A red and white DANGER sign reading UNSAFE BRIDGE CONDITIONS, KEEP OUT, posted on a tree at the trail entrance to the Volunteers Bridge, with the wooden boardwalk stretching into the marsh reeds behind it.
Petition · To the Mayor, the Community Preservation Committee, and the Conservation Commission

Repair the Volunteers Bridge.

Built by neighbors in 1997. Funded in 2022. Posted DANGER today.

Add your name

At 100 signatures, we deliver this petition to the City.

Every name is delivered. When the goal is reached, the petition goes to the Mayor, the Community Preservation Committee, and the Conservation Commission with every signature attached, and stays open for the next delivery.

Our position

Neighbors built the Volunteers Bridge with their own hands in 1997.

The City’s own engineers called for its repair in 2016.

In 2022 the City awarded $66,148.66 in Community Preservation funds toward repairing it, structured around the same volunteer-labor model that built it: the City paid for materials, and volunteers were to donate the construction, work a contractor would have charged at least $318,000 to do.

The volunteer force could not be assembled. The funds went back into the CPA pool. Today a DANGER sign hangs at the entrance.

This time, the bridge does not need hands to build it. It needs names. The volunteers it needs now are the people who sign this petition and pass it on.

We, the undersigned residents of Salem, ask our City to do one simple thing: fund a real, professional repair for the Volunteers Bridge.

Every fact above is documented: the 2016 KZLA/Childs Engineering trails assessment, the June 30, 2022 CPA award letter, and the 2022 Salem Sound Coastwatch funding application, which estimated a private contractor would have charged the City at least $318,000 to do the work the volunteers were to donate. See the full story with sources.

Specifically, we ask the City to:

  1. 1

    Fund a real repair, not another study or volunteer drive. Volunteers built this bridge in 1997 and patched it for decades, but a rebuild that meets code, guardrails, new decking, accessible ramps, is professional construction work. The 2022 grant leaned on donated volunteer labor, work a contractor would have charged at least $318,000 to do, that could not be assembled. The model that built the bridge no longer scales. It is time to fund the repair as construction.

  2. 2

    No new feasibility study. The bridge was assessed in 2016, the pilings were inspected and found sound in 2022, and the scope of work is on file. A new study only adds years while a posted bridge grows more dangerous.

  3. 3

    Stop waiting on a developer contribution that isn’t coming. Mayor Pangallo had the City’s one real chance to make the developer help pay for this bridge, the rezone, and let it pass without securing a dollar for it. That cost now falls on Salem taxpayers, through the Community Preservation surcharge they pay on their own tax bills. The honest path is to fund a real repair now, not chase a contribution that will not come or lose another year to a study.

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In 2022 the City couldn't find 100 volunteers. We can find 100 signatures. The fastest way is to send this to five neighbors right now. Pick a platform, or copy the message below.

Suggested message

Salem's Volunteers Bridge was built by neighbors' own hands in 1997, to cross the marsh and reach the conservation woods beyond. It's worn out and closed now, but this time bringing it back doesn't take hammers or planks, just your name. I signed the petition to help restore it. Will you add yours? https://salem-forest-river-advocacy.vercel.app/petition.html

Two more ways to act before the next hearing

Signing is one piece. Here’s the rest.

Thank You

The Conservation Commission campaign

The public hearing is closed and the Order of Conditions passed unanimously. Thank you to everyone who wrote in.

Read the update

Email

City Hall, about the bridge

Tell the Planning Department to fund a real repair now, not another study. Pre-written.

Open it

The full story

The Bridge

Warned in 2016. Funded in 2022. Posted DANGER in 2026. Every source cited.