The Mayor chairs the City Council. City Councils are the policy-making body for a city. They supervise city departments, set policy, and develop budgets. Candidates must be qualified electors under the state constitution and must have resided in the city for at least 1 year before the General Election. This election is for a 2-year term. The Mayor is elected citywide, but the City Councilors are elected by ward (district). The position is nonpartisan.The League of Women Voters conducted interviews with both candidates. The recordings may be found here:Christopher Hoy: youtube.com/watch?v=r0wNA3laDcgJulie Hoy: youtube.com/watch?v=-BMQWZlwpeM
Town Where You Live
Salem, Oregon
Your Experience/Qualifications
Occupation: Mayor, City of Salem Occupational Background: 30-year law enforcement career in the Sheriff’s Offices in Clackamas, Marion, and Lincoln counties Educational Background: BA Political Science, Willamette University Governmental Experience: State Representative, House District 21; Salem City Councilor for Ward 6; Salem City Council President; Vice-Chair, Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance; Chair, Salem Housing Authority; Member, Marion County Local Public Safety Coordinat
County
Marion
Term
2 years
The tax system in Oregon is broken. Measures 5 & 50 have systematically defunded local government. The gas tax is no longer working to provide adequate funding to repair our aging infrastructure.
Oregon's tax system needs an overhaul or local governments will no longer be able to provide vital services.
Locally, I look forward to the recommendations from the revenue task force for ideas the community can support local, vital services in the short term.
Revenue: See above.
Sheltering: We need to continue build more housing at all levels. We need more affordable housing and permanent supportive housing.
We are using all the tools we have as a city to incentivize affordable housing. We need to continue to do so and to continue to remove barriers for the building of more housing.
Town Where You Live
Salem
Your Experience/Qualifications
Small business owner, Salem City Councilor
County
Marion/Polk
Unfortunately, the city leadership has yet to adequately determine what the actual shortfall is. In less than 24 months we have gone from a $9M shortfall, to nearly $30M, but there has been no clarity from the City Manager or the Mayor on what is actually feeding that shortfall. The people of Salem were very clear last fall that they did not want a payroll tax. It is up to the city to clearly lay out what the shortfall is, as well as ways they have looked to reduce costs internally, before asking the voters for more.
Public Safety. Homelessness. Trust.
Public Safety. If people don’t feel safe, it’s hard to live a thriving life. We must fund public safety system first, so from that foundation we can move on to address the other issues facing our community. Through a series of events, it seems like the city has come to believe it has an inflated role in solving homelessness, and because of that, resources are stretched too thin and we are not seeing results. The City must work with the Counties to solve this. As your next Mayor, I will show up, listen, get the right people in the room to find the solutions that we desperately need. People need to feel empowered again – empowered to feel like their city government is working hard for them, day in, day out.
The housing crisis stems from state and national causes. Salem also has a part to play. We have not done a great job of prioritizing housing. We need to look at processes and code that has valued other things over getting people into housing that they can afford. We must be creative, from when we charge SDC fees to how we look at protecting trees - we have a homelessness crisis, people suffering, we must take action and do what we can to get out of the way and reduce the cost and time that it takes to build housing units in the city of Salem. The city currently has a reputation for being difficult. We must change the culture and attract quality investment and development in our city.
