As much as I assume Sondra knows her geography, I hope someone from Federal Way wouldn’t be considered a Lympian.
Author: Emmett O'Connell (Page 72 of 179)
I’m not sure what to think about my own Rep. Williams living out his second to last year in the legislature by leaving everything he has on the field.
Calling out his own leadership in the Seattle Times and… well.. other stuff. You should read the guys facebook updates about going to work everyday. Just saying.
The Trent at EFF makes the development moratoriums we’ve been going through around here sound like a local government government sitting on top of any sort of progress across the entire county.
Of course, the actual truth is a bit more complicated than that.
First, Trent ignores Thurston County v. WWGMHB, which casts a long shadow over development policy in Thurston County.
He also ignores the several times since 2005 that the county commission has released properties from the moratorium. This you could find out if you follow the link Trent offers:
October 17, 2005 – Board of County Commissioners released pockets of unincorporated land that are within the city limits of Olympia and Tumwater from the moratorium on subdivisions.
…
January 31, 2006 – The Board of County Commissioners extended the moratorium on residential subdivisions for 6 months. The following were released from the moratorium: 1) Subdivisions that do not create lots less than 20 acres in size; and 2) Divisions of land which do not create any additional building sites because two or more single- or multiple family homes (not mobile homes or family member units) are already located on the parcel, consistent with Section 18.04.052 of the Thurston County Code.
…
January 13, 2009 … The Board adopted Ordinance No. 14187 to renew the subdivision moratorium for another six months. This ordinance released a number of properties from the moratorium, and provided a method to be released from the moratorium if it can be demonstrated that the reason for the moratorium no longer exists. Please see the map under the section “Lands Subject to the Moratorium.
Trent also ignores the problem that is presented if you allow growth in the areas still included in the moratorium. Just like the properties above, the moratorium areas but up against a city in northern Thurston County, but are still in the county.
They represent baby “invisible cities,” urban and suburban “communities” like Tanglewild and Thompson Place that were allowed to grow and develop in a pre-GMA Washington. Thurston County’s own invisible city grew from the mid 50s until the early 80s and has filled in since then. Since growth management, it hasn’t been annexed into an existing city or become a city on its own. It remains an urban and suburban collection of neighborhoods that is governed by a rural form of government.
Because it demands a higher level of service than a real rural county, it is sucking the county government dry. Preventing the rise of more invisible cities is just good management.
Should be interesting to see if the topic comes up between the Texan who likes the voting system and the local political organization which isn’t exactly a fan when they break bread together.
The response to the fewest number of credentialed reporters covering the legislative session wasn’t that a blogger was eventually credentialed, but rather this.
Or, a lot of stuff like that.
This winter and spring the four caucuses (but the Dem ones the most and the Senate Dems the most most) have been rolling out social media tools that allow them to directly connect with the people that would typically read legislative coverage.
- Sen . Lisa Brown is writing a seriously blunt blog, taking issues on in a somewhat dense, but very direct way. House Dems also have a less fun blog, but its still there.
- Each caucus has embraced twitter (SD, HD, HR, SR), though I’m a bit unsure of how this is an advancement beyond or just the use of a tool. Here’s a funny thing about caucus twitter feeds. I though I was already following the senate Republicans because I followed WASenateGOP. Turns out that is their campaign committee and the actually caucus twitters at WashingtonSRC.
- Same thing with each caucuses use of video and audio casts. Its great to make all the stuff available, but its another thing to distill it in some form.
Does the lack of reporters covering the legislature drive the caucuses to adopt social media? Probably not, I’ve heard conversations around these topics for years, but everyone was getting hung up on rules (that you apparently couldn’t blog during session because it was campaigning? Weirdness).
Its more likely that the ramping up of caucus based social (or at least internet) media and the nose-dive of traditional state house reporting are happening on parralel, if not slightly overlapping, tracks.
If anyone really doubts that newspapers owners created the situation they’re in now, you should read: The Chain Gang.
Shorter Chain Gang: Instead of being happy with an industry where even the laziest newspaper with a local monopoly could make 5 percent profit a year, newspaper chains drove out local competition (possibly with illegal tactics) and borrowed heavily to buy up even more local papers.
But, now 20 or 30 years later, the model doesn’t work anymore and the pile of cards is tumbling down.
It isn’t journalism that’s broken, its the economic model of local monopolies owned by chains saddled with debt and unrealistic profit margins driven by public ownership.
MxPx, an old time punk band from Bremerton, and some of the Rancid guys do Olympia, WA about four years ago. Includes some of the interesting back story.
Smile… there’s even a sing-along.
1. The Washington bus basically points out that Oly(mpia) ain’t a city, but rather a collection of gray, greek-wannabe buildings.
By the way, saying “Oly” doesn’t make you young and hip. I’ve heard 70 year olds say Oly without any irony. It makes you sound like a poser.
2. Clark Williams-Derry: “Heads up, Salem & Olympia,” and then something on climate change. Once we can tell Seattle and Bellevue what to do, we’ll get right on that.
3. The Seattle Courant: “Olympia: Gas Tax Revenue Down, Tolls and $4.3 Billion in New Transportation Spending.” Our gas tax revenue may be down, I’m not really sure if we have a local gas tax, but so are they for every locality, I would assume.
4. Andrew: “Although the Worker Privacy Act is dead (no thanks to Olympia)…” We can’t take credit or blame for what your representative does while they’re inside our city. So, bite me.
That last links brings a thought together for me. You see, I read a lot of political stuff and I keep an eye out for metonnymic uses of Olympia (or people who I know do so for me now). And, I’ve seen a lot more liberals use Olympia to mean the state government or the state legislature than conservatives.
Might just speak to my reading list which has a lot more liberal outlets than conservative, but I don’t avoid right wing blogs and sources by any means. It just surprises me any time I hear a liberal use the metonymic Olympia.
And, this is why: It gets back to the othering of government. That if your state government is “Olympia,” some distant crap-ass place where crazy people make decisions for you, you really aren’t to blame for what’s going on.
But, if Olympia is just another town, and the state legislature is made up of locally elected folks and the governor is elected by a statewide popular election, then we’re all to blame for what goes on inside our government.
Conservatives like othering government because they don’t trust government and don’t want it to work. You’d think liberals would be of a different mind.
Olyblog-daddy rocks it out:
If you happen to know how to fiddle, Rick wants to talk.
Over at Olyblog, Russ Lehman, an old opponent of Rich Nafzigers when they were both on the Olympia School Board, takes a swipe at Nafziger and his blog:
The flap over Rich Nafziger’s blog, where he comments about the very un-Democratic way we make laws and policies in Olympia, as well as his view of the Governor as, well, somebody less than the leader we need at this time of crisis, misses the point just as the comments about our city council members who have the attention span and restraint of children missed the most important point about their egregious behavior.
The voices of disgust about certain city council member’s prurient and truly anti-Democratic impatience and intolerance, focuses on the violations of the Open Public Meetings Act instead of the true “crime” committed – an affront to our very Democracy. They validated people’s worst fears about policymaking – that politicians are interested in primarily, if not only, the interests of those who can pay to have their voice heard.
Nafziger is right about what plagues our lawmaking system. It is not truly interested in “the little guy’s” voice; responds very differently to those who make a living lobbying; is populated by many (though not all) people who seem much more interested in ego gratification then open, deliberative, courageous policymaking.
The problem is, according to those inside the Olympia beltway, not what he said, per se, it’s that he “pissed where he sleeps”. The common refrain in Olympia is that he was crazy to lambaste his political patrons (read: bosses).
Also, if you’re interested in reading everything Nafziger has put on his blog and then regularly takes right back down, I’ve tried to share as much as I can here. The posts aren’t in order of when they were posted by Rich, but rather by when I marked them in my feed reader. So, you may need to dig around a bit before you find what you are looking for. Like the one where he gives Gov. Gregoire a Hoover award.
Anyway, I’m going to ask him again in the comments of one of his blog posts why he keeps on taking his old posts down. I still wonder why
Emmett O'Connell
@emmettoconnell@olympiatime.com
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