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The Northeast Neighborhood Association will get $2,998 for materials to develop a gravel hike/bike path from where Joy Avenue dead-ends at Tullis Street Northeast to Bethel Street Northeast. The land is city property.
Volunteers have begun hacking invasive blackberry bushes and removing debris to clear a path. The plan is to have the trail in place by fall.
“We’ve got a good plan together, and now it’s just a matter of making it all happen,” said Mike Dexel, president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association. “It’s a lot of fun, really.”
Volunteers will do the labor, as is required in all the projects. Neighbors want to eventually have a gravel path with a geotextile fabric underneath for a durable trail. The project includes tearing out a thicket of blackberry bushes and planting trees, Dexel said. Leading the project is Jack Horton, the trail guru largely responsible for organizing the Woodland Trail and other hike/bike paths.
The neighborhood will pay for the remainder of the $7,400 project, he notes.
“We’re providing 4,400 (dollars) worth of value,” Horton said.
In another big project, the Downtown Neighborhood Association is getting $2,000 to repaint the mandala, the circular street mural at Ninth Avenue and Adams Street. The project also includes installing benches and planting fruit trees.
A lot of the work will take place during Building Neighborhood Convergence, a neighborhood event from Aug. 11-14. An opening will be cut in a hedge at 911 Adams St., welcoming people into a garden of fruits and vegetables, said Gail O’Sullivan, member of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. The garden is a joint venture of the Fertile Ground Guesthouse and the adjacent Northwest Ecobuilding Guild; they have decided to share their yards with the public, said O’Sullivan, who runs the guest house.
The privately owned urban oasis, which already is open to the public, includes chickens and rain gardens. “We’re trying to spiff it up and make it even more useful to the community,” O’Sullivan said.
Here’s a look at some of the other projects:
• The Eastside Neighborhood Association is getting $1,600 to develop a foot path.
• The Goldcrest Neighborhood Association is getting $1,635 to improve stormwater diversion.
• The Olympia Downtown Association is getting $2,000 for a mural project at State Avenue and Capitol Way to honor Rebecca Howard, the first African-American business owner in Olympia.
• The South Capitol Neighborhood Association will get $2,000 to replace 30 trees on the grounds of Lincoln Elementary School that were removed because of disease.
• The Southwest Olympia Neighborhood Association is getting $1,875 for signs and brochures to describe “mini parks” that were created in 2008 as part of a neighborhood walking route project.
• The Upper Eastside Neighborhood Association is getting $1,752 for artistic signs welcoming people to the neighborhood.
Two projects didn’t get approval. The Downtown Neighborhood Association had asked for $500 for a New Year’s Eve ball drop and block party. But the city attorney’s office recommended against it because of liability concerns, and because it doesn’t meet the criteria for the grants.
The city also turned down a $1,895 request from the Ken Lake homeowners association for a communal garden, because it could only be used by association members.
City staff members pick the projects each year, and the Olympia City Council reviews them. The council approved the projects last month.
Jennifer Kenny, associate planner for the city’s Community Planning and Development department, said the city awards the grants yearly. They range from $500 to $4,000 per association.
The recipients must be registered neighborhood associations and must have volunteers to do the work, and projects should be finished by the end of the award year.
“Together we accomplish what no one group could do alone,” Kenny said.
Matt Batcheldor: 360-704-6869
mbatcheldor@theolympian.com
