Last year, the Thurston County League of Women Voters updated their historic study on county-wide governance and made the case for a more responsive and financially stable county government through a home rule charter. The study is worth the read, by the way. More recently, a group formed around the league started getting together to…
Month: June 2011
Thurston County home rule, STOP Thurston County and diluting political influence
One thing I’ve been wondering about STOP Thurston County, a local franchise of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, is why they’ve focused with such laser intensity on particular environmental rules. I’d assume that if these rules were up for a county wide vote, they’d pass. I mean, across the entire county, Thurston County is pretty liberal. And, the reason…
Immunization exemption rates in Thurston County and the Olympia School District (or 41 percent of kindergartners in Ferry County don’t have shots)
This foul-mouthed post on Washington leading the nation in people who don’t get their children immunized made me wonder about the more local data. How many people send their kids to school without the right shots, thereby making it more likely that not only will their kids get sick, but the entire school will be…
The old wetlands below the brewery (Unpacking the Olympia Brewery Visioning, Part 2)
This image, from the Washington State Historical Society, shows an obvious wetland in the lower right hand corner. From the current layout of the brewery, this is where most of the warehouses constructed in the post World War II era of the plant are located. These are obviously the most recent additions, and geographically, the…
Why Olympia will never have a minor league baseball team as you know it (unpacking Olympia Brewery Visioning, Part 1)
Tonight was pretty fun on twitter, with the Olympia Brewery visioning event going on. The folks from Einmaleins.tv attended and got us all going on the #olympiabrewery hashtag. The first take away for the night for me was running down the rule I knew existed (but didn’t have bookmarked) between major and minor league baseball on how…