Taken at 8pm outside Yelm’s Casa Mia restaurant looking east.

Yelm Public Safety Building & City Council Chambers

This Letter to the Editor was published in today’s editions of the Nisqually Valley News:

“Regional daily newspapers published a June investigation citing Yelm’s Municipal Court denying public access to court files, inconsistent with state rules governing openness. Omissions in informing the public of Executive Session details [closed-to-the-public] and following Action Item on Yelm Council’s May 8 Agenda forced an alert council member to vote “no” due to lack of public disclosure. I wrote the council on this, not satisfied with answers from Yelm’s Public Records Officer [Lori Mossman]. The city’s Seattle attorney finally yielded that the May 8th’s “revised agenda notice was not distributed beyond City Administration.”

I contacted Tim Ford in the state attorney generals office on this and he replied,
“Obviously it is in the public interest of transparency and accountability to provide as much detail as possible.”
“It is also in the citys interest to do so in order to avoid being accused of violating the OPMA [Open Public Meetings Act].”

While the city is required to only write Minutes of each meeting, they have also offered an audio or video recording for many years. However in 2012, council recordings have been corrupted an astonishing 5 out of 15 meetings (33%). Yelm’s Council Minutes are so brief that key details from the July 10 Public Hearing where many property owners commented about the 6-year Transportation Plan were lost. For the citizen’s sake, Yelm can certainly afford to have a back-up audio recording of each session in their sparking-new Public Safety Building, yes?

Why bother to even care, right?
Yelm officials pride themselves on the influx of military families and Olympia state workers fueling the growth here. These residents are dedicated public servants who daily strive for full disclosure in all aspects of their jobs. The City of Yelm is no longer the small town of ten years ago, rather is noted for doubling population growth in the last decade. Can we anticipate the culture of Yelm’s officials will also be full disclosure “in the public interest of transparency and accountability,” no longer requiring a newspaper investigation for city officials to do the right thing for their constituents?

Steve Klein
Yelm, WA.

Chelsea Krotzer reports in The Olympian:
“Thurston County is seeking $2.1 million in grant funding to widen a section of Vail Road Southeast.

County commissioners approved the application at Tuesdays meeting. If the project becomes a reality, the county road fund will be required to kick in $562,500 in addition to the $2,137,500 grant.

The project would widen the driving lanes and add 5-foot shoulders to both sides between 158th and 135th avenues.

The road would widen from an overall 21 feet to 32 feet.”

“The application seeks funding from the County Road Administration Board . If its approved, it will provide project funding from 2013-15.

The county will learn this fall whether the application was approved, according to Theresa Parsons, civil engineer.”
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Death by China will be shown at Yelm’s Triad Theater
– tonight at 7pm
– Saturday, September 1st at 10am and 2pm
– Sunday, September 2nd at 12 noon.
All screenings OPEN TO THE PUBLIC,
Ticket Price: $8

– Bloomberg News posted this story about the movie August 22:
“Q&A: Peter Navarro on America’s Death by China”
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– Robin Kemker of Epoch Times penned this story
“Death by China Illumines Economic Woes”
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– The AP reported:
“Politicians wife gets suspended death sentence, bringing China closer to tidying up scandal”
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– “Death by China Seeks to Make China a Campaign Issue”
“Documentary film says cracking down on China will bring back jobs and prosperity for America”
By Tierney Sneed in US News
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Yelm Community Schools announced their schedule of Open Houses, which begin tomorrow!
Click here for the full schedule.

Photo Courtesy: Yelm Community Schools

Two Yelm area elementary schools were among the states 58 top-performing and most-improving Title I schools, known as Reward Schools, according to Randy Dorn’s office, Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Yelm-area Lackamas and Southworth elementary schools were on the list achieving this honor.

Dorn’s statement said:
“Reward Schools are classified either as highest performing or high-progress:

A highest-performing Reward School is a Title I school that has met Adequate Yearly Progress in both Reading and Math for its all students group and all subgroups for three years.
A high-progress Reward School is a Title I school that scored in the top 10 percent of Title I schools in Reading and Math (combined) on state assessments for its all students group. This designation acknowledges a schools performance and improvement in Reading and Math during a three-year period (2008/092010/11). If the school is a high school, it also must be among the Title I schools with the most progress in increasing graduation rates. Schools designated as Reward Schools cannot have significant achievement/opportunity gaps among subgroups.
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South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity [HFH] & Habitat Stores is renovating and soon to occupy the long-vacant Hertz renal equipment store on Yelm Ave. E.

– From the Facebook page of South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity & Habitat Stores:
“We are excited to have the space.. It does need some work but we hope everyone loves the changes we will be making!”
Click here for the pictures of the stores renovation.

– From South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity:
“South Puget Sound HFH is a locally run affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International, a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing organization.

Habitat for Humanity works in partnership with people in need to build and renovate decent, affordable housing. The houses then are sold to those in need at no profit and with no interest charged.”
Learn more

Written by: Brandi Rademacher:
“I met them at the Thurston County Fair promoting their book, The Chicken and the Dog. Andre and Amanda Maxwell have written an adorable book about trying to cultivate Urban farming that appeals to the youngest of readers (and I couldnt help lovin it, too!). It tells the partly true story of two urban chickens whose happy life is interrupted by bandits of the masked kind (raccoons) in a chicken burglary that leads the dog and one of the chickens on a rescue mission all around Olympia to find their stolen friend.

The Maxwells have created an entire kingdom of t-shirts, temporary tattoos, coloring pages and website activities for kids that correspond to the book. You can even download the book to your Ipad. They also feature local blogs relating to everything chicken. The couple will be at the Yelm Farmers Market August 26th 11am-4pm signing their book and providing fun activities for the kids.”
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TODAY, Sunday August 26th, 11 am 4 pm:
The Co-op and Farmers Market are supporting our Military families and a local military charity, Rainier Therapeutic Riding.

Sponsor one or more military IDs for $1 each as they are shown at the Co-op and the Market and the proceeds will go to help PTSD.

Read about Rainier Therapeutic Riding at www.rtriding.org.
The event is sponsored by Spiral Cafe Gourmet to Go 360-400-2233.

And the Winner Is. .
Thank you everyone who participated in our Military Charity Poll. Our winner for the upcoming Military Fun Health Day is Rainier Therapeutic Riding Center with 79% of the votes. We are pleased to support all of these wonderful charities and hope you will find ways to support each one throughout the year. Rainer Therapeutic Riding is an organization based out of Yelm, and they are doing some wonderful work with military families. We encourage you to bring your military id to the Yelm Co-op and then at the Farmers Market on August 26th as we are donating $1 for each id shown to our winner. Rainier Therapeutic Riding representatives will be on hand to share their unique mission with us.

Remember that there will be nutritional consultants, free samples, games and free raffles as well as games and activities especially for the kids at the Co-op and Market on the 26th in addition to our wonderful produce, fruit, artisan and food vendors.
Come out and join the fun.

From KOMO-TV News 4v in Seattle:
“The Rainier Community Garden is sponsoring a free food preservation class just in time for the harvest.”

“The event starts at on Saturday at 10 a.m. at Rainier High School, 308 Second Street West.”
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