Food Task Force Recs Hit Wall

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

City Manager Steve Powers has declared that the Food Task Force recommendations will not go to City Council at its April 8 meeting on the grounds that the recommendations to amend the Salem Revised Code "could result in changes to the community's expectations for its parks."  (His email at left.)

That's a good reason to delay implementing law and rule changes, but not a good reason to delay presentation of the recommendations.  It's not now known when or how the recommendations will be presented to Council. 

We asked Powers when he might be "sharing the recommendations with the...Council" and whether it would be a public process, and were told: "The task force recommendations are public and will be available to anyone at the task force webpage.  There will be a report from me at a future council meeting regarding next steps for the task force recommendations."  When we asked for clarification, pointing out that only the draft recommendations are available on the webpage, he replied, "The final report with the task force’s changes will be posted to the web page. I’m not sure why there has been a delay.  The recommendations will be shared at a future council meeting." 

It's been about three months since the City announced it would take 30 days to re-evaluate the City's meal distributions permit process.  See "Meals Under Bridge on Shutdown" and "Refusal to Admit Error Delays Meal Permits."  In March, Mark Becktel told the Food Task Force that Council would receive a staff report on its recommendations at its March 25 meeting.  He later said the report would go to Council at its April 8 meeting.  He declined to allow the Food Task Force to review the final draft recommendations, as they were still under review by the City Manager.

Funny what happens to City task force recommendations as they go through the layers of City staff, on their way to Council.  But that's another blogpost.

Although the City refuses to admit it, the Salem Revised Code does not currently require a permit to distribute food in City Parks and rights-of-way except under certain circumstances that don't apply to the vast majority of Salem's meal distributions to the homeless.  See "Refusal to Admit Error Delays Meal Permits."

The Task Force recommended revising the code and rules, assuming the City wanted to require a permit for meal distributions.  The Task Force was not asked to recommend requiring a permit, as staff (incorrectly) maintained throughout the proceedings that a permit was required, even though they weren't able to cite to the code provision that did so.  See "Under Bridge Off the Table (Final)."  (State laws and rules already require permits and licenses for food distributions.)

Given that the Salem Revised Code already allows the typical meal distribution to the homeless (serving under 200 people with no facility reservation), it's hard to see how imposing the requirement of a City permit is going to "result in changes to the community's expectations for its parks."  Perhaps Powers contemplates that, under the new regs, vast numbers of citizens will decide to gather for meals in their neighborhood parks and make a nuisance of themselves?  This seem highly unlikely.  Rather, the new requirement of a City permit will affect primarily the meal providers, which is why they were represented on the Food Task Force.  Whatever concerns the City Manager has, they don't justify secrecy or further delay in putting the Task Force recommendations to the City Council.