Yelm Issues: March 2009 Archives

Even in these challenging economic conditions, our community opened their wallets and hearts for Schools Scholarships this month:

YELM
The Yelm Dollars for Scholars annual auction raised more than $140,000 for scholarships a few weeks ago. That compares to $175,000 last year or a 20% drop in donations.

RAINIER
"The Rainier Education Foundation Auction Saturday [March 21] raised nearly $43,000 for scholarships and teacher grants, just shy of last year’s total.

Last year’s auction raised about $46,000.

The money raised provides scholarships to seniors and former graduates, as well as providing grants to the Rainier School District staff," quoting the local newspaper.
[Ed. Note: That is only down 6% compared with last year and is quite remarkable in these economic times!]

UPDATE:
Paula Meyer, Secretary for the Rainier Education Foundation tells the Yelm Community Blog, "The Rainier Education Foundation is extremely grateful for the generous outpouring of support by our community, in order to benefit our students and staff. We feel truly blessed. THANK YOU!"
CONGRATULATIONS to Rainier!

On another note, the local newspaper reports Yelm Schools Admin Cutting Back.

Yelm Community School's Superintendent Andy Wolf reports in his March, 2009 column, "How the increased state deficit will impact Yelm Community Schools specifically is still an unknown. Until state lawmakers are able to develop their own budget we will not have a clear picture of just how deep program reductions will need to be made locally in order to preserve the financial and academic integrity of the district."

The Yelm City Council heard from this writer last night about the fact that they continue to issue Plat Developments without sufficient water rights. I proposed rescinding the Council resolution imposed against moratoriums and that this City Council start to take a look at a growth moratorium until the city has sufficient water rights to support hooking-up all of the previously approved homes to the city's water supply.

Mayor Pro-tem Isom recoiled at my mention of the moratorium issue [The City Council has had a resolution in-place since April 13, 2005 that a "moratorium" may not be imposed or be on the Council's Agenda again.]. Isom said my statement about a moratorium was a mis-characterization and misinformation and he could see through me [and my motives]. I told him I merely quoted the Council's Minutes of April 13, 2005:
"MOTION BY BOB ISOM, SECONDED BY JOE BAKER THAT NO MORATORIAMS (sic) BE IMPOSED AND THAT THE ISSUE NOT BE BROUGHT BEFORE COUNCIL AGAIN. CARRIED."
Listen to Mr. Isom in his own words from the April 13, 2005 City Council audio record:

When the issue of approving the John's Meadow Final Plat was brought up for questions last night, there was only one from Council Member Pat Fetterly who asked Staff if the city had enough water to support 40+ homes in this development. Assistant Planner Nisha Box never directly answered the question, rather stated all of the information is in the Staff report. Ms. Fetterly said "Thank you," and the vote on this Plat passed unanimously.
If Council would have read the Staff Report on John's Meadow, they would have noted this:
"The City currently does not hold sufficient water rights to serve all undeveloped lots within its water service area, but has determined that the proposed means of water supply for this final subdivision is adequate..."
"If the City is unable to provide potable water at the time a building permit application is submitted for any structure within this subdivision, the permit will not be issued until such time as evidence of an adequate water supply can be made..."
You can read the Staff report for yourself:
John's Meadows Final Plat Staff Report, scroll to the top of page 3.

My letter read on-the-record to the Council (which you can also read on ProtectYelm.org), Mayor Pro-tem Isom's rebuttal and Mrs. Fetterly's comments can all be heard in-context from the City Council's video file:

Or access via YouTube.

Note:
Mayor Harding said I went over several minutes and to limit comment to three minutes in the future. The Council allows 15 minutes for public comment. Interesting that there was no one in the audience other than those on the agenda, a local newspaper reporter, plus Mr. Hashim to whom I pointed; not one other member of the public was present. Given the empty hall, if I thought necessary, Mr. Hashim would have filled out a public comment card and provided me his time. My comment lasted 4 minutes, 50 seconds.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Write to:
Vicki Cline, Compliance & Enforcement
Water Resources Program
Southwest Regional Office
Dept. of Ecology (Ms. Cline's office oversees Yelm)
VWIN461@ECY.WA.GOV

Tell Ms. Cline that you are writing as a citizen and that you are requesting enforcement of Yelm's continual
plat approvals going beyond the city's current water allocation and you want your letter to be included in the official public record of the City of Yelm's Water Mitigation Plan.

My letter on the record along with the recording of the March 24th public Council exchange will be added to Yelm's Water Mitigation Plan at the State Dept. of Ecology & Dept. of Health requesting enforcement to show how the Yelm City Council continues to defy state water regulations:

Click Here for the City's Water Plan.
If you are a property owner in the City of Yelm like this writer, get ready for a major water rate hike!

THINGS WILL ONLY CHANGE WHEN THE CITIZENS SAY "ENOUGH'!

UPDATE: April 14, 2009
I wrote to Mr. Isom on April 3rd to ask him to:
"identify what you view as the mischaracterization,
and I will gladly publish your views as a correction on the Yelm Community Blog,
since your motion & the Council resolution were not just limited to "we would not entertain the the idea of a moratorium."
I want to insure that I provide the public with accurate information from your viewpoint."

No response has been received to date, which speaks volumes!

On April 13, 2005, Yelm area resident Bill Hashim requested of the City Council that a moratorium be placed on any further building here until the Critical Area's Update could be completed - a moratorium that would have placed the then-proposed Wal-Mart Superstore approval process on hold until more study and compliance with the Growth Management Hearings Board could be accomplished.

So outraged was the City Council at the continuing public outcry about a Wal-Mart here, then City Council member Bob Isom (now Mayor Pro-tem) immediately motioned for a moratorium on moratoriums and at another council session, passed a resolution that the name Wal-Mart and/or big box stores not be brought before the council again. Council member Joe Baker seconded the motion.
[Quoting the City's website of the Minutes of April 13, 2005: "MOTION BY BOB ISOM, SECONDED BY JOE BAKER THAT NO MORATORIAMS (sic) BE IMPOSED AND THAT THE ISSUE NOT BE BROUGHT BEFORE COUNCIL AGAIN. CARRIED."]

That act was in addition to Yelm receiving the egregious Jefferson Muzzle Award for not permitting the public to mention the word Wal-Mart in Council Chambers.
For those of you that do not remember this embarrassing charade in which this city was highlighted nationally, read the Seattle P-I report from June 24, 2005.

Wal-mart is here now along with all of the other growth and the city is about out of water.
Given the city is pumping almost to their maximum allocation and has so many approved permits not yet hooked-up to the water supply, isn't this a good time to take a pause and think about ending the moratorium on moratorium's?

After all, Lacey, Tumwater and other municipalities are looking at the "m" word as their building sprees have taken them near their maximum water allotments.

Wouldn't the wise thing be to put a moratorium on any more building permits until the City finds out what new water rights applications will bear, what will happen with their appeal of a Court case, legislative items discussed here previously, and so many other water issues?

This chilling title from UK's Independent about a United Nations report and The World Water Forum meeting in Istanbul this week say it all:
"Water scarcity 'now bigger threat than financial crisis'"

Cascade Crest of the Seattle chapter of the Sierra Club has an article this month about how Orting & Enumclaw almost sold their water rights to the multi-national corporation Nestle and asks, "What was our mayor thinking?" The writer went on to say, "I had trouble getting the city to disclose public records that took six weeks to produce. Government transparency seemed purposefully thwarted... We need local and state legislation now to protect the people's water against future water grabs." HMMM! Sound familiar? This story is not yet accessible online, however last Fall's update on this very issue is. CLICK HERE, then scroll to page 7.
UPDATE: To Access the story, CLICK HERE. Scroll to page 9.

Can we in the Yelm area afford to be as cavalier about all of the growth vs. our limited water resources as we have been in the last 4 years?

ISN'T IT TIME TO PUT THE EMBARRASSING CHAPTER OF YELM'S MORATORIUMS ON MORATORIUMS BEHIND US AND TAKE A PAUSE BEFORE THE CITY IS OUT OF WATER?

WORLD WATER DAY THIS SUNDAY
"In 1992, the UN General Assembly designated March 22 as "World Water Day" to draw international attention to the critical lack of clean, safe drinking water worldwide.
In 2007, 69 cities across the United States passed resolutions acknowledging March 22 as World Water Day.
World Water Day is an international day of observance and action to draw attention to the plight of the more than 1 billion people world wide that lack access to clean, safe drinking water. Celebrated since 1993, World Water Day was designated in 1992 when the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed a resolution. With each passing year, the observance has grown larger and stronger," quoting the World Water Day website.

I wrote to Mayor Harding last year asking he & the City Council to consider the City of Yelm joining the list of "Cities that recognized World Water Day..." in 2008 and was rebuffed, with the city only agreeing to commemorate this day with information on the city's electronic reader board outside City Hall.

Dear Readers;

This month marks the third anniversary of the Yelm Community Blog.
I want to thank all of you for your interest and support.
This is the only Yelm community website that has all news stories archived for public view dating back 3 years.
Your support, RSS feeds and daily viewership have continually kept this site on the first page of Google in searching for Yelm and usually ahead of even the city's official newspaper website, the Nisqually Valley News (NVN)

Speaking of the NVN, they have revamped their website AGAIN, for the 3rd time in as many years. This means that all previous links to their stories before last weekend no longer work and none of their links can be accessed through an archive search. You can still access excerpts of some NVN stories here on the Yelm Community Blog that were quoted the last three years.

NVN Editor/Publisher Keven Graves wrote me yesterday to say that they now require written permission to use any material from their "revised Web site". You will note they are not even linked from this story, as this writer will be using less of their items.
The law says their links can be used by anyone without permission, as acknowledged on these sites:
CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE

While Mr. Graves has clearly made public his disdain for Blogs, and this Blogger in particular for these three years, restricting and enforcing access being circulated from his newspaper's website makes no sense.
If this is some attempt to reprisal towards me, he just shot himself in the foot.
This Blog has been one of the major sites driving traffic to his links for three years, indeed one of the largest community-based websites to do so. In a world where newspapers are dwindling (San Francisco Chronicle, the Seattle P-I may close and Denver's Rocky Mt. News did shut down), newspaper's websites are paying their bills with advertising dollars on their links driven by the number of views and viewers.
The Yelm Community Blog will now quote the NVN on a very limited basis.
With a third revision of their website, one would think they want more traffic there, not less.
This Blog has always quoted and given credit for the source of NVN excerpts, plus the link for the reader to access for themselves.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST AND CONTINUED SUPPORT.
THIS BLOG HAS NEVER TAKEN A CENT FROM ANYONE FOR ADVERTISING, NOR SOLD ANY MATERIAL.
THIS SITE IS PROVIDED AS A COMMUNITY SERVICE TO EXCHANGE IDEAS ON STORIES OF LOCAL INTEREST, PROVIDING AN ADDITIONAL RESOURCE OF YELM-AREA INFORMATION AND DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW.

UPDATE THURSDAY, MARCH 5 @ 2PM:
The local weekly newspaper's Op-Ed piece this week says about the newspapers revamped website:
"Blogs are an interesting and dynamic facet of nay community, and we'll include yours - if you are willing to exchange links. Shoot an e-mail and we'll talk."

WOW! Keven Graves saying this? Has this man REALLY changed his views about blogs since he has put them down for years?
HMMM!

I wrote to Mr. Graves on Tuesday, March 3rd requesting the Yelm Community Blog be linked under his newspaper's Community Links. He responded that because the Yelm Community Blog is a non-profit, he will add the link.
Then, he asked for an NVN link to be placed on the Blog's link page.
Anyone can see this blogger has no Links page, takes no money from anyone and is beholding to no one.

Graves responded, "If we're to provide a free link to yelm.com, I would like a reciprocal link. I believe it's a reasonable exchange."

I wrote to him:
The Yelm Community Blog has never had a Links page, is non-profit as you previously stated and is beholding to no one. Other non-profits you have on your Community Links (i.e. Yelm Animal Alliance, Thurston County Humane Society) have no Links page either and you also have profits like Yelm Cinemas that has a Links page only for movie related sites, so yours is not there.

Can you share your thoughts as to why the Yelm Community Blog is to be excluded, when others are not that are in the same circumstances, & in particular, after your Op-Ed today inviting blogs to join your revamped site?

He refused without sharing links.

IS THIS BLOG A THREAT TO HIS NEWSPAPER?
HE BEHAVES AS IF SUCH IS THE CASE!

As reported here on February 10th, Mayor Ron Harding told the Yelm Chamber Forum in his State of the City Address,
"If the economy continues a decline, we'll have to assess service cuts by year's end.
Revenues were up only 3% in 2008; we expected higher.
We did fall quite a bit short with revenue last year
We are expecting a continuing economic decline."

He further went on to say that he did not know yet what kind of cuts in city services would be coming; that would be determined later this year if the economy continued to slide.

THURSTON COUNTY SWINGS BUDGET AX HARD
Fewer Deputies On Street, Crimes To Go Unprosecuted, All Parks To Close

"Saying they simply don’t have enough money to pay the bills, Thurston county Commissioners on Friday [Feb. 27] announced a new round of drastic budget cuts.

The cuts totaling $5.7 million are hitting law enforcement the hardest.

The Sheriff’s Office will lose nearly $2 million in funding. Sheriff Dan Kimball tells KIRO-TV that could mean as many as 30 job cuts including up to 15 road deputies.

A total of $3.8 million in cuts to Law, Safety and Justice means the Thurston County Prosecutor’s Office will also lose five deputy prosecutors. Prosecutor Ed Holm tells KIRO-TV it means some crimes will go unprosecuted. He says he simply won’t have enough people to prosecute certain crimes like misdemeanor theft, low level drug crimes, and failure to register as a sex offender...

There are currently 13 parks in Thurston County. County leaders tell KIRO-TV they have no plans to sell the parks and hope to eventually re-open them, but for now they simply cannot afford to keep them open.

The budget reductions also include cutting 16 jobs at Thurston county Development Services, wiping out about $60,000 in funding for the county fair and eliminating most of the county’s Public Health personal health services programs," quoting Seattle's KIRO-TV 7.

Stark forecast for homebuilders
Speaker tells Master Builders 70 percent of small builders may not survive 2009
From The Olympian