It's official. The Poor Peoples Union has voted unanimously in favor of moving forward with the referendum to over turn the pedestrian interference ordinance. The ordinance clearly targets poor and houseless people, puts unfair restrictions on struggling small businesses and violates all of our rights by privatizing public areas.

Here are some things that weren't brought up at the city council meetings but were written into the law:

- The ordinance would give police new powers to shut down ANY form of peaceful protest and give out newer more powerful tickets for simply standing in public space. A person can receive the same amount of jail time for 'pedestrian interference' as for trespassing. This section of the ordinance was worded to include demonstrations.

- According to the language of the ordinance, it appears that business owners will have to pay the city an additional fee to keep dumpsters behind their buildings and any dumpster in an ally way must be removed.

- Notifying business owners of the change in laws must be proactive, meaning the city must, before February 1st, go to every business in the downtown area effected by the ordinance and inform them. This is a logistical nightmare and will carry a heavy cost in city tax dollars.

    The referendum is a process by which a group of people can over turn a law or ordinance by petition. The city then has the option to spend upwards of 10,000 dollars to put it on the ballot, or they can simply drop the issue and rethink their plan. This ordinance is ineffective, costly, partisan and downright hateful.
    Yes there are issues with downtown. That fact is painfully clear, but this is not the way to solve them. This ordinance is a trap, a step towards gentrification and a green light to big developers who want to come into downtown and turn it into a strip mall for people from Lacey. Lacey is not a bad or evil place, but its also not Olympia. If we want to keep our independent businesses, if we want to have the right to demonstrate in our capitol city then we will over turn this ordinance and find a way to fix our problems without hate or prejudice.

This is a long post.

Over and over, Olympia City Council members have said they’ve received dozens of complaints from people about "pedestrian interference" downtown.

These complaints, at least the ones recorded in phone messages, written correspondence and/or e-mail or other written form, are public records and are disclosable, as are police reports and court records related to "interference".

Since The Olympian is failing in its civic responsibility to report on all sides of this issue by asking the City for specific information pertaining to the need for this ordinance, someone should. It could be one of the readers of this post.

If you choose to file a records request, please remember that these requests are a way of obtaining information to be disseminated to the public, and should not be used to beat individuals over the head in an attempt to change their minds, however tempting that might be. At their best, journalists such as yourselves are public servants who have a special duty to provide information people can use to make well-reasoned decisions.

So, were I to write a request for records pertaining to this issue, it would go something like this. The wording of the request is below, followed by some additional comments. If you are interested in pursuing this, you can take the request to City Hall, or mail or e-mail it to the City’s public records officer. Information on how to file public records requests may be found on the City’s Web site, www.ci.olympia.wa.us

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So, out of 21 people so far, 76% have voted for the City of Olympia to monetarily support The Procesison of the Species. That's great! I wish more people would vote, but this gives a clear pciture to the City Council of what the people want. But, are they watching??? Too bad there isn't a larger forum, like The Olympian, who would come forward and actually take a consensus. I am sure there are a lot of people who don't go to see it and many who haven't ever even heard of it, but for the thousands, children and adults who spend countless hours preparing beautiful works of art, it is a glorius event. It brings families together, processioners and specatators alike. It brings people from outside the community (20,000 to 30,000 all tolled each year). The Illuminated Procession the night before is spectacular. The batik bannners that appear downtown days before are beautiful. The Procession is giving this city something that is one of a kind. Something they can flaunt and be proud of. I suppose I'm opening myself up for attack but, too bad, because if it doesn't get any funding it surely won't be able to continue to happen.