A prominent Salem developer will save on sidewalk improvements thanks in part to the votes of two city councilors who received campaign contributions from his companies. City Councilors Deanna Gwyn and Julie Hoy on Monday voted in favor of an appeal filed on behalf of Creekside Golf Course LLC, a residential development with Mountain West Investment Corporation listed as its manager. The president of Mountain West is Larry Tokarski. Tokarski and Mountain West contributed thousands of dollars to Gwyn’s 2022 council campaign, and Hoy’s 2024 mayoral campaign. Hoy is the city’s mayor-elect and will take office in January. Councilors sided with Creekside 6-2, meaning the appeal would have gotten council approval even if both Gwyn and Hoy had abstained from voting. The appeal concerned an 11-lot residential development on Southeast Creekside Drive. The Salem Planning Commission approved the project on Aug. 27, 2024, but with a requirement to add a sidewalk at a cost of about $216,000, according to planning commission records.  Brandie Dalton of Multi-Tech Engineering challenged the sidewalk requirement in an appeal on behalf of Creekside. Along with Gwyn and Hoy, Councilors Vanessa Nordkye, Virginia Stapleton, Linda Nishioka and Jose Gonzalez all voted to allow the development without the sidewalk. Councilors Micki Varney and Trevor Phillips voted against the appeal. Mayor Chris Hoy, no relation to Julie Hoy, was absent. The Salem city charter states that a city councilor should not participate in any decision that is likely to directly benefit a campaign donor if contributions “would create the appearance of bias or impropriety in the mind of a reasonable person.”  That charter says a recusal should be considered where a councilor has received more than $501 in campaign contributions in the past two years from a party with business before the city. The charter also requires councilors to recuse themselves from a hearing if such participation would create “the appearance of bias or impropriety in the mind of a reasonable person.”  Tokarski donated $20,000 to Hoy’s mayoral campaign and Mountain West Investment Corp. gave her about $19,000.  Mountain West gave Gwyn’s campaign $3,000 for her council race in 2022. Prior to the public hearing on Monday, Hoy disclosed that “entities connected with this land use hearing have contributed to my campaign” but did not name the companies. She pointed to the Salem city charter which says elected officials should not participate as decision makers if it “would create the appearance of bias or impropriety in the mind of a reasonable person.” “Reasonable people understand that they support candidates financially and this does not create bias or conflict. Hundreds of people have supported me, and countless more have supported those sitting around this table. This doesn’t mean each of us have bias or conflict of interest. It means people heard our positions on policies and by and large support those positions,” Hoy said. “This is how democracy works. Our system of government cannot function if contributing to a campaign means that you now no longer have representation by your local elected official. That would make a reasonable person question. That interpretation is unworkable and would have a chilling effect on the residents of Salem. The people have showed up, contributed to each of our campaigns, have voted for us to sit in these seats, and the reasonable ones expect us to take the votes presented to us. Because of this I will do what I was elected to do by the voters of Ward 6, which is to cast a vote to the best of my ability.” In response to questions from Salem Reporter, Hoy later emailed her statement verbatim and added additional comments. She didn’t address whether she had discussed the appeal with Tokarski or others at Mountain West prior to voting. “Last night was a Mountain West development project. Next week it might be a vote that would benefit public employees, who have (political action committees) that support members on council, the following week it could be a minority business owner downtown,” Hoy said in an email. Gwyn also disclosed the perceived conflict of interest and also said she would participate in the hearing prior. She did not otherwise explain her decision during the meeting. When reached by phone Tuesday, she declined to answer questions from Salem Reporter about her vote and asked for questions to be emailed to her. She then told Salem Reporter she did not have the time to answer those questions.  Tokarski, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the vote or respond to written questions, including whether he discussed the appeal with either councilor.  Susan Myers, the executive director of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, told Salem Reporter a vote such as the one Hoy and Gwyn took Monday doesn’t violate state ethics law. “Most often a gift, like a donation to a campaign, isn’t a gift to the public official and the public official is only going to have a conflict of interest if they are making a decision or taking action that has a financial impact on them, their relatives or a business with which they are associated,” Myers said. “The campaign is a separate legal entity. It’s not them.”  Stapleton told Salem Reporter after the vote that she personally would have recused herself to avoid the perception that wealthy donors can buy influence in politics.  “They could have walked away from this, really building trust in our community instead of continuing to barrel down this path of money corrupting power,” Stapleton said. “To say that somebody who gives me a $25 check to help with my campaign has the same political influence as somebody who gives $30,000. That is ridiculous. That is not even the same argument.” Varney said she was fine with Gwyn and Hoy’s decision to participate in the hearing, but said a line was crossed as soon as it was clear that the outcome of the vote would monetarily benefit Mountain West and Tokarski.  “I was accepting of their personal decision to participate in the process, until the subject of the additional cost to the developer being linked to our decision came up during deliberations.  Under the circumstances, connecting a direct financial benefit to a vote did not feel appropriate,” she said. City Councilor Jose Gonzalez said while he understands there could be a perceived conflict of interest, he did not see a problem with Hoy and Gwyn’s vote. He noted that Tokarski, his company and their affiliates are involved in many local development projects. He said if he were in the same position, he would have voted too.  “Me personally, when I ran, I didn’t really solicit funding, it just would come. And I took it as part of the process, not necessarily that they were going to gain anything extra out of it, anybody, any of these funders, are going to gain anything extra from me,” Gonzalez said. “Because that is the past. That’s done. And I was going to make my decision based on what’s in front of me. And that’s why I wouldn’t have recused myself if I had been in the same situation.”  Disclosure: Larry Tokarski is a founder and an owner of Salem Reporter. He is not involved in news coverage produced by Salem Reporter. Read more on that here. Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.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 City councilors vote in favor of land use decision benefitting campaign donor  appeared first on Salem Reporter.