesses and tourism. They’ve backed things like holiday decorations and reviving downtown’s holiday parade.
Miller: What does the homeless services team actually do? You said that the pushback here against this money has not been because of this team, it’s been because of where the money for the team is coming from. But what is the team going to be doing?
Woodworth: So the program was established in 2022, and they respond to unmanaged camps with a team to clear trash and connect people to services in places like parks and city rights of way, at camps that might be blocking sidewalks or interfering with people using a park. City manager Namburi said the team has a track record of successfully engaging with homeless residents and expanding the team as part of a broader approach to address livability and safety for all residents, including those that are living unsheltered. One counselor said the officers on the team know almost every unsheltered resident in the city by name. And Police Chief Trevor Womack said the purpose of the team is not to make arrests, and in fact they’ve made very few in the past three years of operation.
Miller: You noted that the city had already voted recently to put more than $600,000 extra towards these efforts, and now this is $180,000 of private money. What is actually going to change because of this business group money?
Woodworth: So the group offered the donation to fund two officers from November 24 to April 23, and said they would reconvene to evaluate the effectiveness of the investment and consider funding an additional six months. This, and the funding previously approved by council, will expand the team to seven days a week from four, and it’ll give them a quicker response to unmanaged camps. And the donation will also offset the general fund money that’s being used for these programs. The city has long been struggling with a general fund deficit, so it’ll take some of the burden off the city.
Miller: So the city put some of this money forward using general fund money, and now with dedicated money from the business groups, they can use that general fund money for any other city services that they decide are necessary. So it doesn’t mean that new officers are going to be hired?
Woodworth: Yeah. The police said that the money will be used to fund two positions that are hired from within the department, so they’re already trained police officers, they don’t have to go through the training process. They will be hired from within. Selections are expected to be finalized in the last week of November, with training scheduled throughout December. And both officers are anticipated to be fully functional by January 1.
Miller: How have these business groups said that they’re going to decide whether or not to continue this funding when the six months are up? Six months is not that long.
Woodworth: So the city has established measures for these programs that they approved on October 13, like swifter responses to unmanaged camps, how many people they’re connecting to services, how many 911 calls are being reduced. But it’s unclear what metrics the business groups will be using. In a letter to the city saying that they wanted to give the money, they said they just believe that HST police officers would be thoughtful, engaging, and resourceful as they assist downtown businesses, their customers, and those experiencing crisis. So I guess we’ll see what those metrics are.
Miller: Finally, one of the issues that opponents of this move brought up is that they didn’t like that Salem Mayor Julie Hoy has signed on as one of the chief petitioners to repeal House Bill 3115. So just briefly, what is that law and why do Hoy and others want to repeal it?
Woodworth: The conversation that happened last week took place in the wake of Hoy joining an effort to repeal the Oregon law related to homeless camping limits. The initiative seeks to repeal House Bill 3115, which was passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2021, to align with federal court decisions over homeless camping and sleeping outside in the cities of Grants Pass and Boise, Idaho. The court ruled that enforcing anti-camping bans when no shelter space was available violated the Eighth Amendment, and HB 3115 required cities and counties to keep laws relating to sitting, lying, sleeping, or keeping warm out on the public property “objectively reasonable.”
Hoy said she joined a business group as one of the chief petitioners as a private citizen – not the mayor. Hoy’s support to repeal the bill has been unpopular with service providers and advocates who say that it would work to criminalize homelessness and lead to more destabilizing sweeps. Hoy defended her support for the repeal during the council meeting, saying it was not about sweeps or criminalizing homelessness, but about giving local control back to cities to enforce camping laws. A lot of people who spoke out against accepting the money conflated Hoy’s move with accepting the donation, and one counselor pointed out that the donation was completely separate from the effort to repeal 3115. Some suggested Hoy should recuse herself from any vote involving encampments because of her move to support the repeal.
Miller: Whitney, thanks very much.
Woodworth: Thank you.
Miller: Whitney Woodworth is the city reporter for the Salem Statesman Journal.
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