Virginia Stapleton: No affordable housing … it hurts the planet

Democrat Candidate Virginia Stapleton: No Housing Because Climate Change

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

Last week, Salem City Councilor and candidate for Oregon Legislature, Virginia Stapleton voted against funding for an affordable housing complex for low income Salem residents because it “would sacrifice our climate action goals.”

In an over three minute diatribe, Virgina Stapleton – who is running against Republican incumbent Kevin Mannix for a Salem/Keizer house district – explained how building the proposed affordable housing units would require people who live there to have cars, thus increasing carbon emissions. In Stapleton’s same speech, she admitted that she and her family own a pickup truck that they recently drove to Central Oregon in.

“I voted against this in committee and I will continue to be against this project tonight… We are sacrificing our climate action goals for our housing crisis,” Virginia Stapleton said.

Stapleton implied that housing should only be built if it has connections to “transit, walkable, bikeable areas.” The Legislature has passed millions in funding for affordable housing in the past few years. It wasn’t immediately clear if Virginia Stapelton, if elected to the Legislature, would seek to attach strings to ban people who own and drive cars from living in these kinds of developments.

Watch Salem City Councilor Virginia Stapleton’s entire comments here.

Salem City Councilor Virginia Stapleton has also been in the news when she pushed through a highly controversial Salem Wage Tax without asking voters.  Salem voters decided to launch a petition (Taxpayers Association of Oregon helped the effort) that gave the voters the right to vote on the wage tax for which it was soundly defeated.   This was a major defeat for Virginia Stapleton and the Salem City Council that tried to ram this unpopular tax down the throats of voters and small businesses (even Governor Tina Kotek was against Stapleton’s wage tax).

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