00:06 hello folks and thank you for tuning in or for tuning in again and this is episode number 276 and it is organ matters what's going on with the old Newport Grill more dysfunctional City Planning that's what before I go any further I just wanted to send out a sincere appreciation to Kathy and Ryan from Sisters Oregon who sent me a very generous um gift and that is um extremely appreciated and that will enable me to well I don't know uh get get something new I'm needing here since most of my stuff is really

01:14 very dilapidated so again Kathy and Ryan I sincerely thank you and um may all go well with you what we're going to be talking about is City Planning or rather a lack thereof you see one of the most important things for any city is how it's laid out when a city is laid out properly it is not only efficient but aesthetically pleasing as well and that in turn not only makes that City much more pleasing to its residents but much more economically vibrant and functional because simply put people like being in

02:04 those kinds of places not places that resemble an orwellian nightmare unfortunately this is a concept which apparently is lost on Salem city planners I or any other resident of our fine City for that matter shouldn't have to tell these people how to do their jobs but if they don't know how to do their job I believe we should uh do what uh any other employer would do in this situation fire their asses and get some people in there that know what the hell they're doing if you want a good example of what

02:50 I'm talking about all you have to do is take a good look at one of our main strips Lancaster Drive if you look closely at everything on the left or the right side from say Ricky Street all the way out to Sunny View Road there is such a hodgepodge of businesses that it makes you wonder if the people giving out the business permits were very drunk really didn't give a damn or possibly both now if I was going to talk about a certain kind of business that is really ugly and should not be on any City's

03:35 main strip it would be car dealers now just to be clear in this particular case we are not talking about you know the massive uh big guys like a big old Lexus or a Mercedes-Benz dealership we're talking about small independent used car dealers some of which have been here for many years and if you live here you know exactly what I'm talking about I'm of the opinion and market research actually backs up what I'm saying that regardless of the type of car dealer we're talking about be a shiny new gigantic glass box that takes

04:24 up more than half a city block or these old relatively small used auto Lots they are ugly and should be grouped together someplace else but not the main drags of your city and if we had much more thoughtful and effective zoning ordinances this would not be an issue but apparently the city doesn't or whatever is on the books is very old and has not been reworked in decades but for whatever reason and it is what it is and I don't see it changing anytime soon that is of course unless you are listening to this and enough of you

05:15 decide what I'm saying makes sense you get together and Hound the hell out of whoever it is that's supposed to be responsible for this as they say the squeaky wheel gets GRE pun intended but all the car dealerships on the city's main drag are only part of the problem the problem is systemic it is multifaceted and it is when that is the case when a bunch of smaller problems come together and produce much bigger ones so with that in mind let's talk about the restaurant situation when it comes to places to eat I put

06:04 them in two very broad distinct categories actual small restaurants and diners that are locally owned and operated and fast food or what has become more uly or uh Ubi rather known as fast casual which is a marketing ploy to try to sound less corporate and less destructive to locally owned and operated mom and pop type places to eat Whit's restaurant downtown on Commercial would be a good example of that and on a personal note the very best place for breakfast or lunch that I ever ate in Salem was Word of Mouth it

06:53 was a few bucks more but had a really cool and authentic environment with fantastic food and huge portions of it I heard some time ago that for some reason it had closed but that couldn't have been for a lack of business because every time I went there was a very long line to get in I don't know what's going on with them now maybe you could be kind enough to let me know but what I do know was that after you ate there a few times the food from Denny's or Sherry's pies you wouldn't even want to feed to your

07:35 dog and this is a perfect example of how corporations disrupt and Destroy local businesses but that's another subject for another time what I will briefly touch on was a vacuous Captain donzel piece from the fui section of the Statesman Journal about a week ago what's going on with the old Newport Grill if you don't know or recognize the captain dunsel reference you'll simply simply have to ask me unlike that non-story informational let me just tie things up by telling you about the now defunct

te low light character with a: 1940

09:13 mentioned in the story from the Statesman Journal all the journal had to say with an almost adolescent giddiness was that the original site of the Newport Grill was going to be divided in half with two new businesses and what were they going to be I'm not kidding you here hold on to your hat I'm 100% serious okay I'm not making this up a car dealer and a Mexican restaurant yep that's right just what this city needs yet another damn car dealer and another damn Mexican restaurant if you just heard a big thud

10:10 it was me hitting my head against the wall until next time this is Ernest reminding you that there are no bad words just bad actions take care