Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

How bad is the situation down in the South Capitol Neighborhood? The council's land use committee will find out early next week.

Residents of the area south of the capitol campus have been complaining for years that their neighborhood is slowly being bought up by lobbyists, turning old historic homes into offices and event/party locations.

Even still, houses that should be houses for people to live in are apparently used for other uses:

Among others, the primary problems identified include residences being used as offices, houses being used for large public/private gatherings, and commercial off-street parking tied to the legislative session. The Planning Commission received a briefing, conducted a public hearing and forwarded recommendations to the Council in October 2006.

Here is a summary of the 2008 investigation of the South Capitol Neighborhood by city staff:

• 3 were determined to have no violations
• 5 were in violation of the Residential Parking program
• 4 were in violation of “commercial lots” leasing of on-site parking spaces
• 1 had non-permitted dwelling unit that requires permit
• 2 were in violation of Home occupation permit ordinance

Here is a more complete run-down of the anti-lobbyist dragnet.

Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

Pretty light schedule for the city council, so the most interesting thing I could find was a proposed $4,000 project by the East Bay Neighborhood Association to improve shoreline habitat along East Bay Drive (where else?).

The assocation requested a $4,000 grant, but the city had just over $2,500 in that particular grant account. Good project, so the city wants to help out, but first the council's finance committee has to find out what particular cookie jar to pull the money out of.

From the staff report:

The East Bay Neighborhood Association submitted a Sustainability Grant Application requesting $4,000.00 for a project, which is the maximum amount awarded. Staff recommended awarding the balance of grant funds to the Association, which totaled $2,547.00. At the May 20th meeting, the Council awarded full funding of the application and directed the Finance Committee to find the appropriate monies.

Here's some fun reading from the neighborhood association's application:

The goal of this project is to replace the invasive Scot's broom and Himalayan blackberry on the shoreline near the East Bay Drive View with healthy native shrubs in accordance with existing City of Olympia planning.

...

Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

Remember that event down at Washington Center where we spend $25,000 to hear a forum on climate change? I'm a big fan of Terry Tempest Williams, but it didn't seem much like a forum (more like a sermon) to me.

Now it looks like the city council is ready to shelve the eventual end result of that forum, which would have been a city committee to look at climate change.

Staff report:

In April 2008, the General Government weighed all the climate change work already moving forward and contemplated whether establishing a Citizen Advisory Committee is the most effective use of City resources at this time. Attachment 3 summarizes the General Government Committee’s discussion. Their recommendation is that the City Council not move forward with the taskforce at this time and instead reserve the money for sustainability efforts yet to be define.

The original proposal came from former city councilmember TJ Johnson:

Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

The most interesting reading in the packet this week is the update on the RV ordinance. The council is reviewing two options from staff, one that bans RVs 24 hours and one for only a few hours each night.

Staff report run down:

Near the beginning was the Police Department's presentation: "Telling our story." The Chief of Police, Gary Michel, told of some of the recent accomplishments of the department, including the city's very low statistics for certain crimes, like burglary for example. I couldn't find information about the presentation in the council meeting packet (I didn't take notes, sorry.). The Chief's presentation made the police department sound very good. If all I had to base my understanding on was the presentation, I might think that there were very few to no problems with the police department's operations.

Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

I was asking myself just last week, "how does Olympia rank in terms of security against other midsized cities?" Thank goodness for the good people at the Farmers Insurance Group, because according to them, we rank pretty well.

From a staff report (pdf):

In 2004, the Farmers Insurance Group began looking at what it meant to be a secure city. The motivation for this effort was the recognition that, in our post-9/11 world, safety has become a prime concern of communities across the nation. When families choose a place to live, they now not only look at the schools and job market, they also look at a community’s security status.

... 

The Olympia metro area (including the cities of Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater and Yelm; the towns of Bucoda, Rainier, Rochester and Tenino; and unincorporated Thurston County) has been selected as the 2007 Most Secure Mid-Size City in the U.S. Farmers notes that “Olympia, the State capital, has become a hub for artists and musicians thanks to its extremely clean air and the long life expectancy of its residents.”

Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

Seriously, RVs. Never would have thunk it, but I probably should have (below).

First, from the staff report:

Downtown parking spaces are currently being used by owners of recreational vehicles that park in the city rights of way for a long term. These trailers often park at the 9-hr designated meters, deposit the meter amount for 9 hrs of parking, during business hours, and remain parked in the space permanently. During the evenings, week-ends, and holidays, parking at these metered spaces is free and regulations are not in effect. There are approximately 7 trailers that have been parked
in the downtown area on a long term basis, and a few others outside of the downtown area.

These trailers and their occupants take up parking spaces designed for visitors and customers, operate power generators on sidewalks which create noise pollution, store gasoline cans next to the generators and, in some instances, dump raw sewage onto city streets. In general, they create a permanent living space on a public right-of-way to the exclusion of the general public and potentially pose a public health and safety issue.

And, what they propose to do:

1. Prohibit the overnight parking of recreational vehicles on all city streets between the hours of 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. including holidays and weekends. This regulation would apply city-wide to prevent trailers currently parked in the downtown area to move elsewhere in the city.

Just a few thoughts about this:

1. I know Debra Vinsel, Joe Hyer and Jeff Kingsbury (Kingsbury less so), but I was embarrassed by this video. It smacks of propaganda and boosterism. At certain points it was trying to be cute, but I was turned off by the "lets mention one more good thing" about downtown feel to it.

2. It would have been better to spend a few hours just talking to people about downtown, unscripted. Even if this video wasn't scripted, it sure felt like it. The blooper reel at the end reminded me that they had practiced their lines.

3. I know I harp about this alot, but the benefit of blogging and engaging in comment threads is that you avoid this kind of shmaltzy-staged stuff. Just talking on a blog (not this blog probably) in a direct way is more meaningful that this video.

While not technically an "antiquated plat," like I wrote about before (look at my earlier post for background), I found something very interesting in the maps prepared by TRPC for the city in their discussion of the old, planned neighborhoods.

At one point, the city had laid out block in what is now Capitol Lake. Here it is overlaid in Google Earth: