Olympia Time

Olyblogosphere links for January 27 (I'm ready to think about snow again edition)

2012-01-27T05:40:00.000-08:00

Snow. Damn snow. Now you all know why I hate snow.

1. Calavara brings us two comics about the snow. The first of which I identify with very much.

2. snow! blog Elaine. And then, On being a ped in the snow:

What can be done about sidewalks & crossings? I understand that there aren’t resources for city to clear any sidewalks and that it’s not legally the city’s responsibility. However, a week & a half after start of the storm, several days after melt started, sections of arterial sidewalks are still nearly impassible. There’s multiple areas VERY slick ice, never shoveled, trampled down into hard crust over the sidewalk.

3. And, just to round out snow related blog posts, Flummel, Flummer, Flummo: we gots Snow!

4. Of course there are a lot of snow related videos posted lately, but these two speak to me. Kids going down a little hill (from clwtrip).

And, of course, trying to make sure everyone gets treated fairly.

At least three historic narratives out there on the Thurston County public power debate

2012-01-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

Chris Stearn's piece on why we should consider a public power utility included references to at least three historic episodes when we did consider it before.

First:

It first came about with the formation of our own public utility district (PUD) in 1938. The long period of court battles that ensued failed to bring the PUD into the electrical business.

Second:

Several more attempts were made up to the early 1960's when one of two supportive commissioners died suddenly, leaving the other hopelessly deadlocked with the third commissioner. Future elected commissioners later overturned the entire effort.

Third:

During our PUD's first 23 years the issue went before the Federal Court and involved several other county PUDs' attempt to take over Puget Power as well as another private utility. The last eruption 50 years ago even sparked a highly polarized dramatic debate in the state Capitol and led to the removal of the pro-public power and long time Speaker of the House, John L. O'Brien by defections from within his own Democratic Party.

The third episode sounds very familiar to me, I'm pretty sure it was referenced in chapter 5 of the recent Slade Gorton biography. I'm hoping that "People, politics & public power" has some answers.

New project: history of the Washington State Precinct Committee Officer

2012-01-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

Someday soon, the sun may set on the precinct committee officer in Washington State. Stemming from various lawsuits connected to primary elections, the PCO seems to be an endangered species. The two major parties are suing the save the PCO-as-is.

So, it seems like a good time to start reviewing where exactly the PCO came from and how it has evolved in Washington State.

First, I want to explore the evolution of the PCO from creation to today. At minimum, I want to track the interest in the PCO position by looking at historic election results. The data I'll look at is the only historic archive of county level election results I could find from a major Puget Sound county.

Snohomish County election results, 1892 to present

I'll use this spreadsheet to parse out the PCO results by the number of people who filed compared to the total number of PCO positions and also the number of races that had more than one candidate (so were actually competitive). I suspect we'll find a steady decline in participation and interest in PCO elections between 1908 and today. Feel free to dive right into the data and help out.

Secondly, I want to track the origin of the PCO in policy. So far, I've come up with this speech which explains the impact and origin of the "direct primary" in Washington State. The creation of the direct primary was a direct cause of the PCO, so I hope it'll help out.

I have my own history with the PCO position. Here's a peak at how I actually feel about the PCO. One blog post from 2007 where I blast the PCO as "undemocratic" (Undemocratic nature of PCO elections and how it could impact the state central committee). Also, an archive of posts from earlier in the year in chronicling an effort I helped with to create a membership-based county Democratic organization (Olympia Time: PCO label). Some might say I wanted to dilute the power of the PCO, and some might be right.

But, we did build the Hotel Olympia

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, I ironically pointed out the Wenatchee's bad policy process was something Olympia avoided almost ten years ago now.

The Hotel Olympia, from the UW Library.

But, if we go back over 120 years to right about the time of statehood when the city was desperately trying to hold onto the capitol, we see a much different decision from Olympians.

Not only did we build that thing (in this case, the Hotel Olympia) but we avoided using public money. Over 70 percent of the cost of the hotel (over $2.5 million today) came from local investors in the Olympia Hotel Corporation. The other 30 percent came from a loan taken out by the corporation.

From Rogues, Buffoons and Statesmen:

Another short coming of the hopeful state capital was correct in a much grander manner. For years the legislators had been complaining that Olympia didn't have a really first class hotel. Most of them took the cheapest available quarters in third-rate rooming houses and private homes...

The shortcoming's of Olympia (and Thurston County) of not having a true conference center was, if I recall correctly, one of the driving arguments in 2003, and again recently.

The hotel was located just south of today's Governor Hotel on Capitol Way between 7th and 8th, with its back up to the old Deschutes waterway (or Deschutes River estuary) which had not been filled in yet.

And, not unlike Wenatchee's Toyota Center, the Hotel Olympia, quickly fell upon hard times. According to Newell in Rogues (again) by 1894 the city forgave the hotel its tax burden in order for it to stay afloat. A year later, the mortgage on the last 30 percent came due and the Olympia Hotel Corporation went bankrupt, closing the hotel's doors.

At this point, city officials went hat in hand (Wenatchee style) to the governor. In the case of 1890s, Olympia's city leaders didn't want a straight bailout, but rather a jump start of the local economy by finishing the incomplete Flagg capitol.

Olyblogosphere links for January 14 (Sunrise, sunset)

2012-01-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

1. From our corner brings us a sunrise over the FLOD. Grsshpprkm bring us a sweet sunset:

2. Another great local webshow is "Around Thurston County." Its also on local cable, but the creator is posting his shows online as well. Here's Olympia's new mayor.

3. Here's a post from the Yelm Highway Project blog on what the what is with the signals at Rich Road. Which, for people heading west every morning (to me it seems as I pass them heading east) is a big deal. Its a nice reminder of a good local government blog, but also because I now know that Setina is that business at that corner. They build bumbers, which is pretty cool.

4. Erica's Garden writes about sun tracking, with a pretty smashing graphic she made herself.

5. I feel bad linking to this one, but you have to know that the county spent money on a video about our bridges.

(The greater) Olympia (area, well Tumwater) has a (semi) pro (indoor) soccer team (for now)

2012-01-14T19:09:00.000-08:00

Boy, how did this one get by me? The Sound Sound FC Shock, an indoor soccer team that plays in the Nortwest Division of the PASL, will play their home schedule in Tumwater:

South Sound Shock FC has received an offer that was too good to refuse from Tumwater Indoor Sports Center and Marian Bowers, owner of Tacoma Stars Pro-PASL team and NW PASL Premier League manager, to play at her new facility in Tumwater. Her brand new facility and field are available to SSFC on Saturday nights, this was a huge drawback to us at Gig Harbor because we were told a month ago that we would have to move our games to Sundays. The other teams that will have to travel to play SSFC will appreciate the opportunity to play on Saturdays as it works better for everyone. Saturdays are also more convenient and fun for both our sponsors and players.

Tumwater Indoor Sports Center has a brand new field and set of boards, the field is a little larger than Gig Harbor so it will provide a better environment for high level PASL play. We believe we can get more fans into this arena and we also have the possibility to serve beer at this facility.

I was about three minutes from bundling everyone up and making the 10 minutes drive to the arena. You can't beat $5 for a game and I'll be at least making the next game.

Compost City vs. Sanitation Twins

2012-01-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

Two videos that perfectly contrast Olympia vs. Portland.

Both cities care enough about the waste stream management to make fun of it, but Olympia's version is more hyper and homespun.

Planning commissioner blogging from Olympia and Lacey

2012-01-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

Both Olympia and Lacey have at least one planning commissioner blogging about public issues. That's where similarities diverge. For example, take the posts from each on December 5, 2011.

Lacey's Raymond Payne: Politicians Should Be Honest About New Norm:

Our politicians continue to sock it to us with higher taxes and fees, then still expect us to go out and spend. Spend what? We saw that during the LFD 3 levy lid lift request. Supporters said, “you can give up that latte to pay for this added tax.” Maybe they drinking a Latte a day, but most people don’t.

Olympia's Mark Derricott: OPC: December 5, 2011 Regular Meeting Agenda:

The major item is the Shoreline Master Program with the setbacks and potentially heights along the shoreline as presribed in the draft chapters of 5 and 6 of the SMP. Most of the deliberation will be comprise a vote on setback limits that did not result in consensus in the previous SMP Subcommittee meetings.<

Whereas both cover public issues, Derricott's posts almost rabidly focus solely on his role as a planning commissioner (sometimes in very deep detail). Payne has almost never talked about the planning commission, and as of tonight, never actually talked about the business of the Lacey planning commission.

Just on the face, Derricott is the planning commissioner who blogs while Payne is the local political blogger who is also a planning commissioner.

Welcome to Olympia! (kicking off metonymy of Olympia for 2012)

2012-01-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Olympia kind legislature, crafty lobbyist, wise reporter, diligent blogger and temporary Olympia-area resident during legislative session,

Here is your handy guide to keeping me calm for the next 60 days or so. First, here's your new word of the day: metonymy.

You've seen metonymy used before, even if you are unfamiliar with the term. Here's a short definition:

Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept.

More on the actual mechanics of the word metonymy later, but first just a simple request. While you're here in town, please do not say or write “Olympia,” when what you really mean is “state government,” “the state legislature,” “governor's office,” or “legislative leadership.”

1. Why this is a bad idea (for liberals, conservatives and reporters)

I understand metonymy, probably more than most people should. I understand the purpose of using a specific term for a broad topic, like "press" for the "news media," especially in a time when there are fewer and fewer "presses" in the "news media."

But, the use of Olympia for "state government" or "state legislature" is a hugely inaccurate and damaging
metonymy, because it misstates the nature of our government.

Because we elect our representatives from proportional districts, most of the people who serve in the state
legislature come from the urban Puget Sound (not unlike the makeup of the Senate Transportation Committee). So in this example, its more like the urban Puget Sound telling Seattle to "drop dead."

I don't have a problem with language short cuts. I have a problem with language short cuts that are dangerous.

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 surprises me and I think its dangerous: 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.

But, it isn't "those in Olympia" and it isn't "Olympia's" anything. Legislators are elected from communities all over Washington State.

While they may work in Olympia from time to time, they still come from places not near Olympia.

Calling the state legislator down the road from you as being "from Olympia" or part of "Olympia" makes
them a distant other that has little connection to you or your community. Which isn't true.

2. You think I care about Olympia? Look what happens when you try to use Oly as a world to mean "state government"

I get all Oly-er than though:

Olympia is the capital of the state of Washington, identifiable on maps in classrooms and travel lodges nationwide. It is a city that every elementary school kid memorizes (do they still do that?) as a state capital of a state near the end of the list of states. It was the first state capital and through a hard fight with Yakima and Ellensburg, stayed the state capital. Now we have fancy greek type buildings on a hill. It is home to state agencies, even the ones that are in Tacoma. And, for a couple months or so every winter, we're home to folks like Josh Feit, though we actually try hard to ignore them.

3. So Emmett, I agree with you. Your minor pet peeve is a horrible, horrible thing. How can I reform myself?

You're in luck. Here are some tips on how to say Olympia in the context of Washington State government without being a bad person.

There are ways to the use of Olympia in regards to state government that is not metonymy.

Basically, the rule is you're safe if you are saying "in Olympia" and not "Olympia did this." So, if you're making a geographic distinction, you're fine.

For example, Sen. Steve Hobbs (of some place up north I guess):

I fought hard to carry out the wishes of my district,” Hobbs said. “When we come to a consensus as a community, I am able to carry our message to Olympia and work for the necessary results.

Sen. Hobbs' example is great because he even cites "my district" and "to Olympia," making the obvious point that although he works "in Olympia" for a few months a year, he is actually from somewhere else in Washington. This is often something missed or fuzzed over when Olympia is metonymized.

And, an update from Rep.Reuven Carlyle at MyBallard. The headline states "from Olympia." The report
itself says things like "in Olympia" and "visitors to Olympia."

Of course the trains leaves the tracks in the comment thread below when a commenter says "people in Ballard are compassionate and will enjoy giving their money to Olympia."

God, don't I wish.

Not so sure about the "Denny Heck" district either

2012-01-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

In the business, they've called the new 10th CD the Denny Heck district, but I'm thinking Alex Hays might be more right. It could also be the Dick Muri district:

Muri is a Pierce County Council member who lost handily to Smith last year, but his campaign chairman Alex Hays said the 10th – which ranges from Shelton to Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater and then north to Lakewood, Sumner and University Place – favors Muri.

“They think they’ve drawn a Denny Heck district but they’ve accidentally drawn the perfect Dick Muri district. It’s roughly two-thirds in Pierce County and he’s a Pierce County councilman …” Hays said by telephone. “Even against Adam Smith who outspent Dick by [five] to one, he prevailed in Pierce County … The voters in the county have a really positive view of Dick Muri.’’

Last time around, Muri actually beat Adam Smith in the Pierce County portions of the old 9th CD.

On the Thurston County side both Democrats (Smith and Heck) did much better, but there are fewer votes to share on that side of the map. Also, there are some precincts that were in play in 2010 that won't be in play this year. I'd be interested in seeing a precinct by precinct breakdown, comparing 2010 Heck with 2010 Muri in the new 10 CD districts.

Forget centered on Parkland or Olympia, the 10th CD will be centered on JBLM

2012-01-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

Months ago I read "Patchwork Nation," one of those books that takes a long swipe at American Politics and creates an alternative to the Red vs. Blue model. I think it did a pretty good job, until I flipped forward to where it put Thurston County.

Instead of putting my home county in Campus and Careers (state capitol, four year college, Arts Walk, Procession, come on!) the authors put us in Military Bastions. Fort Lewis is nextdoor and militarily folks do live around here, but it just didn't resonate with me.

Huh, I thought. Well, they're model falls apart there, I'll quit reading this book

But, now that I take a closer look at the map of our new congressional district, I think they might have hit something I didn't see until now. Earlier I said that the new 10th CD will center on the Pierce County suburbs. But, now I think it'll center on Joint Base Fort Lewis McCord.

While the early scuttlebut is that the district is centered on Olympia, the nature of the district will be that of a military base town. Let's take a closer look.

Here's a map where I split the district into two parts.

Basically, the gray area is the Olympia influenced side (hippies, state government). The white side is the Fort Lewis influenced side. I did allow for a lot of cross over into Thurston County, but I'm pretty sure that's accurate.

The Olympia influenced side is 59.4 Democratic (from the 2010 Senate race) and is pretty small, only 148,000 of the more than 600,000 in the district.

The JBLM side is much much larger (521k) and only barely Democratic at 50.3 percent.

Here's a map of the district by how it voted in the last Senate election. The deeper the blue, more Democratic, the more red, Republican.

You can clearly see the heart of Olympia in the middle left is pretty blue. But, as you go out toward Lacey (especially the new Hawks Prairie neighborhoods) and into the suburbs around Lakewood and Parkland, the district gets pretty red.

The district as a whole still leans Democratic, but it'll be interesting to see the politics that can shaped by the politics of a base community. What are the issues that specifically impact these sorts of towns?

The old south South Capitol neigborhood (the corner of Capitol Way and Capitol Boulevard)

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

As you go down Capitol Way, before it turns slightly to the left into Tumwater is renamed Capitol Boulevard, it almost seems like it could continue straight. That little spur of a very wide street is actually a continuation of Capitol Way. It continues for just over a block and then just stops.

I've wondered why that road was as wide and significant seeming as the main drag, if it just served a few homes and ended. It was possible that at one point, that had been the main drag.

Here's the intersection I'm talking about:

View Larger Map

In the 1930s, the Capitol Way to Tumwater route was significantly different. In the Sanborn Map below (via TRL) you can see how the old neighborhood was configured, with one of the numbered cross streets jogging over further south and connecting with Tumwater.

Here you can see it in greater detail with the current arrangement.

While it doesn't specifically address the alignment change, this document from the city includes a pretty interesting history of the street.

Olyblogosphere links for January 4, 2011

2012-01-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

Just catching up on things. I marked tons that aren't getting in this time around

1. Great youtube video from jopomojo of the old Olympic Skate Park, that closed in 1982.

2. Walt Jorgenson filmed a lot of holiday light displays over Christmas. The best part is the Oly liberal chatter in the background.

By the way, "liberal" to me is not a perjorative. I just found the chatter entertaining.

3. Tobi Vail over at jigsaw is featuring a lot of Top lists recently. Two of the best are by some of our local librarians, Sara and Kelsey.

4. Campfire Island has a top 5 list as well.

5. Janine's Little Hollywood had been one of the best news blogs in town for awhile there. She went blog silent in May and recently updated the blog to explain why. Lots of work and getting married are good reasons!

6. Logo update for the Food Co-Op.

New congressional district to be centered on Olympia? (no wait, Parkland!)

2012-01-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

Despite the observations that Washington's new 10th Congressional District will be "centered on Olympia," it actually won't be.

While it really does look like the district is geographically centered on Olympia. But, in terms politics and population, the district is firmly centered on the Parkland/Midway/Puyallup metro area.

And, just a short note. If, in this redistricting process, if you haven't discovered Dave's Redistricting Tool, I'd suggest you check it out. Dave Bradlee has done a great service to all of us who like to tinker with this sort of stuff.

So, anyway, while the map puts Olympia at the center, the south Pierce County suburbs are the defining feature of this district. Just about two-thirds (415,000+) of the people in the almost 670,000 living in the district are in Pierce County.

The heart of the 10th CD

While the district as drawn is marginally Democratic (53 percent according to Dave's tool), a lot of that is sitting in the non-Pierce County areas. Without Pierce County, the district is more safely (56 percent) Democratic.

While there has been a lot of talk about how this Olympia-centered district will behave (Thurston County is heavily Democratic, did you know that?) there's not very much talk about how this suburban Pierce County boarding on JBLM district will behave.

And, don't get me wrong, I am happy to be separate from the almost Oregon that was the 3rd CD, but the one we're in now is a far cry from being "centered on Olympia." We've just traded one set of noisy rural conservatives for less noisy suburban moderates.

Olyblogosphere links (December 23, 2011)

2011-12-23T12:17:00.000-08:00

I like that I end up doing this on Friday. Seems like a regular thing almost.

1. A little history from Accidental Initiations 2 of those days in the early part of the last decade. Olympia newly minted as "hippest in the west" and other things:

During the show’s run we sold out The Capitol Theater every night but the impact was even greater than that. Like The Spearhead Sound Hours Benefit, The Transfused involved so many people that it felt like the whole town was in on the ritual. There was talk of taking it to Broadway and I am sure if they had, it would have stood a shot at Hedwig-style success. Sadly, like so many Olympia projects, The Transfused and its creators could not contend with the dangers of commercial success, so the production went no further than the city limits, and today it lives on only in the videos from its one production, and in the memories of those who were there. Even more disheartening for me, once the production ended, that sense of inclusion I had enjoyed dissipated and I faded back into the white woodwork of Olympia with most of my former collaborators walking past me on the street without any sense of kinship between us.

There is no actual evidence of this on the internet, but I remember one of the last (or maybe THE last) performances, the cast and audience of The Transfused invaded Lake Fair on an early summer evening and goofed around. Before 9/11, before the Nisqually quake that changed downtown Olympia forever. Boy, those were the days.

2. Yodelling Lama wonders (as do the rest of us) why Fish is the only microbrewery in town. There used to be that racing place in Lacey, but I don't think that really counted.

3. Alice (@wazzuoly) on her blog writes about the KRS-One show:

This pleasant night on the town taught me an important lesson. Every once in a while, I need to step outside my comfort zone. And I am going to do it. Too often we stay in our own little box, never taking the time to experience something different. It’s sad really. And it has driven this country so far apart.

4. Go Thurston, Sam Garst, environmental protection video:

5. Pretty picture of Grass Lake by Paul T.Marsh from the Olympia flickr pool.

Foster vs. Gorton, reliving the 60s with redistricting

2011-12-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

Since the redistricting commission technically still has time, they might as well take it:

Having already surpassed their self-imposed deadline of finishing in November, members of the Washington State Redistricting Commission said there is still more work to do and that a final deal likely wouldn’t come before next week. The commission has an official New Year’s Day deadline, or else the duty is sent to the state Supreme Court.

I've tried to see if anyone has mentioned this little historic fact, but this isn't the same time that Dean Foster and Slade Gorton have dueled over redistricting Washington State's political boundaries. The Secretary of State's blog pointed out Gorton's role, but ignored Foster's.

Gov. Dan Evans signing the eventual redistricting law in 1965.

Highlight showing Gorton and Foster looking over his shoulder.

Both Foster and Gorton were young participants during the contentious 1963 redistricting effort. Gorton was the redistricting leader for the Republicans in the legislature while Foster worked as a vital young staffer for the Democratic leadership.

Late last night I read the portion of the new book on Gorton that covered his role in the 1963 session (a pdf of the book is available free at the Secretary of State's website):

(Democratic senate leader Bob) Greive consigned the House bill to committee. The sorcerer had a gifted apprentice of his own. Young Dean Foster ran the numbers, tweaked the majority leader’s plan and gave him something to shop around on the House floor. (Slade) Gorton warned that two could play that game.

A lot of people, including some members of his own party, were wary of Slade “because he could just outsmart anybody,” Don Eldridge said. But Greive had way more detractors and clearly had met his match in Gorton. “I tell you, the two of them, that was a combination,” the GOP caucus chairman said. “I’d liked to have been a little mouse in the corner at some of those sessions.” 18 Pritchard said Greive was “Machiavelli on redistricting. He was too smart for everybody . . . until he ran into Gorton,” who “knew every jot, diddle, corner — whatever it was.

Grieve himself had some observations of the 1963 during his own oral history with the Secretary of State's office. Foster was so important that he would send state patrol cars from Olympia to Bellingham to pick up Foster from college:

Ms. Boswell: Dean Foster has told some humorous stories about you coming to pick him up in Bellingham and sending an escort to get him when you needed him to work. He was still a college student right, during much of it?

Sen. Greive: As I understand it, he was. I don’t think he was going to school while we were in the session, but I’m not sure. The other thing about Foster is that he had a tremendous capacity for work, as did Hayes. In other words, he understood what was important. He understood the question of timing and everything else.

Ms. Boswell: Do you remember sending some state patrolman to get him? Tell me about
that.

Sen. Greive: In those days we had control of the state patrol’s very existence and anything that we wanted that dealt with the Legislature, they were “ours.” They were most accommodating as long as it was something in an official capacity. If the majority leader in the Senate, or the chairman of redistricting or whomever, had something he had to have, they would accommodate you. They did that for a lot of other things. I wasn’t the only one who did it. But I did send the state patrol up to get him and take him down there to Olympia if I needed him. Of course I’d phoned them first and cleared it with them.

I really doubt Foster is getting rides from the state patrol this time around.

Foster pictured from this 1965 article.

Its amazing now with the aid of freely available tools like this, that seemingly everyone (including me) can produce their own set of maps. The process this year even included a DIY section for the rest of us. But, almost 50 years ago, the data was so difficult to parse and the politics so divisive (the legislature itself drew the maps), you almost have to wonder why it even takes as long as it does today.

In the end, how did all that effort in the 1960s work out? Well, let's just say that hopefully we do better this time:

1963:

It was unlikely in such a contentious political climate that legislators could come to a decision on a partisan issue like redistricting, and indeed, the regular session closed without any agreement. Governor Albert Rosellini immediately called a special session, but after 23 days, it, too, ended with no redistricting plan.

1964:

The Court demanded a speedy solution to the redistricting roadblock, but the order did not guarantee that one would be found. Weary legislators also wanted to establish a redistricting plan as quickly as possible, but knew it had to be acceptable to elected officials as well as the voters.

1965:

After forty-seven days of debate, discussion, compromise, and open hostility, the Legislature finally passed a redistricting plan. The measure called for forty-nine senatorial districts, with one member elected from each district, and fifty-six legislative districts

Why do we still call it Thurston County?

2011-12-19T13:26:00.000-08:00

It was early 1852 and the legislature of the Oregon Territory was meeting. One of the topics being discussed was the creation of new counties. Over 50 delegates had signed a petition for the creation of a new county on Puget Sound including much of what is now the urban core of the region. There was agreement all around that the new county north of the Columbia should be created, but there was dissent from one corner.

The disagreement came from the man for whom the county was supposed to be named, Mike Simmons.

Apparently the honor was too big for Michael Troutman Simmons, or "Big Mike," an early American settler of the Puget Sound region. And, in the early days, there was no likelier living candidate for a county to be named after. Despite being "unlettered," he was "generally liked," well known and influential. He led one of the early wagon trains into Puget Sound, but when it came to naming the first Puget Sound county after himself, he demurred.

With the delegates north of the Columbia set on Simmons, the rest of the Oregon legislature chose to honor recently deceased Samuel Thurston, the territory's first delegate to Congress. Between Simmons and Thurston, you probably could not have found too more dissimilar candidates.

Here are the contrasts:

Book learning: Simmons wasn't, Thurston was a lawyer.

Attitudes about race: Simmons helped George W. Bush find a foothold north of the Columbia, Thurston inspired and helped write Oregon's racist exclusion laws:

In 1850 Thurston also lobbied the territorial legislature to discriminate against free blacks, of whom few had already traveled to Oregon. Playing to the racial fears aroused during the Seminole Wars in Florida, he wrote legislators that allowing free blacks into Oregon would be “a question of life or death to us.” As runaway slaves had done after seeking refuge with the Seminoles living in the Floridian swamps, free blacks migrating to Oregon would “associate with the Indians and intermarry … there would a relationship spring up between them and the different tribes, and a mixed race would ensure inimical to the whites … and long bloody wars would be the fruits of the co-mingling of the races.”

How's that law degree working for you, Sam?

Attitudes towards the British: Simmons benefited from the the kindness of the chief factor of Fort Nisqually, while Thurston tried to cheat British settlers:

Section 11 of the Land Claim Act was a vendetta against former Hudson’s Bay agent Dr. John McLoughlin, and sought to deny him a land claim in Oregon City. Methodists wished to build a mission and settlements on the same property and by the time Thurston arrived in Oregon, the dispute was intense. Siding with the Methodists, Thurston falsely testified to the United States Supreme Court, discrediting McLoughlin on the basis of citizenship. He further accused McLoughlin of repeatedly trying to stop territorial development and personally profiting from land sales. John McLoughlin was now an old man and Oregon had been his home for many years. He had retired from the Hudson’s Bay Company and applied for U.S. citizenship. The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 held that McLoughlin's claimed property at Oregon City be given to the state legislature.

By the way, while lots of places claim Thurston perjured himself in front of THE Supreme Court of the United States to hurt McLoughlin, I haven't found any actual evidence of this. In his journal during the time he was in Washington D.C. as a delegate he never mentions appearing before or communicating with the Supreme Court or any federal court.

Also, in the years he was in Oregon, the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t hear any cases out of the Oregon Territory. Its more likely Thurston perjured himself in front of the territorial court, which is federal court and is still a bad thing.
Ironically, if north of the river delegates had held off for a year or so, we might not be saddled with Thurston County right now. The summer before the creation of Thurston County, agitation for the "Columbia Territory" began with a July 4 speech in Olympia. That eventually led to a convention at Cowlitz in the late summer of 1851, where the creation of counties north of the river was also proposed.

It took one more convention in November 1852 and an act of Congress in early 1853 before the new territory was created. A similar naming change happened at the territorial level as well, with the residents requesting Columbia, but with Congress replacing it with Washington. No word if the Columbia River itself disputed the honor.

Its important to note that in the creation of the new territory the folks from Puget Sound showed the important differences between themselves and their "Willamette masters." They delegates of the new territory early on rejected the racist laws Thurston himself put into place. A law proposing the exclusion of "Negroes and Indians" from voting was rejected overwhelmingly.

So, this gets back to my original point: Samuel Thurston is (in my opinion) not a worthy candidate for the name of our county. More over, we should go back to the original idea and name the county after Michael Simmons.

Three basic reasons why:

Thurston was a liar and a racist. Mike Simmons was not
Simmons is now dead too. So, like Thurston at the time, he is unable to reject the honor.
Also, Oregon can't tell us what to do anymore. So there, we'll name it whatever we want.

This renaming Thurston County thing isn't at all new, as George Blankenship put out in 1923 that we should change the honor to McLoughlin's.

I'm not that sold on McLoughlin, but I would entertain other entries. For example, I like the idea of a Quiemuth County or taking Mason County's original name of Sahewamish County.

Olyblogosphere links (December 17 blogs I miss edition)

2011-12-17T06:54:00.000-08:00

This could also be the decrobilia edition, which I've already memorialized here.

1. Arbitrary and Capricious (on hiatus since June 2009). This was beyond a public defender blog (of which there are more as I come to understand). I first came across it when I was building a reading list for when I blogged over at Western Democrat. The author at the time lived in Idaho, and around 2004-05 had smart things to say about living out there. He since moved to Olympia (weird, isn't it?) and subsequently had smart things to say about living here.

2. Scribblemark. (not officially dead, but not updated since May 2010). Great blog by Karen Patrick, reminds me of a proto Olympia Views, with its up close commentary on the Olympian. Loving Oly is a classic Olyblogosphere post and I hope it never disappears.

3. Public official blogs like Citizens for Karen Rogers. Unfortunately, many of the really good ones have been blinked off the face of the earth (lots of good blogging used to happen at rhenda.com). These blogs are a great example of why archiving local blogs is important. As we see newspapers retreating from covering nearly everything local, candidate and other civic blogs record our history and public debate.

4. If on a rainy night (gone since October 2008). Just a pretty good local blog, a great example of how links get picked up between blogs, especially as reflected in this post. He says something, someone somewhere else writes back and he writes something else that wouldn't have been written if not for a link into his blog.

5. Damn, almost forgot What this town needs (gone since October 2007). Best blog around for awhile, and something that really Olympia needs is a blog about what Olympia needs. Maybe a feature that can be built into a blog like Olynotes?

Olyblogosphere links (December 9, 2011)

2011-12-09T11:35:00.001-08:00

1. Everyone should love and read Mark's Notes on the State of Olympia, especially since Mark has to attend Saturday meetings during the holidays. Okay, all together now: POOoooooor Maaaaaaark!

His two post series on local economy is especially good.

2. The local state worker's union reaction to the proposal to lay off a bunch of parks people is buy yourself a Discover Pass.

3. krista and jess went to the Food Swap. Nice.

4. This isn't to point out that the Olympia Food Co-op has had some recalls lately, but that they post recall notices on their blog. Classy.

5. Ten Minute Show is always awesome (Path of Surrender!), but its worth just looking at some old stuff.

Gravity Appreciation Day throughout the perspectives and years.

2011

GRAVITY APPRECIATION from The 10-Minute Show on Vimeo.

2011 from TheSasquatchNation

2009, from when The Ten Minute Show was called The Sunday Report

6. The Sound writes up the problems SPSCC is going to have with their budget.

Dear protester on the cover of Olympia Power and Light: You Suck

2011-12-05T12:35:00.001-08:00

Specifically at making signs that avoid my pet peeve. I am 100 percent sure Matthew Green (the real Matthew Green) chose that picture because he knew it would upset me. Why Matthew, why?!?

Olyblogosphere links (December 3, 2011)

2011-12-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

1. Yodelling Lama: What is the proper mourning period for a tree?The answer is 3 months.

2. krista and jess: I called Jess at work and said, “Why does anyone buy microwave popcorn?” My mind is blown.

3. 20+ people are working on ThurstonTalk now. Wow.

4. Olyghostbusters (via McCleary's Morty), which seems to have stopped posting and is focussed on SPSCC's Lady in White. They're carrying both the pro and con arguments.

Its good they're being fair, but, their busting is certainly too journalistic for me. Proton packs please.

5. And, Dirty Laundry by David Raffin.

We never built the Capital Area Arts and Conference Center

2011-12-02T08:28:00.001-08:00

I'm actually surprised by how similar Wenatchee and Olympia are. Wenatchee is smaller than Olympia (31k to 46k), but in metro area sizes, they're about the same (+100k).

There is one significant difference. When Olympia decided against a supposed costly plan for a conference center back in 2003/04, Wenatchee went ahead with their events center, which now can't pay for itself.

The situation going on now in Wenatchee is surprisingly similar to the stories of future horror and woe from 2003 when Olympia (and the rest of the area) was considering what to do with our very own Public Facilities District. Back then, Olympia was pushing for a "Capital Area Arts and Conference Center," which eventually became the center point of that year's city elections.

I remember making phone calls for a couple of city council candidates that fall. Most people would get off the phone with me as soon as they found out the candidates' stand on the conference center.

Phyllis Booth from 2003:

What's wrong with a conference/arts center? Doesn't Olympia need meeting space? Won't the conference/arts center bring in needed business downtown and thus more tax revenue? Yes and no. As with any project, you have to look at the costs versus the benefits. Three expensive studies done in 1998, 2000, and 2003 by the City of the Olympia concluded a conference center will be a net loss or in my words "money pit." Furthermore, Richard Cushing, Olympia City manager, has written that the city's revenues are not keeping pace with the city's growth. He states that in order for the City to have a conference center that they have to determine what is a priority and to make financial decisions based on that priority. City officials have indicated that the conference/arts center will be paid for by funds that are now funding Procession of the Species, the Children's Museum, the Bigelow House, the Olympia Film society and other worthy non-profits.

If Olympia had gone forward with a conference center in 2003, would we now be asking for a Wenatchee-like bailout (setting up a metonymic showdown)?

One of my favorite episodes from that year's campaign was the opponents of the center standing in the back of the room during a day-time city council debate holding signs. On the signs were number like 90 or 85, indicating the percentage of each candidate's neighbors that were against the convention center.

The Capitol Area did eventually build some projects with our public facility district, but it was the less audacious Regional Athletic Center and the Hands On Children Museum.

Olyblogoshere links (November 28, 2011)

2011-11-28T15:35:00.001-08:00

1. Compost City!

The best of which is obviously the comment from Cathie Butler at the city, disavowing any connection with this awesomeness:

Although the person in this video says he is from the City of Olympia, this is not a City produced video and the individual is not representing the city or the city's Waste Resources utility.

2. Chum Salmon at McClane Creek.

3. OlyKraut!

4. And, last but certainly not least, Olympia Oyster Stew via OlyEats. A literal dream come true for me, I just wish someone would make this for me.

Olyblogosphere links (November 23, 2010)

2011-11-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

Krista and Jess on Thanksgiving for Busy People. It includes tofu, FYI.

Berd embeds another Your Daily Hour with Me episode that features him. Just worth pointing out that YDHWM is one of the best things to watch in Olympia, especially their Occupy Olympia content.

The owners of Ricardo’s in Lacey reviews West Olympia's La Petite Mason on Thurston Talk.

Harry Truman in Olympia, 1945

2011-11-16T09:25:00.001-08:00

Just over two months after becoming President, on his way to San Francisco to sign the UN Charter and just over a month before "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, Harry Truman came to Olympia.

Occupy Little Hollywood

2011-11-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

Another look back at the historic space being occupied in time and theme by Occupy Olympia, given the commentary by Ken Balsley and the news this morning.

Ken acknowledges the historic parralells between the Occupy camp and Little Hollywood, and even gives a short history of the end of the shacktown:

Some 80 years ago, Capitol Lake was the home to a similar type of resident. Shanties and shacks lined the shores of lower Budd Inlet, as the area now known as Capitol Lake was called. These hovels were known by the collective name of “Little Hollywood”. For years those living in the area were allowed to exist, but eventually, authorities moved in moved out the residents and burned down the shacks.

His history doesn't condradict the closer details, but his telling is a bit more tame than histories written closer to the closure of Little Hollywood. From "Rogues, Buffoons and Statesmen" by Gordon Newell:

It was felt, unless the outbreak of war interfereed, the long discussed Capitol Lake would soon become a reality and the city fateher decided, as a preliminary step, to elminate Little Hollywood from the shores of the Deschutes waterway along the Northern Pacific railyard.

The capture of two kidnapper-rapists of the town's last sensational crime in one of Little Hollywood's shacks had given the place a bad name and it was undeniably a civic eyesore. The residents were, in fact, mostly decent poor and eledery people trying to hold onto the last of teheir independence. Most had bough their shoreside shacks and floathouses from previous owners from $10 to $50. There were abotu 50 WPA families, 30 old age pensioners and a few direct welfar recipients. some of the mroe able bodied supported themselves with odd jobs and scavenging. oen resident was said to be a formerly prospurous farmer who had lost everything except $50 in the depression. He had spent his remaining fortune on the floathouse he occupied.

The city had been offered federal funds to provide low-cost housing, but Mayor Trullinger didn't believe in federal handouts. Besides, low rent housing might bring an undesiriable class to town... the kind who had the bad tase and judgement to be aged, handicapped, poor or some color other than pure white.

The people of Little Hollywood were served eviction notices and the civic authorities turned a deaf ear to their please for somepelace to go. One after another, the shacktown and its occupant surrendered and went away... some to rundown rooming houses, and fleabag hotels, some to other towns. A few of the old age pensioners moved to a modernized version of the old fashioned poor farm which was appearing on the Northwest scene. First euphemistically called "havens for old folks," they later became "nursing homes." The proprietors of some of them, then as now, adopted the adage of the poor farm supervisors... "The less you feed 'em the better the profit."

One after another the shacks and floathouses were burned or demolished and a civic eyesore vanished and was forgotten... just like the people who had been driven from it.

It was listed as oen of the proudest accomplishments of Mayor Trullingers administration.

From Dean Shacklett's "Little Hollywood Era In Olympia Recalled":

...city officials who barely had tolerated Little Hollywood during the worst depression years decided in 1938 that the shacks had to go. The sizable job of carrying out that order was given to W.R. Turner, building inspector.

Turner enlisted the aid of Beale Messinger, city police lieutenant at the time, and the two set to work. First, the ownership of each of the shanties was determined. This was no small job in itself. Then, each of the owners was served with condemnation papers.

As Little Hollywood's residents were evicted, their shacks were burned. Two years after Turner and Lieutenant Messinger started their chore, the torch was applied to the last shanty.

As Turner recalls, "Some of Little Hollywood's residents were pretty nice people, but most of them were bums."

The condemnation proceedings were carried out with a minimum of fuss and fury, the building inspector remembers. "There was one guy who let me inside his shack and then took a swing at me with a two-by-four," said Turner, "but that only happened once."

Couple of more points to make, this time with some old aerial photos from USGS's Earth Explorer.

One, while everyone points out that Little Hollywood was ironically located below the capitol campus, even if the shacktown didn't exist, the land below the dome would've still been unsightly to some. In fact, Little Hollywood likely owed its existence to the location of railyard that Newell refers to.

In this aerial from 1941, you can see fairly well how the railyard lays inbetween the settlement and Olympia proper.

So, while Little Hollywood itself might have been seen as a civic eyesore, it was the industrial use of the Deschutes waterway and poverty in general that put it where it was. Is it any wonder that the real modern version of Little Hollywood has been moved permanently to an industrial park? Even as late at 1957, we see Capitol Lake, lakeside industrial buildings and a fully functional rail yard.

It wasn't until 1964 that any sort of park was built on Capitol Lake, and when it was, it only occupied a small corner.

Occupy Olympia, Little Hollywood and 1933 at Priest Point

2011-10-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

Little Hollywood in the late 1930s (from here) overlaid with Occupy Olympia (from here). Click on image for larger version:

Since Occupy Olympia moved down to Heritage Park, I've been reminded about how fitting the location is for them. Before Capitol Lake, that particular place was home to Little Hollywood, Olympia's depression era shacktown. It was probably the most visible evidence of the Great Depression in town.

Slog also reminded me of the 1933 Hunger March, an important event in Olympia history. It should be remembered at least for the violence brought down upon the marchers by locals:

In March of 1933 several demonstrators from Seattle organized a march in which they demanded food relief for the unemployed. Once the marchers reached East bay Drive they were met by the police and vigilantes calling themselves the American vigilantes. Both the vigilantes and the police surrounded the marchers pushing them back to Priest Point Park. Once the marchers were in the park their attackers used broom handles to beat the marchers into ending their march. The attacker’s actions made sure the second march never reached the Capitol Building. All though the second march failed to generate legal changes the march altered the way history is told.

Little Hollywood and the Hunger Marches of 1933 are two important aspects of Olympia’s past that is commonly misrepresented. The Thurston County website claims that the Hunger March of 1933 was a protest of 5,000 out-of-work men who threatened to take over the Capitol building and according to the Daily Olympian “terrorize the town.” Sheriff Havens and his Deputies meet the unruly group with a cadre of deputized citizens.

There is no mention of the corralling of the marchers nor is there any evidence that the protestors aimed to be violent. This is the accepted history of Thurston County, not the accepted history of many historians. The importance of Olympia’s past is not being represented and we must not let those who suffered be forgotten. As a lifelong resident my call to action is clear. I must not only tell Olympia’s past but I must urge others in supporting a historical revolution.

Hello to Olympia Views, bye to Jim Anderson and a few other Olympia blogs of note

2011-10-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

One of the best local blogs to come along in awhile is Olympia Views. I'm not sure if the blogger is trying to hide their identity, but I if not I haven't been able to find out who is writing it.

My favorite post so far is this one on the possible impact of a Republican governor on Olympia:

This is a story that — at least in Thurston County — should not wait until the election season heats up next fall. Part of McKenna’s platform is governmental reform. The candidate is fairly vague on what that means, but at the very least one can anticipate that an entire generation of managers who have gotten comfortable working for a succession of Democratic governors may worry about finding themselves out of a job.

You also have to love a blogger that puts so much thought picking up my thread on a new library in Olympia.

On the other hand, its sad to see local blogging great Jim Anderson of decrobilia bow out. In addition to decrobilia, Jim also wrote the great 5/17 blog, probably the best education blog I've ever read.

There are a few other newish blogs worth mentioning: OlyEats and Purehunger (a local food blogs that are actually updated every so often) and Bibliosnack (a local librarian vlogs and blogs book reviews).

Why living in a college town is awesome (because we get Olympia Winter Nights)

2011-10-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

I'm not saying this is most awesome thing in the world, but its pretty darn awesome and this is the sort of thing we get because we live in a town with a pretty darn good college.

Olympia Winter Nights, a concert series put on last year at Evergreen that I really hope will be coming back:

Olympia Winter Nights is a live concert series created and produced by the 2010/2011 media interns of The Evergreen State College. ...Olympia Winter Nights will be an intimate listening and viewing experience for those attending the in-studio performances. Additionally, the concerts will be viewable by the entire world via a live stream on the internet!

Inspiration for this concert series comes from the long running PBS broadcast “Austin City Limits”, the 1990’s MTV broadcasts of “MTV unplugged” and the recent in-studio broadcasts of KEXP radio “Live on KEXP”. The artists to perform in this concert series will be drawn largely from the rich community of local talent. In true Evergreen State College tradition, Olympia Winter Nights will be complemented with experimental lighting techniques and infused with imaginative, real time MAX/MSP/JITTER light projections. A truly Olympian concert experience!

I especially like the opening, it really reminds me of Olympia and our winter season. Makes me think of home.

Also, in the tradition of things I like, Olympia Winter Nights posted up a free Season 1 compilation album. And, damn, you have to love that theme music.

Olympia Winter Nights Theme Song by Various Artists

Its like audio oyster light.

Bombing Harrison Hill

2011-10-17T11:14:00.001-07:00

It gets really fun at about the 1 minute mark.

In addition, some other great videos by TranquilSoliloquy, including the Geoduck Fight Song.

Making up for history

2011-09-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Tacoma expelled Chinese residents in 1885, so Tacoma dedicates a park and a Ting:

“This has been a long, long time in coming,” said Gregory Youtz, who chairs the Tacoma-Fuzhou Sister City Committee and emceed the event. “We hope this helps Tacoma tell its story to the world.”

...

“This will become an icon in the community,” project manager Lihuang Wung said. “This is where people can get together, get married, think about our history and think about the future of our community.”

Lewis and Clark stole a canoe, so the decedents of Captain William Clark gave one back:

More than 200 years later, William Clark's descendants will make amends by presenting a 36-foot replica of the canoe to the Chinook Indian Nation during a ceremony here Saturday.

"We talked about what happened 205 years ago, and we believed that things could be restored if something like this were done," said Carlota Clark Holton of St. Louis, Mo., seven generations removed from William Clark.

"I think everyone acknowledges that it was wrong, and we wanted to right a wrong," she said. "The family was very much behind it."

And, of course, we put Leschi on trial again and exonerated him:

The reason it is so important to exonerate Chief Leschi is for the multiple generations of tribal ancestors who have lived a lifetime with the frustration and anger of knowing what happened to the last Chief of Nisqually.

I like this idea of returning to history, pulling back how the people came before us acted, and attempting to recognize and repair. Its a short-sighted point of view to say that none of us alive today were responsible for expelling the Chinese, stealing a canoe or killing Leschi, so why should we go through the process of honoring the better choices our ancestors could have made?

We do because history matters and its worth pointing out in a very deliberate (a ceremony or historic trial) and long lasting (a park) manner that something bad happened and we'd like not to repeat it.

That said, Olympia has some very dark acts near our founding that we should deal with. Olympia in the 1850s wasn't a very nice place at all:

Also worth noting is that Thurston County was named for a person who once said this:

[It] is a question of life or death to us in Oregon. The negroes associate with the Indians and intermarry, and, if their free ingress is encouraged or allowed, there would a relationship spring up between them and the different tribes, and a mixed race would ensure inimical to the whites; and the Indians being led on by the negro who is better acquainted with the customs, language, and manners of the whites, than the Indian, these savages would become much more formidable than they otherwise would, and long bloody wars would be the fruits of the comingling of the races. It is the principle of self preservation that justifies the actions of the Oregon legislature.

King County changed its name to elegantly avoid being named for a historic racist, might be worth an effort in Olympia.

I know I don't live in Tumwater, but why does the Post Office think I do? And, what can I do about it?

2011-08-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

I live on the yellow side of the line:

Since we moved a few miles last year, I've noticed that there seems to be some confusion about which city I now live in. Not confusion by me, but by the U.S. Post office. Its kind of annoying to get junk mail labeled with my address as being in Tumwater, but I know that it really doesn't matter. If someone addresses something to me in Olympia, it'll get to me no problem.

The problem has become when we contact the city over something, we have to first clear up where we actually live. Apparently because the post office thinks I'm in Tumwater, Olympia isn't always convinced which side of the line we're on.

Last year I emailed the city about an erosion problem on a nearby construction site and I had to email them a screenshot like the one above to clear it up. Now, a neighbor is being told she needs to register their home business in Tumwater.

Briggs Village is very much part of Olympia (heck we're in the municipal code).

So, how does one get the post office to change their mind about what city you live in?

Just a short note: everyone agrees where Quiemuth was killed

2011-07-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

It was right here:

View Larger Map

The highlight of Drew Crooks' presentation today (for me at least) was Drew placing Quiemuth's death downtown, not up on the Capitol Campus. Its not that historically significant, just a bit of pride that I didn't screw up my own research.

So, how do we go about getting some sort of signage down there, marking the spot?

Where Quiemuth was murdered in Olympia and why it doesn't really matter because we still need to deal with Bunting

2011-07-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

The last few years I've been strangely fascinated with finding out where in Olympia Quiemuth was murdered. I mostly wanted to find out because I think its an under heard story in Olympia, especially the reaction of our citizens that lead to the murderer getting off.

Drew Crooks will present his findings on probably the same topic (at least the location) next week, so now's a good as time as any to put out what I found. In short, I probably disagree with Drew about where Quiemuth died.

There are a few resources that firmly pin the location at the old Stevens house on the Capitol Campus (this one and Rogues, Buffoons and Statesmen), but I think they're mistaken.

The more I've plugged into this Quiemuth topic, the more I find the history of the area a lot darker than what is commonly known. When I read Mighty Mountain, it seemed that Binns was making dramatic statements about how some folks were back then. But, now, it almost seems like he was pulling his punches.

There was a least a minority of people for whom killing Indians was not a big deal, or at least part of why they came West. The rest, while they did complain a bit, did very little to bring the murderers to justice.

Read Sarah's Olympia 1853 and my Murders in Thurston County, 1854 to 1857 for more context, but killing Indians was a majority of crime in our early days.

In terms of Quiemuth, it all started out with trying to find where exactly in Olympia he died, with the the intent of possibly memorializing his murder. There are two possible options from my
research.

These clips (One, Two and Three) put the murder either at Gov. Stevens' first offices where the Olympia Center is now or at his newly constructed house on the NE corner of the Capitol Campus. Because of references to an alley way in clip 4, I tend to think its the original offices references in clip 1.

Also, the timeline moves very quickly in terms of where Stevens' and his family lived and when Quiemuth was killed. The murder occurred on November 19 and the family moved into the new house in December. Makes me think it is very unlikely the family would move so quickly into a house that was the scene of a violent murder.

Also, interesting enough, there is no mention by Hazard Stevens in his biography of his father there is no mention of Quiemuth being brought to the new (or under construction) house. There was obviously an office in the house at some point, but its more likely its the offices referred to in clip 1.

Then, I got onto the topic of who killed Quiemuth. There is a lot of thought that Joeseph Bunting was obviously the killer, but that the political sentiment in Olympia led him to get off. Bunting, though, was not done after Quiemuth. These clips (Five, Six, Seven) tell the story of a later murder by Bunting and family. Clip 8 fingers Bunting years later as Quiemuth's murderer, without any hint of controversy.

No direct evidence, but its pretty clear that if Bunting isn't our man, someone like him was. And, Olympia at the time failed to turn him in.

So, in my mind, a few questions remain. Where did Quiemuth die (hopefully we can figure this one out) and do we memorialize where he died?

And, does Olympia owe anything for Bunting? In memorializing Quiemuth, should we take the blame for our city not turning in the murderer?

What's going on with a home rule charter in Thurston County right now

2011-06-15T05:57:00.000-07:00

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 talk about the possibility of a home rule charter campaign. Here are the notes from their April meeting. While the notes indicate they were meeting again, no other meeting notes or notices are available.

The local Sustainability Roundtable seems to involved, making some moves in this direction as well. Here is a proposed position paper on local governance, which builds off the effort by the league.

Here is a version of the notes above from the April meeting, but with more references on the back end.

Here is where the roundtable will be putting their sustainable governance information.

So, it seems there is a new born effort between the League of Women Voters and the Sustainable Roundtable to create a home rule campaign. Nothing since the April meeting has happened, but I'm still poking around, seeing what I can find.

Thurston County home rule, STOP Thurston County and diluting political influence

2011-06-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

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 isn't necessarily that Thurston is liberal to the core. It literally matters how you carve up the county.

If Thurston County were to pass a home rule charter and create more elective districts, you could see how the balance of power in the county could change. Currently, all three seats on the Thurston County commission are held by Democrats. And they were elected by an average vote percentage of 56 percent.

Using Dave's Redistricting Tool (which has a county level redistricting option based on 2010 census data) you can start coming up with options. Here is what a five seat county council might look like:

Five seat original .drf file

Here is the Democratic vote in the 2010 U.S. Senate election (Murray-Rossi):

Olympia 70 percent
West Thurston 52
North Lacey 54
South Lacey 54
Yelm/Tenino 49

So, the geographically small urban district is still largely Democratic, but every single other district is balanced. If Republicans did everything right, you could easily see a 4-1 advantage on a county council.

Here is what a seven district option looks like:

Seven seat original .drf file

Again, the Democratic percentage in 2010:

Northwest Thurston 65
Olympia 68
West Lacey 58
North Lacey 52
South Lacey 50
Yelm Tenino 48
Rochester 46

So, in this option, you have three strong Democratic districts and then four which are balanced, with an equal number of those leaning Democratic or Republican. So, in a "Republicans do everything right" scenario, you could have a 4-3 advantage on a county council. On the other hand, in a Democrats do everything right, you have a 6-1 or 7-0 advantage.

I made a couple of assumptions that could be played with with these maps:

I will admit to trying to game the map by a little by keeping Olympia as whole as possible, thereby not spreading Democratic influence across the northern districts. But, I was just trying to illustrate how home rule would spread influence. You can download the .drf files I linked to under the maps to change my assumptions.
I also assume that the way county leaders are elected would change from a in-district vote in the primary and a county-wide vote in the general to in-district all the way

Either way, both scenarios show how creating more representation on the county level (more than our three current commissioners), you dilute the Democratic influence across the county. If STOP Thurston (arguably the most vibrant county level conservative movement in a decade) worked on governance issues, they could change the rules to make it more likely they could change the rules.

Immunization exemption rates in Thurston County and the Olympia School District (or 41 percent of kindergartners in Ferry County don't have shots)

2011-06-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

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 less healthy.

Turns out, Thurston County has one of the highest rates of immunization exemptions in the state. Or, the highest number of parents and guardians consciously sending their kids to school without shots.

Here is a map by county, and by school district and a spreadsheet with all the data. Not only is Thurston County a leader, but Olympia School District is in the worst category as well, rating over 10 percent exemptions of the kids entering kindergarden.

By no means is Thurston County on the fringe here, there are some much worse offenders. Like Ferry County, where 41 percent of kids entering kindergarden have signed exemptions in the 09-10 school year. And, that was after the rate increased from 8.9 percent in 2004 to over 50 percent in 2008.

Also, Klickitat County's rate went from 5.5 percent in 2008 to 21.6 percent in 2009. As the post at the start points out "(t)he national target is 95 percent" immunized.

Here's a run down on the current situation of how a parent can enroll and child in public school without a full set of immunizations from a legislative staff report:

...a parent or guardian may exempt a child for one of several reasons including if a physician advises against a specific vaccine for a child, parents certify that the vaccine conflicts with their religious beliefs, or parents certify that they have philosophical or personal objections to the child's immunization.

The staff report is on ESB 5005, which made the following changes to the requirment to be excempt from immunization:

...a parent or guardian must present, to exempt a child from school immunization requirements. The form used to certify the exemption for either medical, religious, or personal objections must include a statement, signed by a health care practitioner, that the parent or guardian has been informed of the benefits and risks of the immunization to the child. Health care practitioners may sign forms at any time before the enrollment of the child in a school or licensed day care.

The old wetlands below the brewery (Unpacking the Olympia Brewery Visioning, Part 2)

2011-06-02T06:23:00.000-07:00

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 most expansive.

View Larger Map

So, what I've been wondering is, since we know what was there pretty recently, what do we do with the area? Is it a good place to restore? Do we focus our commercial restoration on the old brewhouse and pre-World War II structures on the bluff on the northwest side of Capitol Way? Or, since this is a large flat area that's already been developed, do we right it off?

Why Olympia will never have a minor league baseball team as you know it (unpacking Olympia Brewery Visioning, Part 1)

2011-05-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

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 teams on the various levels are located. This is the rule that I repeat to folks like Rob Richards when they go on about building a waterfront minor league baseball stadium.

Short of it is, as long as Tacoma has a minor league baseball team, we won't.

Please consult your most recent version of the Professional Baseball Agreement. While this document is also the heart of darkness that is Organized Baseball and the great horrible monopoly that it is, it also includes Rule 52 "Major and Minor League Territorial Rights."

Please flip to page 151 of the pdf file (or page 130 of the paginated document). Rule 52 states that every club is given a territory of their own, in which certain rules apply to teams that want to operate inside those territories.

Basically, the rules are:

A major league team can enter a minor league's team territory for a price.
A minor league team can be inside a major league team's territory with consent or by being grandfathered in (and paid off, see Rule #1).
But, a minor league team holds a veto for any other minor league franchise wanting to locate inside their territory.

And the Rule 52 Attachment lists Tacoma's home territory as Pierce County. And, when you add on the Rule 52 15 mile buffer, you cannot locate an affiliated minor league franchise within Lacey, Olympia or Tumwater. You could get a team along I-5 just south of 93rd, but that would be way out of town. You certainly aren't building a minor league baseball stadium anywhere on the old brewery property and expecting an affiliated minor league team to play there.

That said, there is an exception to this rule. Just ignore the rule. There are many independent leagues that play professionally. Sadly, none of these operate in the Pacific Northwest.

Then again, we do have a league of our own in town. They play semi-pro collegiate ball, but they do play with wood bats. And, they're the best you're going to get for awhile if you want to watch baseball down here inside Tacoma's home territory.

Capitol City Bombers and Thurston County Senators (my baseball summer)

2011-05-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

In addition to one Mariners game with the family, my baseball summer will be solely around two teams: the Capital City Bombers and Thurston County Senators. As mentioned before, the Senators are the all-star traveling team portion of the local Puget Sound Collegiate League.

The Capital City Bombers are the local representatives in the Roy Hobbs system and, most importantly, they play a few minutes from my house at Olympia High School.

Holy cats, in my previous blog life, I was a jerk

2011-05-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

I'm manually scrapping the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine this morning for old posts from my previous local blog "Oly News Boy" (killed off sometime in 2004). And, man alive, I was a jerk. I know I probably thought the way I wrote back then, but damn Emmett, calm down, would you?

Here's an example:

See? SEE? I told you that Matt Heins was a freaking stupid candidate.

I knew something like this was going to happen, the law would eventually bite him in the butt, and for God sakes, he deserves it. Wasting our time like this, making the Position 3 race go into a primary like that, wasting the "tens of thousands of dollars" that he says that he's not going to raise, so I guess the freaking laws just don't apply to him.

"I know it was a form, but I didn't know it was a legal requirement." Nuff said.

My memory is fuzzy now, but I suppose Matt Heins ran for city council. Boy, and I suppose I was mad at him for not filing forms correctly.

Anyway, "Nuff said" Emmett? Who are you, Stan Lee?

Here's what I've saved so far. The plan is to repost them on the archive of this blog, so you'll get everything in one place. Stupid mid-20's Emmett and all.

One lesson learned, I have learned not to delete blogs without saving them. God bless the good folks at the internet archive, but I cannot for the life of me remember why I deleted Oly News Boy.

Japanese team not joining the Puget Sound Collegiate League

2011-05-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting things about the upcoming Puget Sound Collegiate League season this summer was the inclusion of a Japanese college baseball team. Unfortunately, a virus is making its way through the school and city, so the team is cancelling its plans.

Olympia Reign (Local summer semi-pro sports Part 3)

2011-05-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

3. Last (but only in my eyes) is the Olympia Reign of the International Basketball League. I'm glad this team is still around, but I'm sorry to admit that semi-pro basketball is in third place for me behind soccer and baseball. I might go see them this year, but that's still a might. They're out at Evergreen State College this year, which isn't a bad home court, just a bit of a hike. It might seem small-time, but it might be worth them trying out a high school court. I imagine St. Martin's field house is a bit steep in price.

I'd just also like to note the other reasons I'm lame for not trying to support the Reign more. First, they're name is great.

Also, I've complained in the past that there really is no minor or independent league basketball in the country, but that there should be. And, independent basketball should play along side college and the NBA on the calendar, not try to carve out a summer league like the IBL. So, if you love basketball and hate (like me) that the NBA took the Sonics out of Seattle, then spend money on teams like the Reign. Because only because of support by fans like us will the NBA ever reform.

That's true of all sports leagues, by the way. If you don't like the major league option in your area, for whatever reason, support your local independent franchise.

Olympia Reign are on the web and on Facebook.

Thurston County Premier FC (Local summer semi-pro sports Part 2)

2011-05-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

2. Second most exciting is the emergence of a Super 20 soccer team. First under the moniker of Capital City FC Inc. and now Thurston County Premier FC, this team will play a two month season in the United Soccer League's Super 20 Northwest Division. If you find that last sentence sort of arduous, there is a reason for that. While its a great that there is a local team in the deep and broad USL setup, its not at a level that most community's around us are already at. Bremerton, Tacoma, Everett already play a step above in the Premier Development League level of the USL, which draws collegiate and actual professional players.

Also, TCPFC seems to be one side of a division between two different organizations with the same plan, to bring high level (possibly PDL) semi-pro soccer to Thurston County. Over the winter, TCPFC seemingly broke off from Capital City FC Inc. (and on Facebook taking its arrangement with the USL to field a Super 20 team. Whatever strife is between the two groups, it likely isn't helping.

Thurston County Premier FC is on the web and on Facebook.

Puget Sound Collegiate League (Local summer semi-pro sports Part 1)

2011-05-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

All three local semi-pro sport outlets are either underway already or have their schedules up.

1. Most exciting is the local collegiate wood bat baseball league, Puget Sound Collegiate League. Think of the mythic Cape Cod League or the more local West Coast Collegiate, but just in Thurston County. Most of the games on the schedule will be played at the RAC in Lacey and the rosters are made up of college players on summer break.

The largest differences I've seen from last summer are the inclusion of a Japanese college baseball team (Riseisha College) and a full schedule for the league's all-star team (Thurston County Senators). The league is made up of a half dozen teams that play a full season against each other (mostly at the RAC), and also fields a couple of all star teams (Senators and Junior Senators).

You can find the Puget Sound Collegiate League on the web, and Facebook and Twitter.

Tono's landscape

2011-03-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

This is an attempt to show how the landscape of the old Tono site has changed in the decades since it was an actual town.

Here is a good a picture as any to show the general flat nature of the town in the early part of the last century (from UW Digital Archives):

Here is a aerial photo of the town in 1940 overlaid in Google Earth with today's topography, at a low angle, so you can see the warped layout of the town.

And, this is nearly the same perspective with the overlay at around 70 percent so you can see the current sediment ponds where roads had been.

This is the amazing part of Tono for me, not that its a ghost town, but that only a small pocket (on the southwest corner of town) was untouched after the it was abandoned and then the site was strip mined.

Tono, in 1920 population perspective

2011-03-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

From the Fourteenth census of the United States, Volume 1, a look at Thurston County and how Tono compared at its most bustling:

Olympia 8,537
Tenino 1,420
Yelm 1,224
Tumwater 1,197
Rochester 942
Rainier 776
Tono 625
Bucoda 517

Certainly less than what I assumed when I set out to make the list, Wikipedia had Tono listed over 1,000 in 1920, I was hoping for a top three finish.

Tono, Washington

2011-03-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

If anyone is wondering, USGS Earth Explorer sometimes publishes upside down historic aerial photos, thereby making it easy for people to mistake one town for another. On the original version of this post I used an upside down version of Bucoda, Tono's neighbor to the northwest.

Below is the real Tono, circa 1941, well past its prime. But, you can still see where the town certainly was.

Source: USGS Earth Exporer

Halfway through a random Sunday drive through southern Thurston County, I thought it might be interesting to see if we could get all the way up to the old Tono townsite. I'd read about Tono before, and after looking at where the old town was on a map, I thought there was no way the current landowners (Transalta) left the Tono Road open so anyone could drive up.

The road is no only still open, but paved with plenty of places to pull out and take a look. Transalata would probably prefer you not hike out too far, but let's just say its possible.

We made it all the way to the old town site. From the road you can see at least one old building, but other than that, there is no real evidence that anything at all existed here.

View Larger Map

This is most likely because of the extensive strip mining in the area since the town went into decline in the early 1930s. Tono was a coal town, and specifically, a coal for trains town. When the switch was made to diesel, towns like Tono had no real reason to exist.

The most interesting thing was locating an aerial photo of Tono (above). That shot is from June 1941, a probably catches Tono on its very last steps out. More than 20 years past its peak, there is very little on that photo that still exists today and much of what is the north part of town, is no under water in two sediment ponds.

Tono from Asahel Curtis Photo Company Photographs from UW Special Collections (more photos):

Tono from US Genweb Archive:

One Billion by Congratulations (in which I try to become a music blogger)

2011-03-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

From Congratulations on Bandcamp:

Congratulations is a four piece band from Olympia, Washington. The group consists of Jordan Ingram on piano and lead vocals, Abigail Ingram on bass guitar and backing vocals, Matt Buscher on guitar, and Chad Austinson on drums. The band has been described as "moody indie rock with occasional meanderings into jazz and country, jumbling it all together and spitting forth a sound uniquely their own".

Uniquely their own is probably over-selling it a bit, but they do have a good sound.

I especially like the single "Two of Us," which has a change of pace about 2/3s of the way through that is very cool.

You can download two albums by Congratulations free at Bandcamp. I suggest you do, its good listening. And, when I mean "free," its name your own price, which could be more than $0 if you're not like me.

So, onto explaining what this music blogging thing is supposed to be. Basically, just all local bands. I think there is enough in the Bandcamp Olympia tag category to keep me going. I'll be honest, this is more about another way to approach the Olympia topic than about music.

Yes, some of it, I really do like (like Congratulations), but some I won't at all, but I'll use it to talk about something else.

Also, this is a way for other folks who might not know about this local talent to get out and support it.

American Celtic clubs (Happy Saint Patrick's Day)

2011-03-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

Celtics and Celtic hoops are not an uncommon soccer team name across the world. Most popular obviously is Glasgow Celtic, but there are even some American Celtic teams sprinkled across the Northeastern United States.

Jersey City Celtics lasted five games.

Brooklyn Celtic lasted several years (eventually transforming into Brooklyn St. Mary's Celtic) and even won a U.S. Open Cup.

Kearny Celtic is the most famous and succesful, lasting from the Great Depression well into the post war period. And, now there is a bit of rebirth of the Kearny club, playing in the Northern Jersey Soccer League as the Kearny Irish FC. They even draw their history direclty from the historic Kearny club and play in the same facility.

These folks really need to sell some t-shirts.

There are even Celtics in England and Spain.

Murders in Thurston County, 1854 to 1857

2011-03-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

Just a little research from the searchable Washington Digital Archives.

11 total cases
7 are white people killing Indians
1 is Wahoolit, who killed Slugia, who gave up Leschi
1 is Leschi, who was blamed for killing McCallister, but who was later cleared
1 is Alki John, and I don't know who that is

Olympia Time #2: Tumwater Roads (or how I-5 really didn't kill Tumwater's downtown)

2011-03-12T06:09:00.000-08:00

Here's the new zine:

Mostly like the first issue I put out, this is generally a collection of the posts I just did about Tumwater. But, there is some new material as well to tie it together.

You can download it here: Tumwater Roads, or how I-5 reall didn't kill Tumwater's downtown.

When I put it together, I did it in a manner so it could be printed out and then folded in half, stapled and then read. So, keep that in mind after you take a look at your downloaded version.

The downloadable version is also pretty choppy because of its scanned nature. If you want a clean version, taken directly from the scissor cut and paste master, just let me know, and we'll arrange me getting one to you.

Olyroads.com, certainly bigger nerds than I am

2011-03-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

Their response, certainly parsing it more than I did. Point taken though:

It appears you're describing the differece between a native app (compiled and installed on a device) compared to hybrid and web apps. All three as classified as mobile apps. Wikipedia describes a mobile app as "...software which can be used on a mobile device. It also refers to the creation of special web and applications for mobile devices."

Many of Google's mobile apps are web apps running in web browsers on mobile devices, and Apple has a large collection of web apps on their website. Of course, Apple has popularized native apps and focus all their energy on their App Store, which only contains native apps which they can monetize better than web apps. But it wouldn't be accurate to say web apps cannot be mobile apps.

Olympia Roads was designed specificially to be used on mobile devices and was first released for the iPhone. Then it was modified to become a website. No further development is planned at this point since it serves the purpose it was designed for, but there may be enhancements in the future based on user feedback and the number of people utilizing the app. Let us know if you have any suggestions or ideas for improving OlympiaRoads.com and maybe we'll decide more development is in order.

Thanks, and take care!

- Olympia Roads Team

Who are these guys, though?

Book pictures from my Powells trip

2011-03-01T21:31:00.000-08:00

I go to Powells every few months, and this time it was to spend down some Christmas giftcard money. In addition to three books (Content, The Laurels Are Cut Down and The Good Rain), I got these off dust jackets of books I didn't buy:

Archie Binns, the sailing pimp:

And, the only photo evidence I've ever seen of Gordon Newell, probably the best historian of Olympia ever:

Olyroads.com, a really decent try

2011-02-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

During the snow storm last week, someone (not the city) put up olyroads.com and olympiaroads.com, which showed weather related road closures across town. It seems to be a simple trick of pulling information from olympiawa.gov and republishing it on a mobile friendly website, but its interesting enough.

Aside from calling it the wrong thing (its not a mobile app, its a mobile friendly web page), it does show the need for some services that in a very simple way and on a local level, let you know what is going on out there. I sent an email to their contact address, asking if they were thinking of branching out into other road related information (construction updates).

One thing does bug me, there's no information about who set the site up. No name on the site itself, no name on the email I got, and the domain registration is anonymous as far as I can tell. That's weird.

Snapshot Olympia (circa 1999): "Having money is less important than doing something"

2011-02-28T12:52:00.000-08:00

This is a VHS to Youtube quality video is really worth the watch, a lot of good stuff to take from what this video calls the DIY culture in the late 90s. Here's just a few other thoughts:

1. Strange b-roll shot of the Spooner Berry farm at around 2:20.

2. This movie is like a first cut of a portion of "Go with the Flow," which if you haven't seen, is awesome. You can check it out from the library here.

3. There is a quote at about 9:15 where someone is talking about how they approach a new project. The first step is going to the library and researching as much as they can about it. I like that sentiment.

4. What ever happened to the Olympia Film Ranch? I saw some references to it on the OFS site today, but nothing at all direct as if it was a happening thing.

2011 Northwest Book Mission: On second thought with The Big Burn

2011-02-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

Me over on Goodreads:

What struck me most about this book was the discussion of the political debate at the time. This will sound as more naive than I am, but nothing has changed in terms of how political debate happens.

Towards the end of the book, Egan points out that Pinchot understands how events need to have a narrative, and the side that succeeds in creating the most compelling narrative wins.
My only criticism would be that the end of the book seems a bit disjointed when he tries to tie up lose ends. Otherwise, great book.

(UPDATED 2-24-11) On second thought: I think this book missed some major points of view. Well, maybe not missed them, but I think Egan messed up by focusing too much on Roosevelt and Pinchot and not enough on Ed Pulaski.

In the book, the constant coming back to Roosevelt and Pinchot took away from the history of the fire itself and made it more about their personal history. If Egan had focused more on Pulaski, I think he could have a much more fruitful narrative on the relationship between East Coast and Mountain West. Pulaski seems to embody the well meaning but frustrated attitude towards the East that almost embodies the Moutain West. By making too much of Roosevelt and Pinchot, Egan makes Pulaski seem unreasonable. Even, when in the actual history, he is the most reasonable of all the players.

2011 Northwest Book Mission: my Northwest Shelve

2011-02-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

In the past few years I've been in the habit of noting a book of local interest and then filing it away for later reading. While they've been a large part of my reading list for years, since my time to read has been narrowed, they've been falling by the wayside.

So, this year, for no other reason that the list of books to read has gotten to long, my book mission is to polish off as many of these as I can. Here's the list of read and to-read books so far. The big ones I've tackled so far have been Winter Brothers, Breaking Blue and the Big Burn. I was actually surprised by how good a read Winter Brothers was the second time around (didn't even get through the first chapter on the first try).

Also, I should be posting my reviews here as well as Goodreads. I have a "on second thought" review of the Big Burn, which I'll try to post today.

There's something going on here (people writing about Olympia)

2011-02-18T14:43:00.000-08:00

After awhile of the Olympian shrinking and Olyblog be-bopping along after a couple of pretty good years, there are a few things worth noting about people writing about Olympia.

1. Everyday Olympia is back. More centered now just Mathias, it is back at least. I'm sad all of the old content is disappeared, but at least the site is moving forward.

2. I've pointed it out before, but Olympia Power and Light is on the internets. Yeah, this is important. I wish now they'd do a podcast. That would be cool, Matt Green and Meta Hogan talking every two weeks about Olympia and the most recent issue.

UPDATE: I didn't notice that Matt Green is co-hosting Joe Ford's KAOS show, which I suppose is a sort of podcast, minus Meta. It helps if they keep on posting the mp3s too.

3. Now, the important pieces: Thurston Talk is here. Its actually been around for awhile, but now they're actually hiring a writer to write about Olympia. When was the last time we heard of someone being hired to write about Olympia. Big deal.

4. Olympia NewsNW shows how varied this entire local writing about Olympia scene can be. Based on news in context (I'm still not really sure what that means other than it being pretty cool what they're doing), I'm hoping they start doing stuff on a regular basis.

Context to the old Tumwater downtown

2011-02-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

My problem with the historic sites (Crosby House and the Henderson House) in the old downtown Tumwater is that they have no context.

Whatever else was there before Capitol Way sucked the life out of it and I-5 buried it has been stripped away and replaced with newer roadsides, grades, landscaping and a big massive freeway. When you head north on Deschutes Way from Boston Street, you're going through the old downtown. But, there is nothing to really tell you that, even though a lot of the historic buildings were replaced by a flat grade on the edge of the Olympia Tumwater Foundation's Falls Park and the open flatness of the city's Historic Park.

Having some context of what was actually there, giving physical dimension to what is now open fields and cyclone fence, I think would be important. I'm certainly not suggesting rebuilding the historic town.

This isn't the first historic collection of buildings that have disappeared and replaced by open area.

I would suggest something like this:

Franklin Court:

Franklin Court is the site on which the home of Benjamin Franklin once stood. Franklin resided with his family in smaller row houses in the neighborhood prior to living here.

...

Since archaeologists have no exact plans of the original house, a simple frame in girders indicates its dimensions and those of the smaller print shop. Excavations have uncovered wall foundations, bits of walls, and outdoor privy wells, and these have been left as protected cutaway pits. It is all very interesting, but enter the exhibition for the really fun part. After a portrait and furniture gallery, a mirrored room reveals Franklin's far-ranging interests as a scientist, an inventor, a statesman, a printer, and so on. At the Franklin Exchange, dial various American and European luminaries to hear what they thought of Franklin.

Now, here's the big secret: Capitol Way killed Tumwater's downtown, not I-5

2011-02-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

I-5 may have come along later to bury Tumwater's historic downtown, but by the time it got there, Capitol Way had already stuck the knife in.

The best history of this, actually what got me started on this entire line of thinking, is Shanna Stevenson's chapter "A Freeway Runs Through It" in "The River Remembers." She points out that before 1936 the main drag through Tumwater dog legged through the old downtown Tumwater. After the current Capitol Way was finished in 1938, it bypassed the old downtown, leading to the creation of the commerical area down at Capitol Way and Trosper Road.

The red on the map below illustrates the new bypass, the blue, the old dog-leg road.

Going from crossing the Deschutes on a low bridge over waterfalls, the main road through Tumwater now crossed the Deschutes at a much wider point (a more than 1,000 foot span) over what is now the old (but then new) Tumwater brewery.

For over a decade before Interstate 5 uprooted the blocks old downtown Tumwater, the city was already abandoning its water-falls based history and moving south.

Tumwater's next roads (railroads)

2011-02-01T22:40:00.000-08:00

The next two roads in Tumwater that really interest me are the railroads. The Olympia Tenino/Port Townsend Southern Railroad and the Olympia Terminal/Union Pacific and the transition between the two show how roads changed Tumwater and how they changed the focus of Tumwater.

The Port Towsend line ran through old rive focussed Tumwater, connecting its industries directly to the saltwater.

The Union Pacific line (while it did connect through a branch down to the old Olympia brewery site then on saltwater) is certainly new Tumwater. And, through ownership changes in the early 1900s, both lines became owned by the same company (Union Pacific) and the latter replaced the former in connecting Tumwater to the Olympia waterfront.

In geography, here's the difference between the two lines. The Port Townsend line ran through west side of what is now the Tumwater Falls Park. Much of the current trail is actually the old rail road grade. It continued down the west side of the Deschutes River (now Capitol Lake) until reaching saltwater near where Tugboat Annies is now.

You can see the Olympia terminus of the Port Townsend line in the famous Olympia birds eye (from UW Digital Collections).

You can see some of the Tumwater stretch in this picture from the Washington Historical Society.

While the Port Townsend Line sunset in 1916, the Union Pacific (former Olympia Terminal Line) was being completed just a year earlier. This is the current line when you think of the Olympia Brewery. Going down Custer Way, this is the line you cross over. The one obstacle that the road had to face to get from up on the east bluff to downtown Olympia and the waterfront was the bluff itself. The solution was a tunnel under Capitol Boulevard.

You can kind of see the railroad tunnel to the left (we're looking south back into Tumwater).

View Larger Map

What's interesting to me is that while the new railroad, the railroad that started drawing Tumwater up and away from the river, seems so tiny compared to I-5. While tunneling under Capitol Way created a nice short cut for the railroad, it pales in comparison to the obliteration of the same hillside by I-5 just decades later.

All references in this post come from two wonderful books by James Hannum, that I wrote about here.

The Long Bridge (old Tumwater Road)

2011-02-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

Here's another view of the old main road between Olympia and Tumwater that is now just a back street in South Capitol.

"Long Bridge taken from the Olympia-Tumwater Trail looking northwest" From UW Digital Collection.

James Hannum's two books about the history of local railroads

2011-01-23T13:55:00.000-08:00

I was looking for a particular piece of history that I couldn't easily find online, so I quickly checked out every book at the Olympia Timberland Library that had any relevance at all to railroads in Thurston County. Two of them -- South Puget Sound Railroad Mania (a goofy name for a great book) and Gone But Not Forgotten: Abandoned Railroads of Thurston County, Washington -- are insanely good books.

I'm pretty sure I'd brought home the first book before at some point, but I don't think I gave it enough time to really realize how good it was.

In a lot of ways, the story of the South Sound can be told through transportation and by railroads. The dozens and dozens of timberland railroads explored by both books show how we really did interact with our landscape in a much different fashion in the past. Each small railroad was a different timber operator in a different corner of the region. Instead of residential homes on 5 and 10 acre parcels and hobby farms, we had a semi-industrialized, narrow gauge sort of world.

I was mostly interested in the lines that used to and still do cross Olympia. Going through the books over the weekend, I found downtown Olympia at one point had three different railroad stations.

Anyone that has seen the famous Olympia birds eye view knows that a railroad used to go down the west side of what is now Capitol Lake. Where 4th Avenue crosses that old railroad, there was a railroad station.
Most folks could also guess that the old white building between the railroad tracks and Columbia, down by Amanda Smith Way, was also a railroad station.
Most surprising to me, but now sort of obvious now that I realized how close it was to an existing railway line, but the Olympic Outfitters building used to be a railroad station for the ~~Northern~~ Union (thanks Andrew!) Pacific. The main line ran down Jefferson St. (as it does now) to the port, but a couple of lines diverged at Jefferson and 7th, ran in the middle of the block and ended at the station.

Trying not to get worked up by the metonymy of Olympia this year

2011-01-21T13:55:00.000-08:00

At least not on the blog. Twitter is where I'm letting off steam. But, there are a few things worth mentioning.

1. Chad Akins has surrendered. While he still wishes we could "earn our star," I think we should earn it not by letting the state off the hook for who they elect and where they spend their official time.

2. The Seattle PI is doing a very bad job with their Olympia Watch (boooo, no link for you), Dominic Holden at the Stranger has had one offense (gets off with a warning), and the Spokesman Review's Jim Camden is doing a super job. WA Lege is an awesome way to put it. That's a big difference when Rich Roessler ran their Eye on Olympia blog.

You know, I just realized Slog is tagging all of their state capitol posts as "Olympia." Now they're just as bad as the PI.

3. Bully to all the folks on twitter using #waleg. You are my heroes.

The Old Road that was Tumwater

2011-01-21T13:38:00.000-08:00

Following up on my other post about Tumwater, one I've been meaning to do for awhile now.

When people talk about the old Tumwater that was killed by I5, they mean the one that was centered along the Deschutes waterway (the same termonlolgy we use to talk about the Duwamish Waterway) and this road:

View Larger Map

This side street down the bluff in the South Capitol Neighborhood is all that remains for the old main road that went directly from Tumwater (New Market) to Olympia (Smithfield).

Tumwater and Olympia Brewery from UW Library:

Here is how the road looks when you overlay (from this map from the Washington Digital Archives) it with modern Tumwater.

And, just because I used Google Earth, here it is at a lower angle.

The main difference to me is obviously Interstate 5's impact, cutting directly through the landscape. Other than that, its striking how much fill has been added. The center of the old waterway is now fill, for instance.

If we call the basketball rivalry, the Capital Cup, what should we call a local soccer competition?

2011-01-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

Since Brandon Rosage is now doing a sports podcast locally, made me think about how I've been meaning to write more about local sports.

There is at least an exhibition competition between Evergreen State and Saint Martins, but there is no similar series between the local Olympia-area soccer teams. So, for the time being, I'm going to start keeping a ranking of the local college soccer teams.

The basic ranking will the point-per-game for league games between the men and women teams of both Evergreen and Saint Martins and the mens team at South Puget Sound (no womens teams). I know this is a bit late, since the college soccer schedule ended months ago, but I'm going to keep closer track next year, on a week to week basis.

Here's this year winner of the cup to be named later, the Saint Martins women, who earned just better than a tie per league game, with the Evergreen Men coming in second.

Games Pts PPG
SMW 14 21 1.5
EM 14 14 1
SMM 10 6 0.6
EW 9 0 0
SPSCC 13 0 0

So, what should we name it?

And, if you were wondering, this is my first post about what I want to call "real sport," which in this case isn't the MLS Sounders, but local college soccer teams that we all should pay closer attention to. And, maybe this ranking is a way of putting a better focus on the local college scene.

Just realized I tried something like this on Olyblog a few years ago and I called the cup the "Tolmie Cup," after a Brit who hung around here a hundred years or so ago. Maybe that's still a good idea, but I'm willing to take suggestions.

Approaching Tumwater's past fate

2010-12-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

Images from the City of Tumwater:

Being in Steilacoom for a few hours yesterday got me thinking about that old saw about Tumwater: that even though Tumwater city fathers invited I-5 into town to roll right over the old Tumwater downtown, it was a short sighted decision and ending up "killing the town."

Steilacoom struck me as what Tumwater could have ended up like if I-5 had gone around the old town. Slow, a few old commercial buildings tucked neatly into a mostly residential town. Probably smaller than it is now, depending of course on how close I-5 got to town. Probably what saved what we now know as Steilacoom is that Pierce County gave the outskirts of town to the Army to build Fort Lewis.

Anyway, first off, I took a look at what the most basic impact I-5 had on Tumwater. In short, did the city father's gamble in the 1950s, to raze the old Deschutes-side downtown for an interstate, work out?

So, here's a spreadsheet that puts together two basic measures, structures (which I stumbled upon months ago) and population.

There was an early surge in structures from Tumwater after the highway went in, but Olympia quickly took the lead.

In terms of population, there also was a surge, and Tumwater is still leading in growth, but their lead is shrinking.

So, in short, yes the gamble worked. By the raw numbers, I-5 coming through certainly had an impact and seemingly surged Tumwaters growth (and in my opinion) made it the town it is today. But, that surge is subsiding, and I'd even venture to say that along with Lacey being created out of nearly nothing, Tumwater's post I-5 growth advantage is now gone, and all the communities are on the same playing field.

Green River Pop in Steilacoom

2010-12-28T15:19:00.000-08:00

Bair Bistro, via flickr, by Suburban Times

Green River Pop has been around for years, and its one of those kid memories I have that I try to make my way back to. Usually I can find it in a random gas station, but for the past ten years, its been harder and harder to find.

Even harder (well impossible) has been the mythical hand mixed Green River pop, which I've hear of, but never actually seen in the wild. Until today at lunch when I drug my family up to Steilacoom to the Bair Bistro (former Bair Drug) where they've been serving hand mixed Green River pop since Christmas:

There’s an old/new item on the menu at the Bair Bistro in Steilacoom.

It’s called “Green River” (not to be confused with the coffee-colored liquid that meanders through Auburn), and the refreshing, green beverage conjures up a bit of nostalgia for those who remember “the good old days.”

A few days before Christmas, a handful of regular customers had an opportunity to taste-test this old-fashioned liquid while Bistro proprietor Sarah Cannon experimented with the recipe to replicate the perfect “Green River.”

After several patrons had sampled the mixture, Jane Bair Light, granddaughter of Bair Store founder, W. L. Bair, added her straw into the sample blend…sipped deeply, paused …and pronounced, “no, it needs a bit more syrup.”

The syrup/soda proportions, Cannon vowed, will be perfected by the time patrons flock to the Steilacoom Historical Museum’s “Living Museum” to order the renowned soda fountain drink.

Here is my photographic evidence. One with the carbonated water and syrup before mixing.

And, one immediately after.

When we arrived, we were informed that they were out of C02, so my Green River pop had to be mixed with regular soda water. My overall impression is that in terms of taste its very close to what Green River tastes like out of a bottle, possibly just a little less sugary.

And, of course Green River (soft drink) has a wikipedia entry.

Is there any place in Olympia that does hand mixed pop?

What the hell is wrong with Nikki McClure's "Speedy the Geoduck?"

2010-12-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

Evergreen is looking for a new Geoduck logo. Nothing wrong with that, but what's wrong with the great logo they've already used? And, from what I remember, its designed by Evergreen Grad and all around great Olympian Nikki McClure.

I remember talking to then athletic director Dave Weber when they (the athletic department) rolled out the new geoduck, which must have been maybe 10 years ago or so. He said it was drawn by McClure and that it would be a logo for the sports teams. I assume since then, its use has faded away, since its almost impossible to find online, especially on the Evergreen website.

Great logo though, they should really consider resurrecting it.

Well duh update: I couldn't remember where I'd seen the logo recently, and it turns out it was on an Evergreen website, at the bookstore. They're already using on hats!

On Karen Rogers public forums and the need for another organization

2010-12-23T12:50:00.000-08:00

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?

What will Washington State do with the congressional seat we're getting from New Jersey?

2010-12-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

In the data release today, New Jersey is losing and Washington has gained (you know, among other states).

I'm hoping that Dave Bradlee updates his very useful tool soon with the new data, but in my first go round, it really looks to me like the new district will be centered on Olympia, and bring in mostly Democratic coastal and rural counties like Mason, Grays Harbor and Pacific.

And, if you aren't satisfied with the online tool, there's a boardgame for you and your nerdy friends to help redistrict Washington State (via @epersonae)

Olympia Time #1: Welcome to Olympia

2010-12-15T21:17:00.000-08:00

And, its about metonymic use of the term Olympia to mean "Washington State government." Wow, big surprise, bet you can't wait to read this one.

Elaine Nelson was kind enough to write a short introduction, basically so I could say at least one other person shares by pet peeve enough to claim it in print.

And, yes, a lot of what's in there is already here on my blog under the metonymy of Olympia tag.

You can download the file here and print your own copy or just read it in the window below. I'm trying to find an easy way for folks to order their own printed copy, but I'm having some technical issues.

And, please, if you see any dumb typos, just let me know. I'll correct them and post a new version.

In preparation for later tonight, some metonymy of Olympia tweets

2010-12-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

Its getting to be that time of year when the metonymy returns to Olympia.

And, if you were wondering, down below where I reply to a tweet about a post by Sarah Schacht about the budget bill over the weekend and how it appeared out nowhere? That post is simply brilliant. Sarah's exactly the right type of person we need blogging, her stuff certainly needs more attention.

And, my little snarky exchange with her is exactly the reason why I sometimes go overboard caring about how people use the term "Olympia." Christ almighty, Emmett, get some perspective. There are bigger fish to fry, you know?

Arg @seattletimes "Olympia knew the lucrative rip-off was going on, and said nothing" and its because we don't like you #metonymy

MLAS: Pension Games, Seeds of Revolt http://is.gd/iN0JY #WA #Olympia #tcot #taxpayers #publicsector #p2

emettoconnell: @mlas seeds of revolt just in Olympia or across the entire state of Washington? I'm confused #metonymy

emmettoconnell: @SarahSchacht no offense but don't peg #Olympia for a lack of sunshine in Washington state govt #metonymy

SarahSchacht: @emmettoconnell I don't think you read my blog post; I documented a lack of public access to the budget bill, not transparency across WA.

emmettoconnell: @SarahSchacht I did, great post, I was replying to an earlier tweet of yours in which you used #Olympia in a metonymic fashion

pnwlocalnews: @GovGregoire proposes health care, pension modernization in biennium budget reform http://t.co/J5bpdVi #wabudget #olympia

emmettoconnell: @PNWLocalNews how about a hashtag for state politics that isn't about just one town? #metonymy

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

2010-12-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Look at this cool thing, you can embed city of Olympia council meetings now

2010-12-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

I'm mostly posting this because I think its exciting that the city of Olympia's vendor finally caught up and now allows you to not only embed city council videos, but choose where you want the video to start. This is something little old TVW has been doing for a couple of years now, but I'm glad the vendor folks have caught up.

For some reason, this embedding thing seems to be working here and not over at Olyblog, which is a shame, because I think there will be more people interested in watching these clips over there.

And, if you're really interested in this particular topic, read Janine Gate's blog. She's good.

Washington historic districts that have crossed the Cascade Curtain

2010-12-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I took a look at "Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts" at the Olympia Timberland Library and answered a question I had last time I thought about congressional districts.

As far as I can tell, there aren't any online digital historic congressional district maps online, so the 24 year old atlas is the best resource I could find.

So, in the past hundred years or so, since Washington gave up on at-large districts, there have been three instances where a congressional district spanned the Cascade Curtain:

In 1909 the 2nd CD
1969, the 3rd CD
1973, the 4 CD

All three crossed the Cascades along the Columbia, so there is no historic parallel what I do with the 8th CD (link above). Both the 1909 and 1969, it was the historic parrelell of the current 3rd crossing over, taking in a couple of east side counties. The 1973, an east side district came west and took in Vancouver.

I redraw your congressional districts so you don't have to (Olympia is the center of the universe, no?)

2010-11-30T21:34:00.000-08:00

I know I said I'd avoid politics on this blog from now on, but this really isn't politics as much as its playing around with cool maps. It all starts with this cool tool by Dave Bradlee that lets you manually redraw congressional lines. Its a bit clunky at first, but as soon as you get a handle on how it works, it is pretty awesome.

First, consensus is that Washington is getting an additional district after the census is done. Dick Morrill up at the UW makes a pretty good argument that the new district would be centered on Olympia (hey, have to be happy about that, right?).

What he doesn't really do is show you how that Olympia-centric district would shift all the other districts around. So, after about an hour or so of tinkering, here's what I came up with.

Statewide

Puget Sound detail

New 10th detail

Where I fudged the most, between Yakima and the Tri-Cities, using the population out there to balance out three districts.

A handful of thoughts on the work the redistricting commission has to undertake to actually redraw the districts next year.

Also, the here's the actual file that you can upload to the tool above to really see the detail of the work I did. Its certainly not perfect, there are some unassigned areas still and likely some islands.

1. Morrill understates the impact the new district will have on the west side of the state. I used up all of Mason, Grays and Pacific counties, including all of Thurston and a lot of Pierce to get the new district.

I did take his advice and moved the 3rd across the Cascade Curtain towards Yakima and the Tri-Cities. But, I didn't really need to take up much of those urban areas to balance out the 3rd.

The real impact came when I started balancing out impacts to the 6th and 9th made by the new 10th. I made up most of those eventually with the 8th, which in turn I made up by again crossing the Cascade Curtain into the Cle Elum and Ellensburg areas.

2. So, in the end, I solidified Republican seats in the 8th and 3rd by crossing over the cascades. Both east side districts were way over, so taking from them was easy. But, what I'm not sure of is whether a Washington congressional district has ever crossed the Cascades.

Will having two members of the federal caucus working for both sides of the Cascade Curtain help bring that division down?

3. On the other hand, I think I created a pretty safe Democratic 10th. Even though it seems pretty rural, except for Pierce and Thurston counties, the three rural counties mostly elect Democrats to the state legislature.

4. And, yes, I balanced this out by playing fast and loose with the area between Yakima and the Tri-Cities. Since I have the 9th CD currently breathing down my neck a few miles away, I don't feel too bad about the crowded Interstate 82 corridor.

Notes and links for "Olympia Journalism Club"

2010-11-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

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.

Couple of thoughts on finding ourselves in Centralia on Veterans (Armistice) Day

2010-11-13T15:31:00.000-08:00

Based on that I've never been to Berry Fields (love their blueberry jam, favorite jam ever) and that we had an open morning Thursday, we found ourselves in Centralia.

It was on purpose that we went, but it was accidently that we found ourselves on that particular day, 91 years after the Centralia Massacre, when six people died in a riot between American Legionaries and Wobblies.

The events leading up to and following the massacre (riot) are well documented, the UW library even has an extensive digital library, so I'm not going to recount the larger universe around 1919 in Centralia

But, just a couple of thoughts:

1. Less than 8,000 people lived in Centralia at the time, a pretty small town. Funny note, Olympia was about the same size at the time.

Anyway, everyone who participated in the massacre knew each other and had some history between them. The two main characters of the massacre were lawyers who apparently had a decent personal relationship.

Even though there were meta-issues at play (radical labor unions vs. conservative veterans), it was the personal relationships that I think color the history. This made me think about the current debate inside the Olympia Co-op community over divestment.

2. One of my weirdest experiences as a reporter was running into a lady that was in Montesano to research one of her relatives that had (apparently) either participated in or died in the massacre. She hung out at the newspaper office for an afternoon looking through our archives and then showed up at a city council meeting in Elma later that night. The police chief realized she was a transient and gave her a bus pass to Olympia.

I hadn't realized until she showed up at the meeting that she had no place to go and was literally living out of a backpack. She was originally from the Southwest (Arizona?) and traveled up here to simply research her relative's connection to the Centralia massacre.

Its a pretty big thing that would drag someone up with no money from Arizona to Grays Harbor County.

What should Evergreen do with its athletic program?

2010-11-11T14:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks to @downwithpants for the conversation to kick this off.

Dave Weber's seat was barely cold before his successor, Sarah Works is also heading out the door.

Weber left after eight years, because when push came to shove, the vision above him wasn't the same as his vision for the program:

"It came to a point where my boss’ vision wasn’t mine,” Weber said.
There is a push toward recreation sports, intramural sports and outdoor recreation at Evergreen. Yet there are no regrets, just differences of opinion.

...

“We had good support in the sense that most faculty and staff want the teams to do well,” Weber said. “But when it came to stepping to the forefront and truly advocating for a more prominent role for our department, most of that does come from within the athletics and rec staff."

Weber's resignation and Works appointment and eventual resignation seems to indicate a flux in terms of what athletics at Evergreen are supposed to be. I remember growing up, when there were no varsity sports at Evergreen. My uncle played for the Geoducks soccer team, but at that point was a glorified club team playing locally.

Bounce that against the Quincy Wilder led Geoducks, packing the gym seemingly every night. If Evergreen wasn't a good place for competitive intercollegiate athletics, why did it seem that that team (plus any other successful Geoduck team) was popular at the school?

The tin-pot band (anyone remember that?) made up of male 19 year old students came to the basketball games back then because the team was good and fun to watch.

Even though (we know the old tale of why the Geoduck was chosen) Evergreen was founded as a school that would never embrace big time college athletics, playing in the NAIA seems to be a way to a nice middle territory between Seattle University-esque small college striving and just not trying at all.

Weber did a great job for years towing this middle ground between "Undefeated since 1967" attitude and trading in being a college for being a sports franchise. I don't think the Geoducks will ever sell out the way some schools have, but there is something to be said for putting some effort into it.

Another note: There is another model out there, just not one that many have used. The BYU Mens soccer team is essentially a club team and does not participate at the collegiate level. But, they've found a way to still participate at a higher level:

Paralleling their efforts to increase the level of competition , Brigham Young University Soccer left the Collegiate Club division of soccer, and purchased a Premier Development League franchise, where they began play in May of 2003. Part of the United Soccer Leagues, this league provides the year round competition necessary to develop individual and team skills that in hand will better prepare them for success in their international travels. We are the only University sponsored soccer program to ever purchase a franchise and that competes at a level considered higher than NCAA soccer in the pyramid of U.S. soccer development.

Is there some future in that model for Evergreen? Creating a side non-profit organization that receives grants from the school to offer athletic opportunities for students. But, can be separate from the school and be able to raise its own funds as well. And, by looking for opportunities to compete at a high level in non-college venues (PDL, WCCL or IBL), it could still play at a high level.

And, just another thing: Don't you think an institution with its own blog farm could put up a simple RSS feed for its athletic department?

Olympia Time reborn! (and, did you notice the new header??)

2010-11-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not so strong as that. But, back to blogging on a regular basis here at my home blog.

I'll try not to take such a long break next time, but 2010 has been sort of busy, and its not like I haven't been blogging, just not over here so much.

The time off did help me refocus on what I want to do over here. In short, here is how I'll refocus myself:

1. Politics, eh, not so much. Unless something is really interesting, I'll not write about politics much here.

2. Deep map of Olympia. PrairyErth is one of my favorite books. Not because of the particular topic (Kansas, eh...) but of how the topic is treated. Williams Least Heat Moon drills down into each little portion of a Kansas County, exploring it from the inside out. That kind of treatment of a particular place interests me, so I'm going to try to write more history here.

By the way, the new header is a detail from a Sanborn Map of Olympia in the late 1800s. The detail is of a gulch that used to stab deep into the current capitol campus. The old greenhouse and sunken gardens are now on top of that now filled gulch.

Sanborn maps are pretty cool, and you usually have to pay to see them. But, the Timberland Regional Library grants you access to all of the maps for Washington.

3. A zine. Olympia Time, the Zine. This is more of a promise to myself than a goal, but since I've been getting involved with the library, I've fallen in love with the zine format. So, I'm going to start doing four zines a year based on things I've written about on this blog. Promise. I have an editorial schedule and everything. So, hopefully the first one will come out within a month.

4. Local sports. I have this concept inside my own head called "real sports," which is the shadow land of competitive sports in between youth (including high school) and the kind of stuff you see on television (including affiliated minor league baseball). So, anything like small college sports, independent minor league baseball, or high level amateur soccer. So, now there are two examples of this (beyond the local colleges) around her: the Puget Sound Collegiate League and Capitol City FC. Hopefully, I'll try to write more about these organizations.

Olympia Time, where did it die?

2010-03-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

It didn't, but I thought I'd give myself the same treatment I gave Olyforums here.

I haven't been blogging recently and I never explained why, so if anyone was worried, I apologize. But, I'm going to assume that most of the people who read this blog either also follow my twitter feed or are friends on facebook, so they know I'm not totally gone.

But, I have been blogging, but in another capacity. I started up Informed Community, a blog that I will hopefully carry forward in the role of a trustee of the Timberland Regional Library. I've applied for the position (I don't know yet when the Thurston County commissioners will appoint someone), but I've decided to put my blogging where my mouth was.

Since I've started talking to elected officials in person, I've always berated them on their lack of social media presence. So, hopefully, in my new role as a (not elected, but still) public official, I'll be able to show what I've been babbling about for years.

Which if all goes well, will also mean less time blogging here and at other places. But, feel free to email me, follow me on twitter (which I'll hope I can keep up) and read my library stuff.

Dems keeping Hyer on the list

2010-02-21T19:08:00.000-08:00

Unless someone makes a move for a vote among the PCOs tomorrow night, it looks like the Thurston County Dems are leaving Joe Hyer on the list for Thurston County Treasurer:

For immediate release
2/21/2010 7:00 PM

From: Jim Cooper, Chair, Thurston County Democrats
Contact info: 360-451-xxxx or jimcooper@thurstondemocrats.org

We support Councilmember Joe Hyer as a friend and political colleague. Joe is an integral part of the “citizen corps” that makes Olympia and Thurston County tick. Until we have seen specific charges and evidence against him it is the position of the Thurston County Democrats' (TCD) Executive Committee that Joe Hyer is innocent until proven guilty and only he, the County Commissioners, or the Judicial System can make the choice as to whether he is qualified to serve as County Treasurer.

Should Joe, or any other candidate, become unfit to serve (through withdrawal of their own name or a statement by the County Commissioners or the Courts) TCD will be constitutionally obligated to rescind our entire list of nominees for the interim appointment of County Treasurer and open the process again in order to refresh the list to three qualified applicants.

Anti-Tim Sheldon bill would make Joe Hyer choose a position

2010-01-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

While SB 6588 (pdf warning is aimed at Mason County commissioner/State Senator Tim Sheldon, it would also force Joe Hyer to choose to be a city council member or county treasurer.

Hyer, who sits on the Olympia city council, is also running for county treasurer. He also might be applying to temporarily fill the position that is already being vacated by the sitting treasurer.

The proposed bill does have some built in wiggle room:

Any elected official holding two positions prior to this bill's effective date may continue to serve out the remainder of each term. At the expiration of each term, that elected official may subsequently only hold one elected office at a time.

So, if the law becomes effective this summer, Hyer is appointed to fill out the remainder of the open treasurer term and is elected in November, it sounds like he'd need to resign the city council soon after that.

New Timberland non-fiction tweeting and twitter level tech support

2010-01-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

If you follow my twitter feed, you noticed earlier this week that I've been featuring a book a day from Timberland's recent non-fiction RSS feed. This is in a way to try to publicize that Timberland gets a lot of new books, and indirectly publicize the feed, but to also try to do something innovative to support the library.

I'm also assuming there are non-fiction nerds out there that might appreciate it.

Not sure how innovative it actually is, but no one else was doing it and that's enough of me patting me on the back.

Here's the really funny part. When I first started posting the updates earlier this week @epersonae noticed that my links weren't actually going to the book, but rather just to some "you're lost dude" page at TRL's online database. For some reason, when you get a link to a particular book via Timberland, it isn't a permanent one. Sucks for sharing.

Then, @ahniwa came along and found a couple of solutions (the second seems way easier to me).

This is going to be a some what typical story of someone coming along in twitter and helping you out with something. I've gotten help like this before, but its always beautiful and nice when it happens, and very much worth mentioning.

Worth mentioning most is that @ahniwa is a library employee, but not for the library that I was trying to link to. He works for the state library. Anyway, good twitter y'all.

One county commissioner, 10 city council-members, three school board members (and some more) come out for Stew Henderson

2010-01-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

The list is long and deep and it looks like local Dems are lining up behind Stew Henderson for the 22nd LD:

The full list of endorsements announced today include:
• Karen Valenzuela, Thurston County Commissioner
• Doug Mah, Olympia Mayor
• Karen Rogers, Olympia City Council
• Joe Hyer, Mayor pro tem, Olympia City Council
• Cynthia Pratt, Lacey City Council
• Andy Ryder, Lacey City Council
• Mary Dean, Lacey City Council
• Ron Lawson, Lacey City Council
• Joan Cathey, Tumwater City Council
• Betsy Murphy, Tumwater City Council
• Ed Stanley, Tumwater City Council
• Eileen Thomson, Olympia School Board
• Mark Campeau, Olympia School Board
• Allen Miller, Olympia School Board
• George Barner, Olympia Port Commissioner
• Chris Stearns, Public Utility Commissioner
• Jay Manning, Chief of Staff to Gov. Chris Gregoire and former Director of Ecology
• Karen Messmer, former Olympia City Council Member
• John Cusick, immediate past Chair, Thurston County Democratic Party
• Debby Pattin, WA State Democratic Party Committeewoman for Thurston County
• Roger Erskine, WA State Democratic Party Committeeman for Thurston County

Here's what Jay Manning has to say:

"I've known Stew for years, both personally and professionally. He will be an outstanding legislator, bringing excellent judgment, honesty and a great work ethic to the table,” said Jay Manning, former Director of the state Department of Ecology and current Chief of Staff to Governor Chris Gregoire.

Here's his full list of endorsements.

How a newspaper works

2010-01-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

It may seem as simple as interesting text and sells ads around it to support you writing interesting things, but Alec Clayton's post on how he became a newspaper man shows there's something deeper and something harder about it.

His description of Everything for Everybody, which was less a newspaper and more a representation of a larger community:

It was 1973, New York. I had recently joined a crazy kind of hippy employment agency/apartment finder/social network called Everything for Everybody and teamed up with a band of handymen who called themselves, variously, The Midnight Carpenters, Uncle John’s Band, and TANSTAAFL (an acronym for There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch), and moved in with two of the TANSTAAFL guys, Sam and Mike, in an apartment on 165th Street.

...

An explanation about Everything for Everybody is in order. It was an organization that claimed to do just what the name boasted—everything for everybody. For a five dollar monthly membership fee you could list jobs wanted, services offered, apartments for rent, or if you were looking for a mate or friend or wanted to start a book club or learn yoga. No limits on what you could list or how many listings. The listings were all kept on index cards in a storefront on 8th Avenue and 10th Street. Members had free access to all listings, so if, for instance, you needed someone to walk your dog you could find a listing for a dog walker and give him or her a call. It was as simple as that. All of the listings were also published in the organization’s monthly newspaper, which Mike and Sam put together. Sam was nominally the editor, but Mike did all the work.

Everything for Everybody is a drastic example, but a good newspaper should be for its community what the E4E newspaper was for its community, a representation of the social network between people. A newspaper should speak to the people within a community in a much different sense than how it would seem to an outsider.

In that sense, a newspaper can now be in a real sense, obviously not even printed. A tight online social network can serve much the same purpose E4E did.

It should also be hard to put together, because there's a need to do it right:

We worked for a couple of hours until we discovered that there were many more listings than there was space for them. “They won’t fit,” Mike said. “We’ve got to leave a few out.”

He decided which ones to leave out. He cut out half the older listings.

...

We ended up eliminating about 50 listings that in Mike’s judgment were repetitious and unnecessary. We finished the newspaper about midnight, put the sheets in a big flat box and hopped in the A Train to take it to Jack in his apartment on Bank Street in the Village. We used to do a thing we called surfing the A Train, standing up and trying to hold balance with the swaying and lurching of the train without holding on. We did that all the way from 165th Street to 14th Street. We got to Jack’s apartment, handed him the sheets to look over, and Sam let out that we’d eliminated a lot of the listings. Jack went ballistic. He told us that the members paid for those listings and they could not be left out—as if he had to tell us that. He told us to go back and add four pages (for people who don’t know, you can’t add a single page; they’re sheet fed through the printer with four pages per sheet).

So we surfed the train back home and added four more pages. Now we needed filler. Mike wrote an article, and I think I wrote one too. I designed a big ad for TANSTAAFL, creating a logo on the spot and hand lettering the acronym with a felt tip pen, and we found a cartoon and a poem that had been submitted by other people but never used. We worked all night and delivered the finished newspaper to Jack at seven o’clock the next morning. He said it was the best looking edition yet—which was not saying much; I’d seen earlier editions and they were not much to brag about.

Olyforum, where did it die?

2010-01-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

This hilarious ONN report reminded me of a dead local online civilisation, the once vaunted (by me) Olyforums:

So, what happened to Olyforums?

The folks that I understand to have been the main moderators over there, S6, Christie, Rummy, and Just Plain Onry (I can spell that one out) haven't signed on to their forums since late last summer. The drop off in posting seemed to occur in late spring, but the dead rot didn't seem to really set in until September.

Anyway, what happened over there? Here are some possibilities:

1. Summer is a hard time to blog. Lots of sunshine, lots of travelling, people just get bored with it and sometimes it just drops away. And, sometimes everyone drops away at the same time.

2. Twitter and FB done killed it. I noticed a trend the year that my attention was being sucked up by my other social media accounts and I had less energy to blog. I am a lot less active at Olyblog and the blogging I have been doing has been over here. I can expect that other users at OF have experienced the same thing and just don't have time to put up with a forum where they can hear from people they don't particularly like. Moderating is a headache too, as we've learned.

3. Just a bit too caustic to live? Since the beginning, Olyforums was supposed to a be a place where everyone could hate on each other without being afraid of being banned. That doesn't mean there wasn't moderation, but the invention of invisible in you're just browsing subforums (The Basement and the War Zone) was supposed to give more freedom to people who just wanted to yell at each other online.

Maybe a bit of history is needed. My understanding is that the founder of Olyforum, S6, started it up in reaction to moderation policies at another local blog, Olyblog. The core idea was that Olyforum would be friendlier place for conservatives who chafed at the apparent liberal bent of moderation policies at Olyblog.

Anyway, what could have happened is that when you found an online forum based on the core principal that everyone is allowed to be a shit head to each other, eventually, people get tired of going to a place full of shit heads. Rather than asking people to better their discourse, the place eventually falls apart.

I think this late thread in the deep dungeon of Olyforum points to that. In the thread which is housed in the War Zone subforum, apparently a really weird and threatening PM from one member to another causes the messaged member to drop out of the forum. Apparently, a lot of people were experiencing that.

Some Coug from Tumwater files for the open Brendan Williams legislative seat

2009-12-30T09:37:00.000-08:00

I've never heard of this guy, but he sounds like a pretty qualified and uhmmm... ambitious fellow.

Via email:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Chris Reykdal
December 30, 2009
(360) 790-3151

CHRIS REYKDAL TO RUN FOR 22nd DISTRICT HOUSE SEAT

OLYMPIA – Last night, Tumwater School Board member Chris Reykdal announced his candidacy for the 22nd District House seat being vacated by incumbent Representative Brendan Williams.

“There is something lacking in the politics we see today,” said Reykdal, a Democrat who resides in Tumwater with his wife Kim and their 5 year old son Carter and 3 year old daughter Kennedy. “I am running for State Representative so that all of our children are handed a community that is better than the one handed to us.”

Chris Reykdal was first elected to the Tumwater School Board in 2007, and previously served for three years on the City Planning Commission. He is a former legislative staffer, High School teacher and the current Deputy Executive Director of the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. Chris will bring with him to the legislature a comprehensive knowledge of education issues that is second to none.

“Our state is facing unprecedented challenges,” continued Reykdal, “We have avoided critical conversations for too long – from education funding, to environmental protection, to tax reform. I pledge to the citizens of the 22nd District that if they send me to the Legislature, I will take the tough votes and work tirelessly to secure the values that make our community a wonderful place to raise our families.”

Chris Reykdal understands the struggles so many families across the 22nd District are facing because he’s faced these challenges himself. The youngest of eight kids, Chris was raised in Snohomish. With the help of food stamps and Government assistance, the Reykdal family persevered. Through the hard work of both Chris and his family, he was able to attend Washington State University, where he was the President of the College Democrats. He met his wife Kim at WSU and they attended graduate school together at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

In the legislature, Chris Reykdal will work every day on behalf of families struggling to make ends meet, just as his family struggled in his youth.

“I am heartbroken at the thought that my kids and their generation may be the first in American history to experience a lower standard of living than the generation before them. One person, one legislator, one dad can’t turn this around by himself, but I am deeply committed to adding my talents and passion to a body of distinguished legislators who do have the power to make a historical difference in the lives of future Washingtonians.”

###

The only thing that makes me wonder about announcements like these is their impersonal nature. Its written the same way most press releases are, as faux news stories, quoting in this case the obvious author. If you're quoting yourself, why not just write a nice message?

"Hey, I'm Chris, I'm running for state representative."

Review in five thoughts of "Olympia: a People's History"

2009-12-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Olympia, the city published a collection of historical essays. I picked it up a copy from the library a few days ago, and have a few thoughts.

1. I don't like that the edition was hardback, I don't like that the content is copyrighted. Hardback, 8.5x11 books are a bummer to read, seem worth keeping on your bookshelf as collectibles than actually reading them.

Also, while its not illegal for a local government entity to copyright a work, its not something I'm a big fan of. We should consider why the federal government is not allowed to copyright, and then think about why our taxes are used to put together content that we are not all free to use.

2. Using the phrase "People's History" is curious. Typically, something titled "People's History" is a reference to the seminal Howard Zinn history or an offshoot that Zinn himself edited. This book is obviously not of that series, and less obviously, doesn't even follow the same theme.

3. That's not to say that there aren't some good sections in the book. The sections on Rebecca Howard, Women, the Chinese Community and (in part) Little Hollywood were what I thought the book would be. Unrepresented stories of Olympia's history that don't get told much.

Its interesting that the most fascinating chapter and a topic I've never seen discussed anywhere else (Rebecca Brown) was written by the least experienced of the writers.

4. Important points of history missed.

The essay on John Miller Murphy by Roger Easton was pretty good, but it paints Miller as a up from the bootstraps newspaperman. An important part Easton missed on Murphy's return to Olympia in 1860 was that he came back to establish a Republican newspaper in 1860 near the beginning of the Civil War. Democrats up to that point had been in charge of territorial politics, but with the Democrats also leading the fight to secede in the South, Republicans were ready to take the advantage in Washington.

Daeg Aerlic Byrne's essay on Little Hollywood misses the point on why the city in the late 30s worked to remove the shanytown. In the paragraph that he writes that "something changed" and that "no available document explains why" Olympia city fathers would want to do away with Little Hollywood, he Byrne also names what exactly changed. The year before the city moved to get rid of Little Hollywood, the state legislature began funding what would eventually become Capitol Lake. Before they built the lake, they had to get rid of the shantytown, its pretty simple.

5. Still worth checking out from the library too. The book itself is a bit high priced ($35), but it does go to a good cause (the Bigelow House museum). What this book did spell out to me is the need to collect and encourage ongoing scholarship about Olympia's history.

Maybe after a year of selling the original run, why not post the essays online (minus copyrighted images) and develop an online historical journal?

TDN uses initiative results to draw a bad conclusion in WA3

2009-12-28T13:18:00.000-08:00

The WA3 may very well be a swing district, but you shouldn't use the recent ballot initiative results to prove it, as the TDN did last week:

While voters across the state soundly defeated a Tim Eyman anti-tax measure and, by a narrower margin, supported the rights of same-sex couples in November, Southwest Washington voters in the 3rd Congressional District had other ideas.

By a small margin, the 3rd District backed Initiative 1033, Eyman's proposal to cap government tax collections. And by six percentage points, the 3rd District defeated Referendum 71, which extended rights to elderly and same-sex couples similar to those given to married couples.

The numbers, released this month by the Secretary of State's office, are further evidence that the district can be fickle about its politics — and why political pundits say next year's battle to replace outgoing Congressman Brian Baird will be a donnybrook that could become the most expensive campaign in state history.

As I wrote last week, there are two reasons to reject this premise:

1. If you are using initiative results, the 3rd was much more conservative last time there was an open race, when Baird beat a Republican by a healthy margin.

2. The No on 1033 campaign did not compete on the air in SW Washington. If they had spent any money in the Portland television market, the narrow win by 1033 would have been a loss.

No so much a leftist rejection (and not so tough terrain) in the WA3

2009-12-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

Clark County Politics and Politico (and I'm sure tons of people in the next few months will do the same) dusted off the election results from last month to predict a Democratic loser in the open WA3 race. It seems like a good strategy, but it appears to me that saying that an approval of I-1033 and a rejection of R-71 doesn't necessarily predict a loss for a Democrat next November.

Here's why.

The last time there was an open seat in the WA3, Brian Baird beat state Rep. Don Benton 55 to 45 percent (Baird pulling down 49k in Clark County, Benton 46k). If the logic that CCP holds was true back then, WA3 voters, and Clark County voters in particular, should have approved some liberal ballot measures in 1997/98.

Well, turns out that didn't happen. Turns out the WA3 voters seemed more conservative back then then they are now.

In 1997, voters in the counties that make up the 3rd (couldn't hit it on the nose) rejected a measure that would have given homosexuals workplace protections. Anyone would admit that this measure was considerably more limited in scope that this year's. But, it actually did worse in 1997 than the more broader measure this year (44 in 1997 to 47 approval in 2009).

By the way, here are my calculations, the data is of course from the Secretary of State's office.

A year after Baird was elected, the voters in the counties that make up the 3rd (again, not exactly the same) approved Tim Eyman's first anti-tax initiative I-695 with a whopping 61 percent. Ten years later I-1033 barely skates by in the 3rd with a 50.27% yes vote.

Not exactly a conservative mandate, and not a good way to explain how a conservative will win in 2010. If Brian Baird was able to beat Don Benton with similar ballot measure results reflecting an even more conservative WA3 in the late 90s, a Democrat should actually have a better time this time around.

But, I don't think there's any connection between ballot measures and congressional elections, and here's why:

Measures are a statewide vote and congressional campaigns are regional. This matters in the sense of where a particular campaign will spend its money. A campaign for or against a ballot measure will seem to spend t.v. money where its most needed, Seattle and Spokane (where the people are) and the Tri-Cities (probably because its pretty cheap).

One of the places where they won't is in the Portland market because its expensive to spend there and you're spending on very few of the Washington residents in the SW corner of the state who make up that particular market.

And, that's exactly what No on 1033 did last year. That campaign spent money on television advertising in every part of the state, except where it would reach voters in Brian Baird's district. Negative advertising in ballot measure elections tends to convince people to vote no as a safe alternative.

So, if the I-1033 campaign had given SW Washington (and therefore the 3rd) the attention it had given the rest of the state, that measure would probably have failed there too.

Hardly a "leftist rejection in the 3rd."

Olympia will be on the sidelines in the WA3

2009-12-18T12:14:00.000-08:00

Though Politico first called the WA 3rd an "Olympia area district" when this entire replacing Baird drama started, its quickly sussing out to be all about Vancouver. Or near Vancouver.

With all due respect to Cheryl Crist, that Brendan Williams held onto his hat yesterday put the final nail in the coffin for any major influence Thurston County liberals will have in this election. And, even though Denny Heck graduated as a geoduck and now lives in Olympia, the last people who successfully elected him to anything were in the 17th LD.

Even one of Heck's biggest political achievements is one of those cross boarder issues that only people who live in Washington but shop in Oregon care about:

Q. What was your proudest accomplishment during your years in politics?

A. The Tuition Reciprocity Act, which allowed people in Clark County to attend Oregon state universities at resident tuition rates. There was no publicly supported four-year college or university within commuting distance. You could go to Clark College, which I did, but if you were place-bound, you could not complete your college education unless you could afford the non-resident tuition rates at Portland State University or the private college rates at University of Portland and Reed College, etc.

Olympia-as-a-city isn't even completely in the district. A good portion of the NE part of the city is in the neighboring 9th, along with a good portion of the rest of urban Thurston County.

Olympia and Vancouver are the two liberal bookends to a district that is mostly Republican (aside from Grays Harbor and Pacific County, but they elect a different sort of Democrat). But, Olympia is not in the gravitational pull of Vancouver, and it'll be troubling to watch how we're pulled into and possibly muted in this election.

So, what are these political differences that I vaguley refer to that separate Vancouver from Olympia?

1. General garden variety "I live so close to Oregon" issues. If a big city like Vancouver didn't exist in the 3rd, these wouldn't crop up because you wouldn't have a large enough constituency that wanted to shop tax free. Or, go to school in Oregon, or want to treat Oregon like it was part of Washington or vice versa.

2. Columbia River vs. Puget Sound. Both are big natural resources arenas with different issues. Which gets your attention, which gets the money?

3. Evergreen State College vs. WSU Vancouver. Even though Evergreen was established with at least the partial mission of being the 4 year institution that serves Southwest Washington, one could argue WSU Vancouver now either actually fills that role or competes very closely with it. Although it has about half the enrollment of Evergreen, it is much closer to the region's population center and has a more mainstream brand. What would serve you better as a congressman? Building up WSU Vancouver or Evergreen?

4. Transportation. How we get to Seattle vs. how we get to Portland.

Thurston County budgeting some Web 2.0

2009-12-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

They approved a budget today, which from what I can tell includes this:

• Redesign county website with a modern easy-to-use look and feel.
• Utilize Web 2.0 technology (example: Twitter) to disseminate information to
public in a timely useful manner.

But, there's a nuance point to be made here, that in the budget document they still want to "disseminate" rather than "engage" or "exchange." The real power of Web 2.0 isn't to get information in front of passive eyes (although the web has great power to do that) its to have a dialogue.

I think it'll take more than a new website and tools to create a culture of online exchange at the county.

The geography and politics of crime in Thurston County's invisible city

2009-12-18T08:10:00.000-08:00

Zeroing in on where exactly someone was shot last night near here. First cut, NWCN email:

Not Lacey, but you can't blame them for thinking that.

Getting closer, at at least technically true by mailing address, is KIRO:

And, hitting the nail on the head is the Olympian:

The murder happened just on the edge of urban northern Thurston County, unincorporated, but as KIRO put it, a "crowded neighborhood" with obviously urban issues.

View Larger Map

This area (Thurston County's Invisible City) is the third largest city behind Olympia and Lacey is is policed by a county sherrif's department that had admitted it is grossly understaffed.

You could point to the recent flare up between the county sheriff and the county commissioners on staffing and say that the commissioners should have given him more funds, but you'd wrong to look there. I think that battle was more of a symptom that the actual disease.

The real problem is that a county sheriff department is left holding the bag with the job of policing a city that does not exist. This is why we have city governments, because people living in high enough densities need a more intense level of government service, like police.

Can the Tea Baggers scuttle Jamie Herrera?

2009-12-17T15:31:00.000-08:00

Well, this is interesting news. The most interesting thing so far I've seen out of the new, exciting and open WA3:

Our resident political opportunist, Jaime Herrera, is an interesting person. She portrays herself as something of a conservative. But a questionable voting record serves to make me wonder. Is she exaggerating about that the same way she exaggerated about her background to get the appointment in the first place?

My complete familiarity of her appointment process and the horrific manipulation of it was something I'd mentioned in the past. This made it pretty clear to others with information exactly where I stood.

So, we begin with today's tidbit: the fact that Jamie Herrera appears to have been ACORN'S Representative in the House.

ACORN and SEIU are synonymus with leftist thuggery of the variety we've seen practiced over the past several months in support of Obama. Who hasn't seen the tapes of ACORN's corruptive influence?

Well, here's a few of the votes that Herrera took that tends to show exactly where she stands on those issues important to the SEIU... and, by extension, to ACORN.

It seems like conservatives down Vancouver way were ready for Rep. Herrera to get into the race so they could start painting her.

Last time around, the Republican chamber of commerce centrist got beat out by the Ron Paul sort of candidate. This was despite her getting the endorsement of the organized Republicans in the district.

So, if one of Herrera's opponents can raise a little money and tie her name with ACORN in the district, is she toast?

Hella Bus, now you've gone too far

2009-12-16T11:21:00.000-08:00

I protest your cruel and evil metonymic use of Olympia.

Yes, Olympia is also a beer. Very cute. Now stop it.

Why doesn't Thurston County post food inspection reports online?

2009-12-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

Another line of thought for this longer line of thought. I had the curiosity this morning to look at the county's website and poke around for food inspection reports. Seems like a pretty basic thing to post online, right? Nope.

Well, that's not all that surprising, I guess, not everything that is interesting gets posted (see city council packets in Lacey). Kitsap and Pierce counties do.

But, what is really interesting, is this note:

The Health Dept conducts periodic inspections of food establishments to help prevent the spread and reduce the risk of food borne illnesses. Violations are corrected through a combination of education and technical assistance.

Our food service inspection reports are available through The Olympian newspaper or you may request copies of inspections from our office by completing a Request for Public Information Form...

So, I can fill out a form or read it in the Olympian. I'm assuming they email the information to the Olympian and I'm assuming I could email the request form to the county. So why can't the county post the actual reports online?

This seems like one of the duties that a daily newspaper used to have to serve in a local community, gathering and disseminating essential data collected by the government. Births, deaths, marriages, food safety inspections are all important, but there's no reason now why they can't just immediately be posted.

Potentially very funny

2009-12-10T08:52:00.001-08:00

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.