Drawing courtesy: City of Yelm

The City of Yelm website on the Yelm City Park Master Plan:
“The park update proposes the construction of a 10,000 square foot community building that would include event space for 380 people, 3 multi-purpose rooms, a commercial kitchen that serves the event space and the outdoor plaza, a covered outdoor plaza, indoor and outdoor restrooms, and a stage…

Resources
The City Council has set aside $1,000,000 for the construction of a community center. The legislature has approved an additional $1 million from the recently adopted State capital budget to go towards the project. The City has preliminarily secured $365,000 in federal funding for the skate park relocation and $10,000 from the Port of Olympia.The Council is asking voters for up to $5.7 million, which equates to a new 25 year property tax levy of 61 per $1,000 assessed valuation, or about $110/year for the average household.”
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The Facts:
The City Council has set aside $1,000,000 for the construction of a community center through tacking on this amount to the NOW $2 MILLION Yelm Library Bond, WITHOUT PUBLIC INPUT, when Mayor Harding previously stated the city could only afford to spend $600,000 for the library.

Then on April 8, 2014, the city council approved a 4,950 square foot community center, less than half of what they previously stated the $1,000,000 would partially fund. Yet the Nisqually Valley News reported October 30, 2014, “The new community center design includes a 3,300-square-foot multipurpose space, a commercial kitchen…,” less than a third of the community center space of what the $5.7 million would fund.

Editor’s Note:
What happened to the “construction of a 10,000 square foot community building”?
Now one can see why voters TWICE rejected the city’s bond for a community center!

Many new public buildings nationwide are designed as LEEDS certified, the best way to demonstrate that a building project is truly “green.” Why is Yelm not following LEEDS certification with this public building?