On March 29, 2006, the Yelm Community Blog was established with a story about the Yelm Community Schools, marking the 9th anniversary of this blog today.
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Enduring challenges by the former Nisqually Valley News Publisher/Editor and a Yelm City Hall that does not foster public interaction, this Blog has had many firsts in reporting local stories, yet not limited to:

– The city authorizing and funding a water study for a private developer, without any contract for taxpayers to get repaid. The developer defaulted and left the city with the bill, as publicly presented first by this Blog,

– The default of the Thurston Highlands mega-development was first reported by this Blog, which left Yelm with over a hundred thousand of dollars in unpaid taxes and fees and for which the city never placed a lien,

– The WA State Auditor notifying the City of Yelm that the bidding for an electronic reader board contract on city land should have been publicly posted was first reported here,

– Was the City of Yelm’s Municipal Code violated when the mayor authorized buying a condo for a library here without admittedly consulting the City Council was first raised on this Blog? The mayor had told the public the city could only afford to offer $600,000, yet the city authorized a $1,000,000+ purchase and tacked-on another $1 million to the bond for a community center without public discourse.

– Then Venture Bank President Jon Jones led a committee advocating to attract a NASCAR track to Yelm without public comment, saying the proposal represented the community. There was a community-wide outcry. This Blog was the first to correlate that the Venture Bank Board fired Jones for what was called a “lack of confidence in his (Jones’) decision-making” that was consistent with his lack of judgment in omitting public comment in his NASCAR committee leadership the previous year. Venture Bank subsequently failed and was sold by the FDIC,

– Mayor Pro-tem Bob Isom said in the July 7, 2006 edition of the Nisqually Valley News this Blogger speaks-up to undercut the Yelm City Council.

Yes, for 9 years the hallmark of this Blog has been to post the public documents for readers to discern for themselves and are not fed some government official’s spin by intimidating any dissenters.

Thank you for your interest and support as the Yelm Community blog begins the 10th year of service.