NVN highlights issues with library condo expenses originating 15 years ago

Dear readers;

In the current edition of the Nisqually Valley News (NVN), they look back at key news stories 15 years ago this week (see below).

However, no context was provided as to what the newspaper was attempting to reference.

The Yelm Library Citizens Advisory Board was then Chaired by me, Steve Klein, and met several times in 2007 and 2008 with the then-TRL Executive Director and TRL’s Facilities Manager, who guided the Board in their annual report and presentation to the mayor and council on March 25, 2008, about a new library building. I had been originally appointed to this Advisory Board in 2004 by Mayor Rivas, and subsequently voted Board Chair in 2007 by the other Board members.

Click here for that letter to the mayor and council on March 25, 2008.

A selection of investigative reports from this blog about how the 2 most previous mayors and some of their council members have ensured Yelm became saddled with excessive library expenses for decades, which can be accessed here:

• July 27, 2020: Yelm Library Facility, Part II: City’s leadership is amiss!
• July 20, 2020: Special Report: Yelm Library “condo” contract scrutinized by council, as options to reduce outrageous contract expenses are sought!
• January 5, 2016: Library Bldg. Condo Assn Fees within City of Yelm Budget – Not publicly disclosed previously

From the Nisqually Valley News, March 24, 2023 edition:

A Look Back at This Week, 15 Years Ago

• Officials expressed concerns about the fate of the Yelm Timberland Library in a March 2008 letter to the city council. Board chairman Steve Klein said the library was given a 10-year exemption from the city in 2002 to operate in the Prairie Park complex. Klein said he was worried about what would happen when the exemption expired in 2012.

The Yelm Community Blog has served our area since 2006

Dear readers,

Today, on March 29th, the Yelm Community Blog has been operating with virtually daily posts for 17 years, since 2006. This blog has been complied by the longest serving writer in Yelm, compared to any other online or print publication staffs. I have been proud to provide the community with stories that give you, the reader, public documents to read and discern news stories for yourself, and without any paid advertisements.

The first blog post was about Yelm Community Schools enrolling the 5,000th pupil, doubling their student numbers in 25 years.

Follow on Twitter or subscribe to the e-list on the right side of the home page.

A heartfelt THANK YOU for your interest and support all of these years.

Sincerely,

Steve Klein

Yelm’s Community Resource Fair this Thursday

From Love Abounds Here:

THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2023 AT 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM PDT

Yelm City Park

This addition of the Community Resource Fair will include:

Healthcare Enrollment
Family Support Services
Addiction Counseling
FREE Legal Assistance
Addiction Counseling
Food Assistance
Covid-19 Vaccinations
…and so much more.

International Transgender Visibility Day recognized by the Board of Health in Thurston County

‘An annual day to celebrate the accomplishments and victories of transgender and gender nonconforming people’

Excerpt from The JOLT News:

To acknowledge the significant contributions of transgender people to the community and recognize the hardship facing transgender people in healthcare settings, the Board of Health (BOH) proclaimed March 31, 2023, International Transgender Visibility Day in Thurston County.

At the Tuesday [March 14] BOH meeting, Board Member and Lacey councilmember Robin Vazquez cited statistics that one in five members of the transgender community were refused health care. 

“About 28% of the transgender community responding to the survey experienced harassment when seeking health care. That is a pertinent issue for the BOH to address,” Vazquez said.

Board of County Commissioners chair and BOH member Carolina Mejia said the proclamation is their way of acknowledging that transgender people are welcome in the community.

“We are seeing suicide rates go up for our trans[gender] community as they are facing a lot of bullying in our very own communities…it goes against you as a human as a person. As a BOH, we find this issue very important,” Mejia said.

Demands of aging population stressing Thurston County EMS, hospitals

Excerpt from The Olympian:

Thurston County’s aging population needs more care and that’s factoring into delays for emergency services, officials say.

Calls for emergency medical services (EMS) increased from 26,570 in 2013 to an expected 43,000 in 2023, said Ben Miller-Todd, director of Thurston County Emergency Services.

“We’ve had about a 62% overall growth over the course of 11 years in Thurston County’s EMS infrastructure,” Miller-Todd said. “That significantly outpaces the growth that we have in population. A lot of that is due to age.”

Thurston County’s population surpassed 300,000 in June, according to the Washington State Office of Financial Management. Citing figures from the Thurston Regional Planning Council, Miller-Todd said the county population may reach 370,000 by 2040.

Miller-Todd said the county’s median age increased from 29.8 in 1980 to about 37.3 in 2010. He also showed a population pyramid graph that showed how the the number of people in their 20s and 30s has declined.

Average EMS response times have increased along with growing call volumes. Miller-Todd said response times increased 12% from 414 seconds (about 7 minutes) in 2019 to 463 seconds (almost 8 minutes) in 2021. At the same time, he said more people are waiting longer than 45 minutes at the hospital emergency departments.

Support Local AND Support Yelm Dollars for Scholars!

From Pizzeria LaGitana:
Dine in (or order takeout) at Yelm’s La Gitana on March 29th and 10 percent of all sales for the day will be donated to Yelm Dollars for Scholars!

What is Yelm Dollars for Scholars?
Our Dollars For Scholars chapter is a nonprofit foundation that supports academic success in our community. As part of the Scholarship America’s national network of locally based, volunteer-driven Dollars for Scholars chapters, our mission is to mobilize our community on behalf of post-secondary education success for our students.
Dollars for Scholars chapters like ours help hometown students achieve their educational goals by raising scholarship funds, establishing endowments, providing assistance with college readiness and the financial aid process, and distributing scholarships each year.

Yes, it is remote workers who spiked housing, rent costs: study

Excerpt from The Hill:

If you’re upset about housing costs, you can chalk half of it up to remote workers, according to one study.

Directly or indirectly, COVID pandemic policies ushered in the worst U.S. inflation in 40 years, particularly regarding housing.

Housing costs have never been higher or more burdensome for both renters and owners. Over 40% of renter households in the U.S. are paying more than the recommended 30% of their net income for housing making them officially fit the description of “cost-burdened.” Want to help pollinators this spring? Expert suggests these tips

Meanwhile, homeownership costs have grown to their highest-ever levels. The median sales price for a home in the U.S. was $467,700 in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve. This is not only the highest homes have ever cost, but buyers are now paying up to thousands more in interest than they would have prior to 2021 thanks to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s tightening interest rates.

Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research compared national rent and ownership trends to isolate what caused already-rising housing prices to spike since late 2019. The report, authored in May 2022, is decisive about the cause.

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The national number of remote workers – who are twice as likely to earn more than the median income – tripled from 2019 to 2021, according to the U.S. Census. In short, they need more space and have the bankroll to pay for it, raising prices across the nation in the process of shuffling to less dense areas in the last three years.

read

Five planets will line up in the skies above WA state. Here’s how to view the rare event

Excerpt from the Tacoma News-Tribune via Yahoo!:

Look up in the sky above Washington state…, and you might see something that hasn’t been around in almost a year.

On Tuesday, a large planetary alignment involving five planets will streak across our sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus will appear to be in a near-straight line, according to Star Walk Space.

The last time multiple planets lined up in a similar pattern was in early June 2022, when Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus aligned across the sky.

Although Tuesday evening is the best time to see the alignment, stargazers can witness the event several days before and after Tuesday. Here’s what to know about the rare solar occurrence.

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How to spot the alignment

Most of the alignment over the next few days can be viewed with the naked eye, but telescopes or a pair of binoculars would be helpful.

Venus, Mars and Jupiter can all be viewed easily with the naked eye, according to The Farmers’ Almanac. Mercury can also be seen with the naked eye, but due to its proximity to the sun, it can be seen only right after sunset or before dawn, meaning those would be the best moments to see the entire alignment.

Uranus is so far away — 1.9 billion miles — that unless you’re in an area protected from light pollution like Washington’s many national and state parks, you’ll need a magnification device.

‘Unhinged’: Trump Ripped In Withering Editorial From Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post

Excerpt from Huff Post via MSN:

The New York Post, the previously pro-Donald Trump tabloid owned by conservative billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, on Friday urged supporters of the former president to look elsewhere.

The newspaper, which appears to have increasingly soured on Trump since the GOP’s poor 2022 midterm results, called out his threat of “death and destruction” if he is indicted following an investigation into a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels.

“He hasn’t changed in the slightest. There is no shame,” wrote the Post’s editorial board, which said it didn’t disagree with claims it was a “biased prosecution” but slammed Trump for seeking to inspire a mob.

“Time and time again, Trump’s responses have been unhinged, vindicative and self-defeating,” it continued. “Trump is not trying to make America a better place” but just seeking revenge.

“You want a leader who will fight for you?” the board asked in conclusion. “Then you have to pick someone who can actually get elected. Republicans can’t throw away their shot in 2024.”

American IQ Test Scores Show Recent Declines, According To New Study

Excerpt from Forbes:

American IQ test scores have dropped during a recent 13-year period, a remarkable finding that runs counter to the well-established trend of increasing IQ scores throughout much of the 20th century.

That’s a main result reported in a new study published in the journal Intelligence, entitled Looking for Flynn effects in a recent online U.S. adult sample: Examining shifts within the SAPA Project by Elizabeth M. Dworak, William Revelle, and David M. Condon.

The study found evidence of a reverse “Flynn effect” in a large U.S. sample of almost 400,000 individuals tested between 2006 and 2018 in several ability areas. The Flynn effect refers to the well-replicated finding that IQ scores increased consistently through much of the 20th century, with increases ranging from three to five IQ points per decade.

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Why The Decrease?

The study does not answer the question of why the decline in IQ scores was observed during this period. “There’s debate about what’s causing it, but not every domain is going down; one of them is going up,” Dworak said. “If all the scores were going in the same direction, you could make a nice little narrative about it, but that’s not the case. We need to do more to dig into it.”

Possible explanations for the downward direction include a shift in educational practices and emphases, a biased sample of adults who responded to the online SAPA instrument, differences in motivation among people taking this test versus those who are tested for different reasons, and differences between this instrument and the standard IQ tests used in other research.