Tonight's community forum at the Knox Center gave over two hundred Olympians a chance to share thoughts about the projected $2 million school district budget cuts. The event filled the Board Room and a spillover room hastily arranged upstairs. As the meeting began people stood along side walls and out in the hallway.

To start the forum, Jim Crawford, Assistant Superintendent and the night's emcee, gave a 15 minute synopsis of the budget process. In short, projected costs and revenues are both increasing, but costs grow faster. Combine this with a needed 5% contingency fund--$4 million--and we'll have to trim about $2 million from next year's expenses. "Reductions to balance the 2008-2009 budget will help forestall major additional reductions in 2009-10," Crawford's PowerPoint noted. Or, in his words: "Our outlook for the following year is another deficit... If we can solve this now, we won't be in this position next year."

Crawford also explained why the publicized cut sheet [pdf] wasn't as much cause for alarm as some think. "There are more cuts on this sheet than we're going to need to adopt, and that's very intentional... We want to hear from you before we [make cuts]."

These images, which were created by the City of Olympia and a consultant in San Francisco to show what a rezone could do to the appearance of the isthmus, are not available online. Nor have they been published by the Olympian. So I had to scan the wrinkled old hard copy I got at the public forum at the Olympia Center of March 22, where maybe 100 very dismayed Olympians got a glimpse of the isthmus' future. I tried to get them from the City of Olympia -- at first they said they would post them when they got them from the consultant, then later they changed their minds and decided not to post them. Gee, I wonder why?

(click on a picture to see a larger image)

Part II

Well I had a great time on the ride along. I got downtown around 11:30 and checked in at the front desk. Sergeant Wojtech drove me up to the Westside station. We had a nice chat, and I wish I had heard more of his stories about aiding in the evacuation of Mount St. Helens when it erupted. Spent a couple of hours riding around with JT in his car. For the inquiring minds, Sergeant Wojtech doesn't own an iPod, and JT likes classic rock and modern country on his.

Got to see a couple of calls responded to. As one involved a minor, and another was a routine complaint, but involving a no contact order I won't delve into any details. Heard some interesting stuff come over the radio as well.

read the rest

Things have just been crazy with this whole levy business. It's horribly frustrating and also stressful. It just kills me that Terry might not have his wonderful amazing program that he, and the students, have worked so hard to get at the level they are at. Somehow he's become the poster child for the levy and three news stations have come and interviewed him. I put links to two of them but couldn't find the KIRO video. I think the KOMO one came out the best. There was also an article in the Olympian.

http://www.king5.com/video/index.html?nvid=241601

http://www.komotv.com/news/18671319.html (click on 'watch the story)

Hello, I'm here specifically to distribute and request info for the purposes of opposing condo 'development' and gentrification in Olympia. we're one of the last cities of our type in the US and the last thing we need is to become another indistinguishable monoculture smear on the I-5, another bedroom community for white-flight refugees from Seattle or Portland or California. Please, please, please help your neighbors oppose the gentrification of Olympia. I love it here and i don't WANT to seee Oly become Bremerton, no matter what Matt Belcherdorf says.

So- stay tuned. I'll be posting weekly with whatever information i have about the battle against condo development. This will include dates, places and times to act, PDFs to download and whatever else i can bring you. For starters, i want the community at large to remember the date JUNE 24th. This is the date the City council will hold a town-hall style meeting to provide the public the opportunity to voice thier opposition to condo development. They haven't published a time or location for this event, but as soon as i know, you will.

thanks for your ear and it's a pleasure to finally join the conversation i've had so much fun reading over others' shoulders.

-InsertCondoHere

Unlike Tschida Jeff has shown an ability to participate in Olyblog within the guidelines that were asked of him. (at least, a greater ability than even I have to admit Tschida possessed.)

It is not right that participants are allowed to "play the player instead of the ball" when it comes to him. He submits a post, or a comment, and he gets attacked with something unrelated to the thread or what he said.

Are certain people eligible for ad hominem attacks? Are certain people exempt from the community-protections that have been pushed and pushed on us these past few months?

I understand that there are people here who personally knew Rachel Corrie, and who will never forgive Jeff for his insensitivity. That's fine. But what they need to do is ignore him unless they can contribute to the discussion.

[EDIT: I posted this at the same time Rob R removed the offending comments (mine too, which was only right.) I offered to have him remove this post - I feel I make a good point though.]

There's one other person at my office who is a semi-regular bike commuter, and another person we work with lives close to her. So they arranged this morning to meet up and ride in together, so the newbie could see the best route & have some encouragement/company on her first bike commute. I talked to them this morning, and they were both pretty excited.

The newbie just got a new(-to-her) bike with clip pedals, and new shoes, so I guess last night she did some riding around in her neighborhood to get used to it. Get all the falling down out of the way, is how she put it. She was also very proudly (!) showing off the bruises on her leg from that particular little adventure. But no falling today, apparently.

I had wanted to ride in with them, as their route meets up with mine, but I forgot to ask yesterday what time they'd be leaving. Another time, perhaps. I've never ridden with anybody on my commute, and would like to try it at least once.

In any case, I'm tickled pink about the whole thing. I think it's incredibly important to provide support & encouragement to new bike commuters, to make it as easy physically and mentally as possible. It can't be a standoffish culture, with an elite attitude; biking to work has to become as ordinary as possible. If there's several people who bike, and they're not weird dorky bike people ;) then that makes it open to anybody.

That's the idea, anyway.