Two Salem residents, one a political newcomer and another a former city councilor, are vying for a seat in Oregon’s Capitol.Rep. Tom Andersen, a Democrat, is seeking re-election to a second term in the Oregon House.Republican David Brown, an insurance business owner, is challenging him for the House District 19 seat, representing south Salem.Salem Reporter asked each candidate what they plan to bring to the role, and how they will address top issues of housing, homelessness, the city budget and education. Tom Andersen, Democrat Name: Tom Andersen Party: Democratic Age: 73 Residence: South Salem Occupation: Retired trial attorney Education: University of Illinois, BA; University of Oregon, JD Prior governmental experience: State Representative 2023-present, Salem City Councilor 2015-2022, Chair of South Central Association of Neighbors 2009-2012, Vice Chair of South Central Association of Neighbors 2007-2009 Top issues: Funding Salem, climate, education Tom Andersen said he’s been driven and focused on public service since childhood, being the son of a Presbyterian minister in Chicago who focused on racial, social and economic justice. A trial lawyer for nearly 50 years, Andersen got involved in neighborhood groups when he first moved to Salem in 2006. He served two terms as board chair of the South Central Association of Neighbors.Andersen was the Ward 2 city councilor for Salem for eight years, before stepping down to run for the District 19 seat which he won in 2022.“There were things that I tried to do on council that I couldn’t do on council, because I needed a broader canvas. They were preempted by state law, for example: gun safety laws, pesticides. So I decided that I could better serve the people of Salem by being in the Legislature,” he said. In his first term, Andersen said he’s proud of securing $20 million toward Salem-area investments, including $11.5 million for Bridgeway Recovery Services and $3 million toward a housing and service hub at the former Statesman Journal building at 280 Church St. N.E. He serves on the Climate, Energy and Environment Committee and the Early Childhood and Human Service Committee. He’s also Vice-Chair of the House Interim Committee on Judiciary. Andersen’s endorsements include The Planned Parenthood PAC of Oregon, Oregon AFSCME Council 75 which represents state employees, the Oregon Education Association, Local 503 SEIU, the Independent Party of Oregon and the Oregon Nurses Association, according to his website. He’s also been endorsed by U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, Congresswoman Andrea Salinas and State Senator Deb Patterson.Housing and homelessness Andersen said he’s interested in reforming civil commitment, when a judge orders someone to get mental health treatment. Andersen said the issue especially affects Salem which hosts the state hospital and state prison, which release people into the city.“Right now the standard to civilly commit them is extremely high. It’s almost impossible to obtain civil commitment,” he said.Andersen plans to reintroduce a bill, which didn’t make it out of committee last session, which would allow judges to look beyond someone’s current condition, and consider how they’ve behaved in the past 15 days rather than just how they are in the moment. He said he reached that time period after consulting with social workers, psychiatrists and hospitals.“If you can say 15 days in the past, this person has been at grandpa and grandma’s house with a tire iron trying to break the door down, then the odds are that he might do that in that timeframe in the future,” he said.If it becomes easier to civilly commit someone, Andersen said there will also need to be more places for them to say. He said that’s why he has supported bills which would build dozens of residential treatment centers throughout the state. He said he will continue to encourage the development of more treatment centers in Salem and throughout the state. “We’re using the state hospital basically as a holding tank. And we really need to take care of these people,” he said.Andersen said Salem also needs denser housing, especially along transportation routes and downtown. On council, he was involved in zoning changes and supported tax breaks for developers to encourage multifamily development.Andersen said he voted against giving the governor the ability to expand cities’ urban growth boundaries to open more land for housing development because the acreage limit of 150 net acres per city was too high, and there was no provision for affordable housing.“So what you’d end up with is McMansions that only serve the top end of our population,” he said.  He supported a revised bill which left it up to local jurisdictions, and limited the amount of land. In the legislature, Andersen supported a $2 billion housing policy package which included millions for shelters, rental assistance and housing development. That money is now funding the operation of Salem’s micro shelter sites. Andersen said that most people who are unsheltered are there either because of a financial crisis in their lives, because of drug addiction or because of mental illness. He said he supports a combination of supporting both housing and treatment.“We have a moral obligation to help the people in our society who are less fortunate than we are. We need to make attempts to help them, but also to get them to turn their lives around and make them be productive citizens,” he said.  Salem budget In his first term, Andersen introduced a bill asking the state to pay the city of Salem around $5 million per year to compensate for the high amount of land which the state owns but doesn’t pay taxes on.  At the time, it was called payment in lieu of taxation, but Andersen said the next iteration will be called the Capital City Special Payment Bill to emphasize its Salem focus. “The city provides all these services for them, and it’s greater in Salem because it’s the capital city because everybody comes in. And so I have been working quite diligently in this term, and I will do it again,” he said.  He said the $5 to 6 million in state funds would help pay for essential city services including fire, police and first responders which benefit the Capitol. Other issues As a city councilor, Andersen started the city’s Climate Action Plan, an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions and make city operations more environmentally friendly.  On the council, Andersen passed a plastic bag ban which he said began with a meeting with Michael Roth, former owner of the local grocery chain. He said state law superseded that ban and allowed for heavier reusable plastic bags which he said, in practice, are not being reused by consumers.“They’re going into our rivers, they’re going into the fish. It’s not working. They’re supposedly reusable, but what they really are is throw-awayable,” he said. Andersen said he’d like to either ban those or put a deposit on them. “We need to do something to make sure that we close this loophole.” Andersen said he will also continue to seek $250,000 for a feasibility study of a streetcar system to connect west Salem downtown, Willamette University and Salem Hospital which the governor line-item vetoed last year. It had support from various local groups including Cherriots, Travel Salem and Salem Health. Andersen lists education as a top priority on his website, where he said he will support legislative actions that will fund education sustainably.“I will support solutions which reduce class sizes, fund vital school programs, and improve education outcomes by fully investing in these vital programs,” his site said. In contrast with Brown, Andersen said he does not believe having armed officers in schools will help address violence in schools. He said that it wouldn’t have helped the Bush’s Pasture Park shooting, where a student shot and killed a classmate and wounded two others last March. “An armed police officer isn’t going to stop that. In fact, in Uvalde, armed police officers didn’t stop that. The real issue is the overwhelming prevalence of guns in our society,” he said. “We need earlier intervention, and we need recognition of people who have these problems so we can tackle it at the front end, not at the back end.” Andersen said he also supports abortion rights and reproductive health. “I fully support the ability for a woman to make her own decisions about reproductive health, and that includes having an abortion,” he said. David Brown, Republican Name: David Brown Party: Republican Age: 57 Residence: South Salem Occupation: Farmers Insurance franchise owner, previously U.S. Navy Education: North Salem High; Sprague High; Linn-Benton Community College; Central Texas College Prior governmental experience: None Top issues: Public safety, schools, economy David Brown is a business owner in Salem, running a Farmers Insurance franchise with his family. He’s owned the agency for 15 years, and said the work involves constantly looking for ways to solve problems and meet client needs.He said the work involves finding middle ground between the company and the client’s expectations.“That’s how, I think, this line of work has really prepared me to be considered for the Oregon Legislature. Because people need to be heard, people need to be understood, and people need a result that is common sense and all forthcoming with information,” he said. “That means the good news, and bad news.” He describes himself as “not a politician,” and said his first nudge to get into politics came several years ago from a high school friend, Denyc Boles, a state senator at the time. He said she visited his office and asked him to get involved in local politics. He said he was also inspired to pay more attention to local politics by Satya Chandragiri’s work on the Salem-Keizer School Board. He described Chandragiri as “an effective leader.” Brown said that he’s been knocking on doors and speaking with family, friends and people at his church to learn top issues in Salem. The most common responses, which he’s built his platform on, are public safety and the fentanyl crisis, homelessness, schools and the economy. Brown’s endorsements include the Salem Police Employees Union, Crime Victims United and the Oregon Coalition of Police and Sheriffs, the Oregon Hispanic Business Association and Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, according to his website. Deyc Boles, Marion County Commissioners Danielle Bethell and Colm Willis and State Representative Ed Diehl also endorsed him. Housing and homelessness Brown said he’d like to identify what’s working and what’s not when it comes to addressing homelessness.He said there’s more work to be done in rolling back Measure 110, but that the legislature has taken good steps to recriminalize drug use.“What are we going to do with these folks that so deserve our help and the compassion and the next steps to help them achieve restoration in their lives, to become successful members of society again. To get the healing, the counseling, the guidance that they need?” he said.  When asked if he would support continued funding at Salem’s micro shelters, Brown requested to answer in a follow-up email. In the email, he said he supports treating addiction first, and housing second.“I will look at all funding and legislation through that framework, otherwise we’ll just spend more money without any progress. Unfortunately, the Legislature and Rep. Andersen’s current approach is a funding-first model that has failed Oregonians after billions and billions of our tax dollars being spent,” he said.  Salem budget Brown opposed the city of Salem’s proposed payroll tax, and on his campaign website said he plans to submit a bill that would “prevent local governments like the city of Salem from passing payroll taxes.”He said there needs to be more accountability for city budgeting. “Do we really have an actual budget crisis? I think it’s more of a priority issue and a leadership issue more than anything,” he said.  The city has been discussing deep cuts to services for over a year, and earlier this summer passed a budget which pulled city funding from sheltering sites, and moved temporary funding to prevent layoffs at the library. The city is considering taxes and fees to prevent further cuts to services, and leaders say some form of revenue is needed.Brown said that he supports an annual payment from the state to cover Salem’s costs. He said that the original bill failed because Andersen made its scope broader than Salem.“We’ve just got to focus on this area here, and not the other outlying areas,” he said. “I pay my property taxes. Why doesn’t the state government pay the city of Salem? That’s just common sense thinking, for me.”Brown said he’d like to help Salem police and fire attract and retain more staff with “out of the box” thinking, but did not specify a plan. Other issuesBrown said a top issue he’d like to address is the economy, especially the impact of inflation on families.“Inflation is just crushing us, to where people are having to get a second job, sometimes a third job,” he said.  In a follow-up email to Salem Reporter, he said “The first step to improving Oregon’s economy is to stop the bleeding and stop hurting businesses and workers. After that, I look forward to figuring out what we can do to create more good paying jobs for middle class families.” He said he’d also like to give middle class families tax relief. Brown said that he’d like to help get Oregon in the top 10 states for education, though he did not elaborate the metrics he’d use to evaluate that.He said he’d like to get kids back into the basics of reading, writing and math, and fund teacher salaries to retain existing staff and attract new teachers.  “I don’t think we could ever put enough money towards our future and our hope, our children,” he said.Brown said he would introduce a bill to reintroduce graduation standards in Oregon, the same as in HB 4095 which sought to require that students demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing and math before being able to graduate. He pointed to the recent state data which showed 20% of Salem-Keizer students are proficient in English.“That is not acceptable. Politicians like Tom Andersen who supported the removal of graduation standards tried to tell us not to worry, because Oregon has a higher credit requirement relative to the rest of the country. But now Salem-Keizer’s own superintendent is casting doubt on our credit system,” he said in a follow-up email.Brown said that he’d also like to implement school resource officers in every school, and his campaign site said he would fund single-point of entry policies for school buildings.His campaign website said he’d also “allow parents greater freedom to decide what school their kids attend.” Campaign money Here are totals for each campaign as reported by the state Elections Division as of Oct. 10. To look into individual donations and expenditures, start with this state website: Campaign finance. ANDERSEN Contributions: $204,191. Expenditures: $172,369. Cash on hand: $57,497.Top five donors: Future Pac, House Builders (campaign arm of Oregon House Democrats), $26,337; Citizen Action for Political Education (the committee of the Service Employee International Union), $20,000; Democratic Party of Oregon, $18,687; Oregon League of Conservation Voters, $17,800; Oregon Nurses Political Action Committee, $17,000 BROWN Contributions: $178,998. Expenditures: $174,270. Cash on hand: $6,606. Top five donors: Oregon Republican Party, $96,000; Bring Balance to Salem PAC, (a committee largely funded by Nike co-founder Phil Knight), $30,000; Joel Pawloski, $11,100; Marion + Polk First PAC, $4,700; Bill Riecke, $2,500; The Natty Dresser LLC, $2,500. Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post Brown challenges incumbent Andersen for south Salem seat appeared first on Salem Reporter.