Every week I take a look at the city council packet to see if there is anything interesting. For a deeper look at what our city council members are reading and considering this week, read the packet yourself.

Kind of a small packet this week, forshadowing what I can tell is a pretty boring city council meeting. One interesting thing that we've talked about before was the end of 90 minute free parking downtown. Seems the land use subcommittee of the city council is suggesting that the larger council to create an all pay system. I wrote about this earlier here.

Another item regards the status of the state's State Capitol Campus master plan, which is pretty interesting reading. It reminds me of how important statet government is to our city. Even though state buildings are popping up in Tumwater and Lacey, we're still the Capitol City and how the state handles business has a big impact on our city and economy. For example, several local businesses recently sued GA over the Smart Buying Initiative because it favored large, out of town businesses such as Ikon over smaller local ones, like Capital Business Machines.

 Anyway, there was an interesting passage in the master plan report:

The State Capitol Master Plan has not been comprehensively updated since 1991. Since that time the State has continued to expand and renovate office facilities both in Olympia and the surrounding community sometimes in a manner inconsistent with the 1991 Master Plan. The 1991 Master Plan envisioned most State facilities would be state-owned. But no funding was forthcoming and so between 1994 and 2000 the State had to rely on leasing facilities and a low cost approach led to sprawl and fragmentation.

My understanding of this passage is that for a few years, instead of building new structures when they were needed, the state leased existing buildings in Olympia, converting what were commercial spaces (such as those buildings in the Target Center east of Target when the craft store is now). Even though I'm not a big fan of all the construction in Tumwater, it is much nicer to see actual state office buildings.