Whatever Happened to CANDO?

When Michael announced last summer that we were planning to retire from the (let's face it) moribund "development organization" called CANDO, Councilor Nishioka was the only one who seemed surprised.  I mean, anyone paying attention had to have known it was coming, but of course few were.  If you're a neighborhood association, this is what it means to be moribund.  

The City of course knows that monthly in-person and video-conferenced public meetings that are the raison d'etre of neighborhood associations are an inefficient and unnecessary medium for routine communications, but the neighborhood association structure is not there for communication.  It's there for one reason only:  to give a platform to single family homeowners seeking to thwart unwanted development in their neighborhood.  CANDO, consisting as it mostly does of renters, workers, homeless and businesses (including churches, GOs, NGOs and for-profits), mostly lacks this essential constituency.  Moreover, its businesses have their own quango groups, like the Downtown Advisory Board (DAB), Main Street Salem and the Chamber.  You'd better believe that when City Council wants to hear from central area constituents, that's who they listen to.  We know this because we've attended hundreds of City Council and Budget Committee meetings and because we worked for CANDO for 10+ years.  

Leading any group, and by leading is meant scheduling meetings, planning agendas, running meetings, taking and publishing minutes, executing decisions (writing letters), responding to complaints, filing reports, administering funds, applying for grants, all that takes a certain amount time and effort, depending on your standards.  There's often someone willing to take the chair,  but few volunteer to do the scut work.  That's what we did--the scut work.  We started the CANDO Archive not because we wanted more to do, but because we kept getting the same questions, over and over, about CANDO's homeless residents and why wasn't the City "doing anything about it."  People read what we wrote.  Some disapproved, of course, but there was more interest in CANDO's FB page after we started posting pieces from the Archive, and it attracted >800 followers.  By 2015 it was clear to us that "the issue" for central area residents wasn't preventing unwanted development, but homelessness. 

Today, of all our work, the only thing worth saving is the Archive.  We had planned to continue publishing through FB page, which was repurposed to CANDO Archive last fall after no one wanted to take it over, but--things change.  

 

The repurposed CANDO FB page

"CANDO, Salem Oregon is now CANDO Archive. There are no plans to change the content or administration of the page, but the semi-official connection with City-sponsored development organization has ceased. Like other City-sponsored neighborhood groups, CANDO has long been, to quote Mayor Bennett, moribund.  At CANDO’s Annual Meeting on October 15, two board members retired and two were reelected to the Board. No other individuals were nominated. There were no nominations for office at the regular meeting that followed. Given the absence of duly elected officers willing and able to shoulder the responsibility for routine administration, the regular meeting of the Board is suspended until further notice. Contact Irma Coleman, Neighborhood Program Manager at icoleman@cityofsalem.net with questions or to volunteer."  [31 October 2024 FB post]

 

Neighborhood Program Manager (liaison to the City's 17 neighborhood associations who  enforces rules, doles out funds, etc.) Irma Coleman apparently decided to put CANDO on life support.  In January, she held a meeting at the library where a whopping 19 people showed up (really, 19 is a huge meeting for most NAs).  In subsequent meetings, state Rep. Nancy Nathanson (Dist. 13, Eugene)'s legislative assistant Spencer Rosenau was elected to be the new chair (those polisci majors do need to pad their resumes) and longtime CANDO resident, SKSD teacher and former CANDO chair and board member Rebekah Engle came out of retirement to vice the helm and repossess the FB page for CANDO.  From the absence of minutes of those meetings, it would appear that Irma was unable to snag anyone to fill the labor-intensive position of secretary/treasurer, which should come as no surprise.  If CANDO had any quality of life that was worth sustaining, we would wish them luck, but life support in this case is really just a waste of City resources and citizens' time.  We know.