History, politics, people of Oly WA
1. Seems a bit early, you know? But, Washington Our Home declares snake season has begun.
2. Rebels by Bus has a nice class (and video) over at South Puget.
3. Speaking of South Puget, here’s Janine (from Little Hollywood) talking to SPSCC’s president.
4. Longshoremen load up a ship.
5. Ken has a pretty thoughtful post here. I knew he’d been the type to vote for her, but I didn’t realize she was ill. When should she resign, really?
So, if you took a list of contributors of the last two rounds of successful city council elections, what kind of list would you come up with?
| Contributor Cynthia Pratt |
Campaigns contributed to 7 |
| Christine Garst | 7 |
| Sandra Romero | 6 |
| Emily Ray | 6 |
| Joyce Kilmer | 6 |
| Kris Goddard | 6 |
| Mary Wilkinson | 5 |
| WA FED OF ST EMPLOYEES LOCAL 443 | 5 |
| Karen Valenzuela | 5 |
| Sarah Segall | 5 |
| OLYMPIA FIREFIGHTERS IAFF LOCAL 468 | 5 |
| Walt Jorgenson | 5 |
| Jewel Goddard | 5 |
| Mark Dahlen | 5 |
| Judy Bardin | 5 |
Here is the entire list, plus a few other spreadsheets to show you how I got there.
And, while Chris Garst lives outside of Olympia, it is pretty just outside Olympia. And, Chris is really good people. So, don’t get me wrong with that headline. Chris Garst is good.
This isn’t a list of who contributed the most money, but rather a list of who contributed to the most successful campaigns for city councils. I didn’t take a close look at the contribution totals, so many on this top 15 list may have contributed little compared to someone who maxed out on one candidate.
But, by a certain measure, these people are more influential than a theoretical single candidate max contributor. In addition to their financial support, every single one of these folks or organizations gave their personal time and civic reputation to the candidate.
Some additional thoughts:
Joseph Lane is one of the most regrettable characters of Cascadian history. During the debates on how slavery should be treated in Oregon during that state’s founding days, Lane was on the hard pro-slavery side. There were a few hard anti-slavery sorts to balance him out. But, most of the state had a pox on both their houses sort of sentiment. They neither liked slaves nor the sort of economics that slavery represented.
Here:
On that day, Jo. Lane, made a traitorous speech in favor of secession, in which he was personally abusive of Senator Johnson of Tennessee. Mr. Johnson replied. The galleries were crowded to excess. Mr. Johnson opened up by a dissertation on personalities—withering and caustic to his assailant. Johnson turned and looking him in the eye, said, “no gentleman would insult me, and no other person can, and without making any boast of personal courage, I say here that this eye never looked upon the man that this heart feared.” The galleries burst into applause, which was promptly suppressed with an intimation from the Chairman, Mr. Polk, that a repetition would be followed by an order to clear the gentlemen’s gallery.
But, even if Lane did not join the rebel cause, didn’t migrate to the south, he kept the fight going on his return to Oregon.
He campaigned for Democratic candidates, he campaigned for his son who was running for Congress. Lane was criticized loudly by Republican newspapers, but he stood firm publicly to his convictions:
Once again in 1866 the aging politician campaigned for the Democratic ticket. Personal abuse from the press and threat of punishment had not dampened his adore for the southern cause, which he championed when he could. During the campaign he declared that if Jefferson Davis were elected to Congress by the people of Mississippi, that body would have no choice but to admit him.
Being ignored and made fun of by the political establishment, carving out a hole for yourself as a loud political crank, is not the same as retiring quietly from public life.
At one point, he even talked about how Lincoln had offered him a generalship in the Union Army. And, that if he’d taken that position (instead of coming back to Oregon), he would have beaten General Grant to the top of Army of the Potomac, and then there would’ve been no President Grant.
I’m most intrigued by Lane’s run for State Senate in 1880. Only one year before his death, an apparently with the furor of secession finally dying down, Lane ran one last time for office. I found some old newspaper stories about his continued involvement in Democratic politics. How he was elected chair of the party convention that year. But, no story of a race or election involving him. I wonder if its really true, and if so, why he ran.
The brainstorming about getting passenger rail into Olympia is alive!
Olympia’s best blog took their crack earlier and the Seattle Transit blog did their’s yesterday. All smart people all say, sure it could happen. But, there are obstacles. Sure, that makes sense. It hasn’t happened, so obviously there are reasons why it hasn’t.
I was going to reserve this post for a exploration into the past of the old Lacey to Olympia line that was ripped up and turned into a sidewalk. Alright, a glorified sidewalk.
But, after all this discussion, I think we need to bring up another topic. Should Olympia be connected by rail to Seattle?
You’re going to say: Of Course! State Capitol Right??
And, I’m going to respond with a selfish rejoinder. Well, its not like anyone is going to steal the state capitol from us anytime soon. So, why make it easier for people to get here?
Right now Olympia’s economy is supported by a steady flow of tax money into our community to support fairly well paying and stable state jobs. That’s not going anywhere. Jobs come and go, but overall, state work is pretty stable.
We’re also on the far southern edge of Pugetopolis. So, if overgrowth is going to happen, it’ll come from the north. But, in a way, we’re buffered from that because back 100 years ago Pierce County stole more than half of the Nisqually Reservation and gave it to the Army. Joint Base Lewis McCord sits out there like a massive empty breakwater against King/Pierce County growth.
Eventually Sparkland will reach around through Roy and Yelm and connect with Lacey. But, for the time being, we’re safe.
Connecting us to Seattle via convenient rail is just one more way to make Olympia a bedroom community living in the shadow of Seattle and King County.
And, in at least one part of my brain, more people living in Olympia and commuting up to Seattle for work is not a good thing.
Now, using that old Lacey to Olympia rail line that we turned into a glorified sidewalk for light-rail, a way to just get around town? Thats a great idea?
Maybe just using the old spur of that lost rail line as a Sound Transit alternative to Centennial Station. I don’t know, maybe? Better than downtown Olympia, I suppose.
1. Wow. The best blog in Olympia delivers again. This makes my post about Olympia and Sound Transit look like historic revisionism crap. Read this post (Link Fixed! Thanks TVDinner!) that dives really deep in to the policy of local rail.
2. Ecotone is an Olympia blog. Maybe not about Olympia, but blogged from Olympia. So, Maybe the 12th man should be for the greater good.
3. Gary also blogs from Olympia. He is NOT retired guys.
4. Why do they want to close the art gallery at Evergreen?
5. The future of the Co-op, being surveyed.
 |
| Connect one of those green lines up with the light blue line: BANG. Passenger rail! |
I swear I was going to write this piece way before the Olympian had a story yesterday. But, here it is: you know there used to be a rail line that passed through Lacey from a connection with a major line and into downtown Olympia?
Did you know that that rail line closed down in the 1990s and was eventually turned into a walking trail? And, did you know this sort of railbanking is sometimes reversed, trails back into rails-style?
Unfortunately, what was eventually turned into the Woodland Trail wasn’t railbanked at all, it was abandoned and taken over by the cities. Railbanking implies a continued ownership by a railroad company and a temporary use as a public trail.
From what I can tell, Burlington Northern totally walked away from the old line.
There is one section at the edge of the Lacey border that is still owned by Burlington Northern, but the rest of the old rail line is now owned by Lacey and Olympia.
And a discussion between local leaders about 10 years ago about local rail options didn’t cover reactivated this line much at all.
Here’s what I don’t get about what was going on in Olympia and Thurston County in the early 1990s. Why not use the old rail line as a passenger terminal, a way to bring Amtrack into Olympia proper?
This is the is the same era that saw the old Amtrack shed at East Olympia replaced with a semi-useful station at Yelm Highway. The Centennial Station is still way out in the sticks though. So, instead of taking of half-step with Centennial, why grab the old Burlington line through Lacey and into Olympia and go whole hog and bring Amtrack Trains downtown?
I’m sure there would have been logistical challenges with turning a passenger train around Union Pacific line south of town, and possibly other logistical challenges I’m not getting. But, the history I’ve found no discussion at all about the idea. We seemed stuck on having passenger rail all the way out beyond Lacey and turning over an urban rail line to a trail.
Just seems weird to me.
I’m typing this post out Saturday night before the Seahawks second Superbowl in two year. The third their entire history.
I meant to write this for last Thursday, but I got sidetracked by my sudden fascination with Olympia history. So, on the Monday after the Superbowl, this may seem like the most irrelevant post ever.
And, first, before I launch into my main point, just a memory. I don’t remember the year exactly, but I do remember the feeling. I was a transplanted Seattle everything sports fan in Delaware. My family had moved there at the beginning of middle school. It was likely the best way I could exercise my feelings that I never wanted to move away from Washington.
But, whenever there was a Seattle team on cable sports or any national broadcast, I’d sit down and watch. I spent a lot of time trying to decide whether it was the Detriot Lions or the Seahawks playing. Those that remember the gray Hawks helmets will get that one.
Anyway, this particular game was a Monday nighter in Seattle. The era of Cortez Kennedy. Boy, they sucked. The announcers were disgusted. The Seahawks were really really bad. I mean bad.
But, I wanted to watch and the announcers openly grumbled why such a bad team would be featured in the national spotlight. I really just wanted to see the Hawks and the interstitial shots of Seattle.
Anyway, there’s my best (aside from making a 1995 Seattle Mariners scrapbook, also in Delaware) Seattle sports bonafide.
And, here’s my thought about all the new people who did not notice when Russell Wilson was drafted, but seem to know a hell of a lot about him now. To all the new fans of the Seahawks who will likely not pay much attention when they’re losing again. To everyone who owns way more Hawks stuff than me (one t-shirt vs. like 20 Sounders items).
To all of you (I won’t say bandwagoners) enthusiastic folks: Welcome. You are my people. You weren’t with me on that sad Monday night in Delaware, but you’re here now. And, that’s all that matters to me.
I kind of wrote about my feelings on this topic here. But, this what I’m writing now is more personal.
I will share one anecdote of new found fandom and then I’ll stop. One of my coworkers about 15 months ago could not care less about the Hawks. Despite living in western Washington for years, I suppose sports just isn’t her thing.
But, she is a writer. She tells stories for a living, so after slowly creeping into following the Hawks a little last year, this year, she’s thrown herself into it with a sudden fervor of the converted. And, the way she explains it is that the Hawks are like a really good t.v. show.
The games have a plot, they have emotional peaks. There are also interesting characters on the team that shape how the game develops. Quiet destroyer Lynch. Honorable leader Wilson. Wild genius Sherman.
And, in the manner that sports is really just entertainment, her entry into the Hawks is an honest one.
You may still have not a deep understanding of Seahawk history. Dave Krieg small hand jokes are lost on you, sure. But, you’re here. And, you came here your own way. In an honest way. So, thanks. Hopefully you’re here for awhile.
Wouldn’t you want an updated version of this view?
You don’t need me out there with you. But, let me show you what I came up with about seven years ago:
Thurston County sent out a press release recently that seems to be pointing in the right direction. Actually nothing at all though:
“Implementation of this integrated document management system will provide easy access to court documents, the ability to store documents locally and is cost effective to maintain. This system will benefit all parties involved.” said Enlow.
You know, except the public.
What Enlow is talking about here is an internal document and work management system between the various threads of the local legal system. Judges, bureaucrats and the clerk being all on the same, updated system. But, this — as far as I can tell — is an inward facing system. It doesn’t do anything to provide public access to records within the court system.
And (I note in a very self referential manner) is a problem in Washington State.
We have strong laws protecting public access to public records in this state. Except when it comes to records in our courts. There is a clear common law (legal tradition) in that court records are public, but we’re charge exorbitant prices for court filings. In one case, I could’ve paid $30 for a 16 page document for a case concerning a ballot initiative.
The reason behind this paywall is a state law amended ten years ago that allow county clerks to charge a steep price for digital public records, well beyond the costs allowed by our other state public records laws.
Not every county collects these fees. Whatcom County stands out as a local government that allows free access to its citizens. According to the Whatcom County clerk, Dave Reynolds, this both lowers costs to his staff, but also provides free access (yeah!) regardless of income.
The Case Management System of Superior Courts referred in the press release above was literally the most prominent issue in the clerk race last year. The eventual winner wanted to join the statewide system now being developed. The loser wanted a home-brewed system. Literally an entire race bent on which backroom computer system the clerks and courts should use.
I’d rather we spend our time opening up public records to the public. We should either pull back the 2005 law change or ask our clerks to be more like Whatcom.
I’m not going to bother really trying to prove this observation with numbers. But, here’s how my headline reading brain had divided up the legislative coverage and use of the term Olympia:
But, why is Crosscut the worst at using the term Olympia in a way that makes me mad?
For as much talk as their is about “a new model of journalism” (and I think Crosscut is doing a pretty good job at what they do), Crosscut was founded by a lot of well meaning people from a previous generation of Seattle well-doers.
And, I think that’s the point. Using Olympia as a shorthand for state government, the legislature or even the governor, seems to be a practice of people who have been around Puget Sound politics for awhile. Olympia is down there, its nearby, it is where politics on a certain level happen in this state.
Olympia is close enough to know it is there, but to also misunderstand.
The Spokesman Review, on the other hand, is literally geographically removed from this. Olympia is not nearby. It might as well (and historically likely could have been) practically been in another state. Olympia is not a placemark for people outside of the Puget Sound. So, when it comes to state government, or the legislature, they are literally the state government and the legislature.
So, if you’ve gotten to the end of this piece and you have no idea at all what I’m talking about, follow the “metonymy of Olympia” link directly under the headline and see how far you can read.
© 2025 Olympia Time
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑