Both are worthy of comment.
Tumwater officials have hired an architect to design the expansion and remodel of its police station at City Hall, which hasn’t had upgrades since it was built more than two decades ago.
It’s imperative that city officials get this expansion right. It was part of a public safety measure put before voters last August. The ballot proposition, to remodel the police station, and hire police officers and firefighters, passed by a mere 8 votes in the primary election. That’s 8 votes out of 3,475 cast.
The razor-thin margin of victory shows the importance of every vote. In fact, Auditor Kim Wyman and her staff did not tally 11 ballots from that election because the voter either forgot to sign the ballot or the signature did not match the signature on their voter registration card.
In that public safety election, those 11 votes could have swung the election from passage to failure.
We credit the election victory to the last-minute surge put forth by supporters of Proposition 1. On the Saturday before the Tuesday election, City Council members, firefighters and other Prop. 1 supporters telephoned Tumwater voters who had not yet returned their ballot and asked them to vote “yes.” The return of ballots – where the measure was losing by 27 votes on election night – showed that the last-minute phone effort worked. Late arriving ballots, those cast after the telephone campaign, pushed the multi-million dollar tax increase over the top.
But those who manned the phone heard a strong message. Voters didn’t mind paying for police officers and firefighters, but was less enthusiasm for renovations at City Hall. It was clear voters wanted more public servants on the street and were less enamored with bricks and mortar.
That’s why it’s imperative that Tumwater officials strip this project down to the minimum and concentrate on police and firefighters.
The $3.3 million project includes a 5,000-square-foot expansion to the police station wing of City Hall and upgrades including a new heating system and replacing the roof.
Fortunately, Tumwater Mayor Pete Kmet understands what’s at stake. “This is really an important project for us,” Kmet said. Police officials say insufficient space makes the prisoner-holding area unsafe, and there is not enough room for investigations, operations and victim assistance.
It’s also fortunate that the company designing Tumwater’s expansion project has a background with law enforcement, including designing the Pierce County court renovation, Lakewood and Sumner police facilities and the Thurston County Jail renovations.
Kmet said the city’s goal is to start construction this year.
As they move forward, Tumwater officials must be mindful that the public most wants to see the two new police officers and six firefighters on duty. Keep the City Hall expansion to the bare necessities.
While Tumwater is just launching its project, the City of Olympia can scratch one more project off its to-do list. A $66,000 city project to preserve and beautify the Fourth Avenue artesian well for future generations was recently completed.
What this project demonstrates is how persistence can pay off.
For years and years, this community has struggled to get a suitable artesian well in operation. At one time grand plans were unveiled to have an artesian well as part of an elaborate fountain near the Farmers Market.
Over the years, artesian efforts have ebbed and flowed, just like the tide of Budd Inlet. Finally, with pressure from the community, the City Council decided to simply make improvements to the popular artesian well adjacent to the new City Hall. Its opening marks a major turnaround from two years ago, when it was feared the well would close to public use.
Now, thanks to strong community support, there’s a new place to fill bottles, with a raised platform for users to set multiple water containers. There’s solar lighting, stamped concrete that mimics bricks, tall posts that will hold flower baskets in the spring, and a community bulletin board, scheduled to be finished soon.
It’s a vast improvement over the unsightly old well and one that is a testimony to persistence.
