Letters to the editor for Dec. 6

Downzones that result in exclusive single-family neighborhoods are institutional racism

I submitted comments to the Olympia Planning Commission on the Housing Options Plan. I would like to respond to Walt Jorgensen’s letter of Nov. 20 where he characterized some of those comments as “racist.”

My comments put into context the structural racism of our current zoning laws that Olympia’s Housing Options proposal seeks to correct.

Until 1980, for every 1,000 new residents, six 2-to-4 unit buildings were built. In the early 1980s, that changed. Egged on by a debate over the spread of so-called ghettos, the City Council downzoned large portions of the city. Since the downzones, the ratio of new 2-to-4 unit buildings dropped to only 1 per 1,000 new residents.

We are now reaping the harvest of these downzones. Olympia today is a largely segregated community. According to census data, the more single-family homes there are in a neighborhood, the whiter that neighborhood is.

Allowing low-density, multifamily housing is the traditional way we have always grown as a city. We moved away from it because, in an era after racial discrimination in housing became illegal, fears of crime and ghettos drove our zoning choices. We used to write racially restrictive covenants, but today we segregate our city with single-family zoning.

The downzones are a textbook example of institutional racism. The 1980s downzones were born in a context of racism. I don’t think people who are trying to protect them are racists. But we can clearly see how they have terrible impacts.

Emmett O’Connell, Olympia

Thank you, Downtown!

It is so fun to watch and hear the children and their families “playing in the snow” in front of the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Then they take each other’s picture in front of the winter scene and then they have the pleasure of listening to the amazing organ concert. The stores are lit up and decorated beautifully. It heightens all the senses.

We have lost so much this year and it is wonderful to know the spirit of Christmas is alive and well in downtown Olympia..

Sandra Ware, Olympia

Congress must pass COVID-19 relief package

Thank goodness vaccine trials are successful. But you have read and experienced that COVID-19 is not just a health crisis.

In the U.S. there are long lines at food banks, higher unemployment leading to rental defaults, other health needs unaddressed, and schooling disrupted. Globally it is expected COVID-19 will double extreme hunger; drive 150 million into extreme poverty; disrupt tuberculosis, AIDS, and childhood vaccine programs; and affect students’ future income potential.

Congress can agree this crisis demands relief. They should pass a package including rental assistance and increases to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in addition to funding for global health and nutrition programs before the end of the year.

Let’s call on U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and U.S. Reps. Denny Heck, Derek Kilmer and Jaime Herrera Beutler to urge leadership to negotiate in good faith so all can survive until the vaccine is equitably distributed.

Nancy Curtiss, Olympia

The rains of November 2006

Your article on the November rain was interesting. There is more to this story.

The November 2006 rain not only hit Olympia. An atmospheric river hit the Mount Rainier National Park entrance above Alder Lake. Eighteen inches of rain fell in 36 hours. It was considered a 140-plus-year storm. The resulting flood severely damaged the park and closed the park entrance for about a year, for the first time in history (except for times of war).

Fortunately, the prior summer and fall were very dry. Tacoma Power also ran their La Grande generators below Alder Dam at full capacity as much of that prior time as they could. The reservoir was 53 feet below capacity in early November 2006. When the flood hit Alder Lake, it simply raised the reservoir 37 feet to 16 feet below capacity. There was no flooding below the dam.

As an aside, Tacoma Power historically keeps Alder Lake Reservoir as full as possible for electricity generation. That’s why the Nisqually River floods so often. Last January, they purposely allowed the reservoir to reach a level of 2 feet below capacity. Two storms later, gave us the Feb. 7, 2020, Nisqually Valley flood, the sixth largest recorded at the McKenna gauge in the last 70 years.

Tacoma Power’s Federal Energy Regulatory Control license has no limits to stay under in the fall/winter. Mother Nature saved the valley in 2006.

Howard H Glastetter, Olympia