Olympia Time

History, politics, people of Oly WA

Category: Olympia (Page 8 of 13)

On Karen Rogers public forums and the need for another organization

December 23, 2010 / / 0 Comments

This week, a city councilmember’s forums became the topic of conversation. Since being elected last year, Karen Rogers has been holding formal meetings with citizens to gather input. Summaries of the meetings are posted on the city’s website. Sometimes city staff are requested to attend, and the impact on staff time on one city councilmembers effort to reach out to citizens.

Before I get to my point, here are some tweets by Lakewood City Councilmember Walter Neary (and two) and open government leader Sarah Schacht. Both Walter and Sarah seem to point to a more formalized additional way for the city to encourage input from citizens.

I think Roger’s has hit on something important, but she might be going about it wrong. Granted, I haven actually attended one of these meetings, I’ve only read summaries and of course the coverage in the Olympian. But, they seem to point to the need for more input in city matters. Or, just public matters in general.

By the way, I’ve pointed out in the past that Rogers has a decent time getting public input.

So, the city might just use the model created by Rogers and formalize it. Rotate the city councilmembers that attend, but with no more than three at a time (to prevent a quorum). Councilmembers already have several regional intergovernmental commitments that mean they attend meetings above and beyond regular business. One more meeting a quarter with citizens, with a mix between citizen and city generated topics, wouldn’t be that hard.

What they also might think about doing is formalizing a new so-called “blog policy” (like the one Seattle has) to ease the process of city councilmembers posting on the city’s website.

But, that isn’t really what I am interested in seeing, I think there needs to be a whole new organization focussed on putting on public forums of general civic interest. Something like a city club. Boy, I like this topic, don’t I?

Anyway, there are a lot of example out there locally, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Lakewood United, and North Mason (County) Voice. Each of these organizations have a central role of holding forums on generally civic topics. Some, like the Seattle City Club, also have other projects like a living Voters Guide.

So, why haven’t these sort of efforts taken hold in Olympia?


I would say because most of the positive political force in Olympia is focussed for or against a particular issue. Oly2012, Olympia Capitol Park, and other organizations are focussed on their own goals, not necessarily providing an open forum. As they should be.

It also might be, since we are a capital city, that people with this sort of thing in their DNA and who live locally are focussed on statewide issues, not necessarily on the local civic landscape.

But, there seems to be the pieces you could put together to organize a city club like organization. The League of Women Voters has a local chapter, but I honestly don’t hear much from them (I have to make an effort to hear anything from them). There is also SPEECH, which seems to have a general forum role, at least in the environmental sense.

I could could also see how other tangential organizations like the Coalition of Neighborhoods and the Friends of the Olympia Library could play a role.

So, what is standing in the way? 


What can we do to get this done?

Letting people know about whats going on with construction (City of Olympia vs. Thurston County)

December 9, 2010 / / 0 Comments

It isn’t that the construction on Henderson Boulevard is taking too long, which it is. I understand that big public works projects hit humps and need delays.

Its how I learned about it that bothers me. I learned about it from the daily newspaper. I live right in the middle road construction hell right now. Between the Yelm Highway project (county), the Henderson sanitary sewer (city) and an apartment project, I’m surrounded.

But, I’m not in mystery with what’s going on with the Yelm Highway project, because between an active twitter account and blog, they’ve been doing a great job keeping folks up to date on developments: when its a good idea to brave the road, progress, and cool videos.

The City of Olympia, not so much. Southbound traffic is pretty much stopped during the day, and the work schedule is in constant flux (not always stopping at 4p as advertized on the web and reader boards). And, the worst part is, if you had been paying attention and checking their project webpage, you wouldn’t have learned any sooner that the project is going over the limit.

Its well passed time that local governments need to depend on the only paper in town to let people know about news. They have the ability now to create micro-channels on the neighborhood level to inform people about construction updates or crime in their neightborhood, or anything else really.

And, most importantly, it doesn’t need to be all that fancy. Free blogger.com blogs and twitter are about as easy as it gets.

Notes and links for “Olympia Journalism Club”

November 26, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Over at Olyblog, a question from Chad Akins seemed to have reignited the hyperlocal journalism fire with some of us. At least to the point of some folks getting together next Sunday afternoon.

I’ve been pondering the creation of something like this proto-group for a few months now, thinking about the examples from Clay Shirky’s “Cognitive Surplus,” about how local groups (Dogtown for example) can help sharpen skills and projects.

Not sure I can make the actual meeting yet, but I at least wanted to put together some thoughts and notes:

  • Thad Curtz has always talked about putting together a wiki on local issues. This core group would seem like a natural starting point for a project like that. It would take a long while to get going, but I think we’d eventually fill it out and keep it updated.
  • The Leeds Community News hub seems like an interesting project to emulated. Interesting, though, they seem to have some institutional support from the Guardian. 
  • Lakewood United and North Mason County Voice are groups that bring speakers in to talk about local issues. Seems like an interesting model to emulate, if we could do it. Especially if we made it a podcast as well.
  • Here’s my old list of “beats” that I posted on Olyblog almost three years ago (three years to the day this group will be meeting). Still pretty relevant, should be adding things to the list.
  • Here’s a small side project I’ve been working on, the Briggs Villager, a neighborhood based project for where I live now. Haven’t really launched it yet, but I’m getting there and just thought I’d share the link.

Skills, skills, skills. The more I think about it, the more I think that this group should be about sharing tips and tricks for people who want to do this sort of thing, but don’t have the chops. Little trainings on how to record and set up a podcast, how to find the information you’re looking for, how to conduct an interview or write a decent post.

So, in my mind, the group would have two purposes: teach skills and provide a place for collaboration and sharing.

Potentially very funny

December 10, 2009 / / 0 Comments

If this turns out to be a joke, then it’ll be great. Especially if they do a good job with it. If it turn out to be serious, well, then I guess I’ll have to put up with it. Not that I don’t like the idea of a parking garage downtown, there is just too much good stuff out there for jokes.

Also, if this was a serious attempt to promote the idea of a parking garage, I think it would be better to have done it as a fan page or group, rather than a personal account. That said, if it is the parking garage wondering why we haven’t built it yet, then all the better. Funny.

Here comes Olympia Power & Light

November 17, 2009 / / 3 Comments

Which is a pretty cool name for a newspaper, especially one that strives to “bridge the gap between big media coverage and blogs.” Which you will do how exactly, Matt?

Well, here are some friendly ideas:

1. Be like the Portland Sentinel. Put your content online before you print. Of course, hold some big feature stuff back for the print edition, but since the paper is only coming out “fortnightly,” (links to pdf) you can keep stuff rolling by putting it online. The Sentinel calls itself a “neighborhood news forum,” which totally embraces the bloggy spirit of the organization

2. Nice name, now you need a killer logo. The paper is sort of plane Jane right now.

I’m thinking of something along the lines of the logo used by Andrew Rasiej when he ran for public advocate in NYC a few years back.

Which was of course based on the old TVA logo.

3. Bring in voices from across the blogosphere. I was thinking of something a few months back, putting together a local blog digest. Taking what stuff I could pull from Olyblog, Jim Anderson’s various efforts and other locally focussed blogs and putting it in a downloadable pdf. Maybe someone would run off copies and leave them around town.

I never got around to it, but it seemed like a good way to bridge the gap between the local blogosphere and folks that want a printed piece to hold on to.

4. Super happy someone is picking up this project. Ever since the Sitting Duck (which I had no love for anyway) left, there’s been a need for something like this. Glad is seems pointed in the right direction too.

Why I haven’t been blogging (why I haven’t been feeling it)

September 29, 2009 / / 0 Comments

For at least the last eight years or so, in various forms, I’ve blogged pretty regularly. There have been times I’ve closed old blogs, stopped blogging at other people’s blogs and consolidated posts on this blog. Anyway, there have also been times I haven’t blogged for awhile, but since about January of this year, my blogging here has been stalling (and for the past few weeks) grinding to a halt.

Some reasons for that include the obvious attention suck that Facebook and Twitter have become. But, there has also been the time I’ve spent thinking about the entire isthmus debate here in Olympia, and the stress I’ve felt of various groups of people I respect falling on different sides of the issue. While I respect everyone’s opinion, it has become a issue I have a hard time getting a hold of the issue, and I have gotten tired of the debate and the sides those got chosen up.

Either way, I’m going to make a concerted effort to keep on blogging. I realize that the above was a horrible reason why I have held off blogging, but here I am.

Olympia as “an arm pit,” Olympia as a “Best City”

June 15, 2009 / / 0 Comments

You can’t please everyone and generally speaking you can’t please Andy at Thurston Pundits. The same week Olympia celebrates being number 6 on some national list (yawn, I’m so tired of being honored so), Andy rips out with this one:

I avoid Olympia proper as much as I possibly can. I don’t shop there and I try to avoid dining there if I can think of an alternative. Why? The place is an arm pit and has become more so in line with the volume of the “We hate America” crowd that infests downtown and nearby areas.

Generally speaking, the reason Olympia gets on certain national lists as being a good place is that its relatively cheap to live here, because of government our employment levels are stable (generally), there is a lot of culture here for the size of the city (thanks to the state government and Evergreen), temperate weather and pretty geography.

The reason Andy hates downtown Olympia is because a lot of liberals hang out down there and there is graffiti. Makes sense to me, people oftentimes make decisions where to be based on politics and how their politics inform their culture.

Far be it from Andy to shop at Einmaleins, that anti-American shop owned by a German! (By the way, that’s a joke. In my mind there is no more pro-American shop than Mathias’ place.)

Anyway, it makes sense because so many people make the same decisions. Read a great series by the Austin American-Statesmen on the Great Divide phenomena here. Generally speaking, it says people choose where they live by Andy’s standards: do you agree with me, do you like the stuff I like.

So, for the very reason Andy hates downtown Olympia, a lot of people simply love it. They love the liberal to radical politics of our geography, they love things like graffiti art (a portion of it is art) and Procession.

The Kiplinger’s rating has nothing to do with taste, but rather other, less subjective standards. Other than, I guess, the presence or absence of culture.

All that said, Andy is right. Olympia is a total hole. Crap hole filled with dung heaped with bad food and smelly people. Don’t move here. Just send envelopes of cash. Thanks!

One of my favorite local treasures: StevenL

June 8, 2009 / / 0 Comments

From the beginning of OlyBlog, he’s been a constant positive force over there. Not in the least because of his ongoing “where was this” sort of local history quiz (like today’s). Here is my contribution to the current discussion on lost neighborhoods and the Capital Apartments. I found a photo from which I took this detail at the state archives:


The three large buildings lining Capitol Way in the center of the detail are the old county courthouse (where my big boss spent some time), old William Winlock Miller High, and the above mentioned Capital Apartments.

From my own Mariners memories, to inappropriate SI reference, to building heights in Olympia

May 19, 2009 / / 0 Comments

How many steps does it take to get from the 1995 Mariners run still etched deep inside my mind to the political battle being waged right now in Olympia over building heights? Not far enough. It is actually scary close.

Step 1. One of my favorite afterglow memories of the 1995 run was this article from Sports Illustrated (my earlier reference here). The scene is basically a bunch of guys waiting to go into a wedding until the Mariners game (part of the heroic stretch run) is over. This inappropriate line (you’ll see in a bit) is included: “Gayle’s wedding? It’s her second.”

Step 2. Who is Gayle Fink-Shulz, is she still in Washington State? I wonder how she feels to be immortalized in a classic article about the Mariners. Well, she’s already pretty famous, and not because of a game or a set of games.

From the PI:

At the funeral for her husband, a state trooper killed in the line of duty, Gayle Frink-Schulz realized that many of the more than 3,000 officers in attendance saw in her their wives and mothers.

They knew it could be them lying in the flag-draped coffin. They wondered if the people they held dearest could endure their sudden, violent death.

…

At graveside, a woman approached and embraced her. She whispered that her husband, also a motorcycle officer, had been killed two years earlier.

“At that point we just held each other and cried,” Frink-Schulz said.

As she struggled through her own grief, she decided that other families — and law enforcement officers — would benefit from an organized support system. In early 1994, she helped form the Washington chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors, or COPS, a group that helps the family, colleagues and community deal with the deaths of officers in the line of duty.

Yeah, dude. Its her second wedding because her police officer husband died in the line of duty two years earlier. I have a hard time weighing the gravity of the 1995 Mariners and Mrs. Frink-Schulz’s wedding, but I keep on coming back to Gayle on this one.

Step 3. The view from the Washington State Law Enforcement memorial has become a part of whether to allow tall buildings to be built in certain parts of downtown Olympia. From the Little Hollywood Blog:

Gayle Frink-Schultz of the Behind the Badge Foundation, gave perhaps the most compelling testimony of the day. As the widow of Washington State Patrol Trooper Steven Frink, Ms. Frink-Schultz explained how she came to be involved with the planning of the Washington State Law Enforcement Memorial on the Capitol Campus which overlooks the debated isthmus region.

Frink-Schultz also explained the state’s heavy involvement in the project since 1999: site selection with the Capitol Campus Design Advisory Committee, stabilization of the hillside, landscaping and construction of a retaining wall as part of the Heritage Park hill and walking path – “all to create a place of serenity, honor and respect.”

“….I found a new mission in life after my husband’s death. Steve’s death taught me there are things in life that are irrevocable, things we cannot control. But, I also learned that there are things in life that are important and that we do have choice over….This is one of those times.”

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