Category: other blogs (Page 2 of 7)

Shallow freedom blogging (stopping the next invisible city)

April 20, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

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.

Banjo Rick McKinnon!

April 3, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Olyblog-daddy rocks it out:

If you happen to know how to fiddle, Rick wants to talk.

More in the Rich Nafziger bloggin’ chronicles

April 2, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

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

Can’t hardly resist it local politics joke

March 12, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Response to Thurston Pundits on the new “crazy tax“: maybe its all the new local conservative bloggers.

Ken Camp’s Tumwater coverage

March 7, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Wondering about the continuing musical chairs that is still occurring since Bob Macleod resigned from the county commission in December?

Ken has the scoop on all the folks who want to fill Karen Valenzuela’s seat on the Tumwater City Council. Karen filled Bob’s seat on the commission (Ken did a pretty good job covering that process too).

Here’s a particularly good graph:

I have to say that for someone who has served on the planning commission, and presumable made recommendations to the city council, I’m surprised that Ed didn’t take the time to ensure he spelled Commissioner Valenzuela’s name correctly. It also wouldn’t have hurt him to take care of some of the other misspellings and wrong verb tenses in the application too.

Ken not running

February 26, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Ken Camp isn’t running for Tumwater City Council. I’m going to say he will eventually, but who wants to ruin the first summer of Sounder FC by doorbelling?

Plus, he has another mini-Camp on the way, which is a huge consideration.

In the mean time, Ken should prep himself, which means getting to know the city.

The Tumwater City Council posts their agendas online. I also put together a nice little RSS feed you can subscribe to.

There are a handful of open board and commission spots in the city government, serving on one of those would be a great experience. Of course, you might want to hold out for a spot on the planning commission, the top drawer of local appointed boards.

Read municipal research stuff. Its worth knowing all you can know about local government in Washington State.

Develop a Tumwater-centric hyper local blog. I just thought of this one this morning. All the times I’ve gone to the state library to look at old newspapers, I never found any archives for Tumwater papers. That makes me think that Tumater has never had its own newspaper. It might be a cool thing to be known as the guy who helped Tumwater develop its own news source.

Or not, people migth think you’re some kind of crank blogger.

Rich Nafziger pulls his blog down again (gaaaaa! And, puts it back up again))

February 15, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

UPDATE (like literally moments later): No sooner did I write this that he’s up with two new posts. His old archive is still gone though. See below to find that.

Last week, Rich Nafziger (local blogger and senate dem chief of staff at the Big-Greek-Building) wrote a funny blog about the governor (“Hoover Award” Ha!). He first took the post down and then his entire blog. ~~As of right now, if you go to his blog, it will be empty of posts.~~

Nafziger would have a much better blog if he didn’t pull it down so often. He’s done this before, a couple of times at least. Once (as I remember it) soon after the Olympia School Board began to become interesting and then when he left the school board for his current job.

I shared all of the recent posts from his blog that reached my feed reader, so if you go to my shared items, you can scroll around and find all of them. Aside from the Hoover piece, the rest of his blog is pretty smart and harmless. I’d actually love for more people like Nafziger to take the time and seriously maintain a blog the way he had.

It is sad that he feels the need to pull back from blogging so often. I am going to take the liberty of having saved his posts on my shared items

Nafziger pulls down Gregoire’s Hoover award

February 11, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

It was a pretty funny post while it lasted, but Rich Nafziger (day job: state senate Democratic chief-o’-staff) took down his post awarding Gov. Chris Gregoire a “Hoover.” It happened soon after the Spokesman Review’s political reporter noted it on his blog.

I guess it makes sense you can have a big shot Dem staffer poking fun at the Dem governor.

You can see the old post here on my shared items, just scroll down a bit, you’ll find it.

Building roads “intrude(s) on our rights”

February 10, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Your right not a have a uh…. road?

Having the chair of the county Republicans is going to be interesting, in at least I can try to figure out what these folks are thinking. But, since the new year, R. Scott has been sadly quiet on local issues. He did post up a collection of words that seemed to be his thoughts on the local party he now leads, but other specifics on local issues are lacking. And, yeah, he came out against the Timberland levy lid lift.

Anyway, he posted up on his google links about the local effort to bring together lists of projects for stimulus money and has this comment on a link to the Olympian story:

“Here is our local government with their hand out. Most of the stimulus money will be spent on government projects that intrude on our rights.”

So, how is Yelm building that bypass they’ve been talking about for over ten years an intrusion on your rights?

The 5 sad things about the Olympia Bulletin

February 7, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

1. He’s paying attention to the right things, but the way he writes about them (not backup to his statements, writing the same post day after day just changing names) makes him look silly. I think the Transportation Benefit District is downright important, especially as it concerns the balance between impact fees and fees to drivers, but he’s making an ass out of the issue with his posts.

2. The blogger “Patrick” is anonymous. If you’re going to say something like what you’re saying, be accountable for it.

3. Your blog is called “Olympia Bulletin.” Do you really need to put a dateline at the front of each of your fake news posts? At best its amateur hour, at worst its like you know better but just don’t care. I mean, could you possibly be talking about councilmember Joe Hyer in Olympia, California?

4. He did a great thing with his blog aggregator, but by skipping over using links in his posts, he ignores the blog conversation around him.

5. Repeating #2. Anonymous blogging, especially when the wheel house of what you’re doing is ripping people down is annoying. I guess I’m ok with it when all you’re doing is attacking George W. Bush or some other distant figure, but when you’re attacking a local person, it makes you no better than “Truther.” Be accountable to your words, come out from behind being anonymous.

I really appreciate local blogging. I really really appreciate it and I’ve praised OB in the past (here and here). I’m just sick of bad, anonymous local blogging too.