Steve Klein addresses current issues impacting Yelm and vicinity and provides a meeting place for anyone with an interest in this area to provide their ideas and opinions
Happy Halloween – Be Safe, watch for our children out at dusk!
First published here in 2007:
“Halloween (or Hallowe’en) is an annual holiday observed on October 31, primarily in Ireland, Scotland, Canada and the United States. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saints’ Day, but is today largely a secular celebration.
“Common Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, carving jack-o’-lanterns, ghost tours, bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, committing pranks, telling ghost stories or other frightening tales, and watching horror films…
Origin of name “The word Halloween is first attested in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even (“evening”), that is, the night before All Hallows Day. Although the phrase All Hallows is found in Old English (ealra hlgena mssedg, mass-day of all saints), All-Hallows-Even is itself not attested until 1556,” quoting Wikipedia. Read more
+ KING-5 TV:Sun fires off powerful solar flare – The Space Weather Prediction Center says Thursday’s solar flare could cause aurora displays this weekend to be visible as low as Pennsylvania to Iowa to Oregon. [Ed. note: Clear skies forecast over Thurston County should provide great viewing.]
Learn the basics of PNW native wood carving under the expert guidance of InGenius! Artist Meleno Lovato. Information and registration at bottom. Photo: InGenius! via Facebook
From Yelm’s InGenius! Local Artisan Gallery & Boutique:
Ed. note: I visited with co-owner Andrea Levanti at the gallery and received a tour.
I encourage blog readers to stop in for an amazing view of the fine works from our local artisans
InGenius! Local Artisan Gallery & Boutique has made it through the opening months of life and finds itself excited to celebrate the holiday season. Twenty-four local artisans currently have work on display. There are fine art originals, affordable framed print reproductions, fiber arts, jewelry, and leather work, down to small gift items and stocking stuffers like honey, candles, soaps, art stickers and magnets.
Follow @ingeniusyelm on Facebook and Instagram to see a featured InGenius! artisan post each day. Virtual Shopping is available as the holidays approach for folks who want to stay close to home this year. You can schedule a Virtual Shopping tour to see up close whatever piques your interest; make your purchase over the phone or by invoice and do either curbside pickup or, for a small fee, local delivery. “We want to make it easy for people to buy special gifts without stress,” says co-owner Diego Fleitas. He is keen to emphasize the need for us all to focus on the things that are most important right now, like connecting with family and loved ones in whatever ways possible.
Co-owner Andrea Levanti says, “We want everyone to have access to high quality art here in Yelm, to know they can come to InGenius! and find the perfect unique, locally-made gift for anyone on their list. The word ‘gallery’ should never make people shy away from walking through our door. That $1,500 original painting on our wall took the artist over 60 hours to create, but you can take home a 5×7 fine art print for $16, or a $4 fridge magnet to mail to someone special in a greeting card made by a local artist.”
The InGenius! artisans are already gearing up for the holidays, delivering ornaments and special gift items you’ll find nowhere else. Andrea explains, “Because we work so closely with our artisans, they’re creating collections and pieces specifically for InGenius! Just one example is our potter Sherry Kirk of Sidhefire Arts (pronounced she-fire), located 5 minutes up the road from InGenius!. Her initial collection for us included flower fairy cups and other nature-inspired pieces like honey bee mugs and coffee pour overs. She’s making pieces that match the strong nature influence of much of the art we offer. And a little bird told me her InGenius! holiday collection arriving in early November will knock our socks off! Keywords: “wine goblets”…
The class/workshop schedule is growing by the week. Already there have been yarn pottery and drawing classes led by InGenius! artisans Linda Shea and Ian Ricker, respectively. Certified Intentional Creativity Coach and InGenius! artist Michelle Osborne has taught a popular 5-week Intentional Creativity Acrylic Painting class and will begin another class series in early November and a third in December, all with different themes. Andrea Levanti teaches one-day Fluid Acrylic “Pour” Painting workshops periodically on Mondays when the gallery is closed. Meleno Lovato will teach a 4-hour beginner native PNW woodcarving class where students aged 13 and up will learn carving safety and techniques and then carve their own small canoe. On November 21st, Judy Chapman will teach a Beginning Sacred Geometry Workshop. Ian Ricker will be back teaching a Learn to Draw People & Faces 5-week course starting November 16th. Class sizes are very small to provide personalized instruction and allow plenty of space to work.
As circumstances allow, the goal for Small Business Saturday which this year falls on November 27th (the day after Black Friday), is for InGenius! artisans to be on hand doing demonstrations, meeting the community, and discussing their classes.
InGenius! plans are in the making for December 4th to complement Yelm City Park’s tree-lighting and other festivities. More specifics will follow but the general idea is for community members to create their own handmade ornaments to hang on the gallery’s Tree of InGenius! Dreams. This will be a drop-in afternoon workshop with our artists facilitating and with ornaments to be retrieved when the tree comes down after the holidays. Being right across from the park makes this a fun day and evening for families.
Andrea adds, “A big part of what jazzes me about this whole InGenius! adventure is finding that we’re quickly becoming a hub of local artistry on many levels — the community has access both to appreciate and to learn art; collectors can acquire hyper-local art and support the dreams of artists they may even know; and artists meet other artists, which everyone is, ultimately. Watching them meet each other, seeing how one idea ignites another and then another, that’s really what art is all about–mutual inspiration to personal self-expression.”
InGenius! Local Artisan Gallery & Boutique is located in the former JZ Rose location at 207 1st St. South, Yelm, across from Yelm City Park.
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New Workshop Now on the InGenius! Schedule!
Learn the basics of PNW native wood carving under the expert guidance of InGenius! Artist Meleno Lovato.
In two two-hour sessions, he will teach you how to use traditional native carving tools, starting with a detailed lesson about safety practices that allow for a worry-free carving experience. You’ll begin by practicing the techniques step-by-step on a piece of cedar. Your class project will be a small PNW-style canoe.
DATES: Saturday November 13th and Saturday November 20th
TIME: 1:00-3:00 PM
TUITION: $75/person includes all your supplies Protective gloves will be available to borrow.Limit 5 students, ages 13 and up. A signed disclaimer will be required for participation.
“We hope that all men who abuse their power by abusing women will see this and understand that there will be real consequences to their profoundly damaging behavior,” quoting Mariann Wang, a lawyer representing two other harassment victims.
My hope is that at Yelm City Hall, “men who abuse their power by abusing women will see this and understand that there will be real consequences to their profoundly damaging behavior,” too!
Though innocent until proven otherwise, if an independent, third party investigation concludes that City Administrator Grayum abused his power by harassing and intimating women and men, there should be consequences for him, as well, including and not limited to censure from the council. This is the way this behavior can not be hidden from his next potential employer or executive search firm.
Yelm City Hall public entrance. Photo: City of Yelm
Editor’s note: The council’s incomplete L.I.D. briefing last Tuesday necessitated I send a letter to the council to provide them the history of this story I have followed for 15+ years. My letter is below.
Story highlights: The evasive answers to my L.I.D. questions required I finally submit a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request last April for the L.I.D.’s official financial documents. This is really very simple to understand if only the council would have received the document here.
The city officially became the land’s title holder and responsible for the note on January 3, 2020. The current balance the city owes is a total of $2,194,320 million dollars.
On Tuesday, the city council was encouraged by the city administrator to consider using the American Rescue Plan Act Funds to pay off the L.I.D. debt. Hopefully, the council will seek public input on what to do with those funds.
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Dear Yelm City Council members,
I am writing to correct some statements made at the Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021 council session.
1. The Killion L. l. D. was approved by the Yelm city council on June 14, 2006, not around the year 2000.
2. The statement made by Finance Director Dice that everybody agreed with the L. I. D. is false.
I know because I commented with others on this travesty at the public hearing on May 24, 2006.
[Thurston Highlands developers Doug Bloom & Steve Chamberlain asked the city for help in funding road improvements necessitated by traffic impacts from their Tahoma Terra developments. Property owners in the impact zone of Tahoma Terra were forced to pay a City Council imposed L. I. D. covering 46% of the costs of road improvements to Yelm Ave. West, Killion & Tahoma Blvd. via mandated property taxes, or almost one-half of the cost of the road improvements, work that should have been borne totally by the developers. They defaulted in Autumn 2008, and subsequently went bankrupt. Click here]
Only the Thurston Highlands/Tahoma Terra developers, and Thurston EDC President Michael Edwards, Twin County Credit Union reps., and the Yelm School superintendent were in favor of this project.
There was much consternation and frustration from citizens, especially between property owners and these other stakeholders. The council sided against the citizens and with the cooperate interests, none of them residing in the city limits.
One of the town’s co-founder families was represented by Roberta Longmire, who expressed their collective opposition to the L.I.D.
The L. I. D. history is important to read to provide you with context:Click here
To council member Blair, here is the history of the subsequent Bond, to provide further understanding: Click here
Thus, citizens learned that the Thurston EDC President Michael Edwards, an advocate for the L.I.D., was also a serving Board of Directors member of Thurston First Bank (the bank funded the loan of Ordinance 910 authorizing the issuance and sale of a local improvement district No. 2 bond in the principal amount of $10,139,000), plus Edwards had an interest in the vacant 8 acre lot behind Rosemont facing Yelm Ave. West (note: the L.I.D. passes, and this property value rises). Click here =============
Bottom line:
The evasive answers to my L.I.D. questions required I finally submit a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request last April for the L.I.D.’s official financial documents. This is really very simple to understand if only the council would have received the document attached.
To put in context, Mayor Foster signed a contract for a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure on December 29, 2017, without council approval, leaving the city with the land plus approx. $2.1 million total in debt and interest, IF/when the land-owners defaulted per Foster’s contract. This was all set-up to get the “high profile” land owners’ out from under what they owed, so of course they were going to default! Council requested explanations from Foster repeatedly when council member Joe DePinto first questioned the mayor on this June 26, 2018, only to be told by Foster to wait until the end of 2019, to see if the land-owners would make their payments in full. If in default on December 31, 2019, the city would take the land as collateral for the loan, plus the L. I. D.’s debt/interest. That occurred and on January 3, 2020, when the city became the L.I.D. parcel and debt holder. Your Study Session of January 7, 2020, provided you with an incomplete overview by Grant Beck. To date, Mayor Foster has had no public explanation as to what he “fostered” onto the backs of the city’s budget, and taxpayers’ backs.
The city officially became the land’s title holder and responsible for the note on January 3, 2020, which left a balance total of $2,194,320 million dollars at that time, for which the city became responsible. The city publicized this then on their website, still listed as follows: Click here
The last farmers market for the season is Saturday 10am-3pm, so come out for some pumpkin painting and trick or treating at the market! Photo: Yelm Farmers Market – Facebook
Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, seen Sept. 15, 2020, in Olympia, reportedly has been offered a position in the Biden administration related to voter security, according to CNN. Photo: Ted S. Warren, AP
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