Question 1: Why are you running for Councilor and what skills can you bring to the position?
I am running for city council because I see the same trends of gentrification that destroyed the neighborhood I grew up in, continue here, in Salem. In terms of skills, I have helped shape city programs in a professional capacity. I have experience both with the municipal setup as well as grant writing from the state and federal level. I also have experience with designing new programs and how to create and lead teams. I have also worked with teams as part of the subcommittee and doing logistics for different organizations.
Question 2: What are some of your proposed solutions towards resolving the housing crisis in Salem?
1) We need to abandon the HUD area formulation for what constitutes affordable and use a different grouping. At least as far as using it define what is affordable in reality versus just affordable on paper.
2) Subsequent developments must be at least 50% (ideally 100%) affordable housing.
3) We must redevelop and modernize the current low-income public housing. The youngest units are presently 31 years old. We have not added any new public housing since 1990. Most of these units are not ADA accessible because they predate the ADA.
Question 3: How do you see Salem impacted by the climate crisis and what new initiatives would you take to lead Salem's resiliency efforts?
As a coastal city we will be heavily impacted. We will have to take serious actions in terms of long-term seawalls as well as dredging to mitigate increases in the average tidal swing. Additionally, we should be concentrating on efforts to increase both solar and wind power. I am very much in favor of collaborating with our neighboring communities to install wind turbines in the harbor. But these efforts can only go so far, building better sea walls won’t fix the underlying problem. That requires things like increased environmental changes.
Question 4: Please outline some ideas you have that can enhance civic engagement at the city level.
The first thing we can do is making sure that online things such as the Zoom city council meetings continue. This allows people with transportation or mobility issues to participate in ways they otherwise could not. It also allows people to review on demand the meetings which can help stop the spread of misinformation.
Increasing transportation options for city residents. In Salem, at present, we have a great deal of East-West access with buses and trolleys, but North Salem has almost nothing in terms of public transportation options. Parking and infrastructure are necessarily going to have to be developed with them.
Question 5: How do you think Salem should continue working on issues of race equity, now that the City's first Race Equity Task Force has submitted its report?
The Subcommittee on Culture put forward the most immediate and easily actionable proposals, The Salem 400, the continued support for the Salem Black Picnic, a diversity officer at City Hall, etc. Those are not only positives for the Salem community as a whole, but are things which can be done in the short term to do something now. Other proposals are long-term proposals and involve ingrained culture these aren’t less important, but they require longer turnaround time.
The economic Subcommittee found that even though the Latinx community represented the single largest BIPOC group in Salem they have an incredibly smaller median income. This says that we are not giving enough attention to this portion of the community. The subcommittee does site several hypothetical reasons some of which can be addressed in the short term, such as community outreach through city hall.
This subject isn’t a one and done. The City should continue the task force and its subcommittees and so that people don’t become comfortable with the idea that the problem has been solved. This is never going to be finished in terms of how we as people deal with the quest to make sure everyone gets a fair shake in terms of living in our community and if we don’t start to work towards it just like with housing, we can’t make progress.
For more information on Frederic Norton, visit: https://www.facebook.com/Fnorton.candidate