As expected, no action was taken nor was this proposal even discussed by Yelm’s City Council at last Tuesday’s Council session.
To quote the response from the Deputy City Clerk:
“There were no questions or discussion on the correspondence provided.”

The Seattle Times reports in its September 2nd edition:
“State Secretary of Transportation Doug MacDonald wants to move beyond bureaucratese … to fresh ideas for solving transportation problems and is putting up $1,000 of his own money to reach that goal. It’s called the $1,000 Doug MacDonald Challenge, sponsored by the national Transportation Research Board, an organization with the National Academy of Sciences. The idea of generating new transportation ideas from the public with a contest came to him while he was sitting around one day.
‘Every time we pay consultants, we get the same old ideas, the same old graphs and charts,’ MacDonald said. ‘Maybe there’s a better plan to get new ideas, so I decided to make a modest personal contribution in hopes of stirring up interest. ‘I am fascinated by how we are going to get the public’s enthusiasm about the fact we can keep highways moving so we actually get more use out of highways. In a line of stalled traffic, you don’t get much production of the highway. Everyone wins when the lanes move.'”

Doug MacDonald certainly welcomes public input. How about Yelm officials?
This writer and his wife presented the same contest by donating our own $1,000 to the City of Yelm with “the idea of generating new transportation ideas from the public for a contest” to solicit enthusiasm, ideas and input from our local citizens, along the lines of Mr. MacDonald’s thoughts.

This contest was on the Agenda for Yelm Planning Commission’s September Meeting which they deferred to the Yelm City Council.
The City Council had this proposal on their agenda last Tuesday night. see page 3.

Don’t you find interesting that:
Sec. MacDonald’s idea was reported throughout the State in the print media and he was interviewed on television and radio heralding his plan.
The Yelm Planning Commission defers our contest to the City Council, who does not even discuss this item on their agenda. And, the local newspaper reports nothing on all of this.

Of course this is the same City Council that placed a moratorium on moratoriums when other citizens came before this body with bold new ideas, earning the egregious 2005 Jefferson Muzzle Award.

To quote Yelm City Attorney Brent Dille, “It’s the Council’s meeting. They can decide what they want to hear and what they’re tired of hearing.”
Ed. Note: Seems like this City Council forgot they were elected to serve the citizens of this community.

What do YOU think?

It’s about the Future!