Letters to the editor for April 29
Support Tumwater, not Port development
Port of Olympia Commissioner Joe Downing urges Tumwater City Council to approve a development agreement for 200 acres owned by the Port of Olympia. Has the Port Commission approved that agreement? Have they approved Downing’s letter?
I urge caution, as a neighbor living near this proposed development. Those 200 acres are Tumwater’s largest urban forest. Thurston County’s Climate Mitigation Plan recommends planting more trees, not wholesale urban logging. This forest provides ecosystem services worth over $2 million per year.
Community benefit? Mega-warehouses on Kimmie Street would run thousands of semi trucks per day near Bush Middle School. Downing proposes directing truck traffic north. Wouldn’t that cut homeowners’ access to the neighborhood main street?
Downing proposes moving Capital Little League fields, nurtured for decades, to a currently forested site. Seriously? The city of Tumwater requires green space from developers. Did they choose the port land offered, or would a community center make more sense near the library? How much does the 10% port rebate to Panatonni cost taxpayers?
Economic development? Mega-warehouses provide only 1-2% as many jobs as light industrial, according to the Thurston Buildable Lands Report. The average wage is only $14 per hour.
Tax benefits? Aren’t mega-warehouses exempt from building, occupancy, and use taxes?
Hundreds of taxpayers opposed the Panatonni deal last summer, and Tumwater rightly threatened to rezone. Downing tries to make a bad deal look palatable to the public. Don’t be fooled.
Urge Tumwater to protect our neighborhoods, forests, and future. We support sustainable development. Tumwater needs homes, restaurants, shops, recreation, and forest — not mega-warehouses by a middle school.
E.J. Zita, Olympia
Make a difference with Hunger Walk
Join your neighbors in making a difference by helping feed thousands of hungry people calling Thurston County home by giving during the virtual Hunger Walk which ends at midnight Sunday, May 2. You can join one of 30-plus teams at www.thurstonhungerwalk.com
Every dollar donated benefits The Community Kitchen, Senior Services for South Sound and the Thurston County Food Bank equally. Help raise $20,000 for each agency by giving and walking. Your gift makes a difference in the lives of children, elders, families and veterans. Join a team today.
Peter Epperson, Olympia
City engineer’s legacy
It was with genuine sorrow I recently learned of the passing of Al Kimbel, Olympia’s longtime City Engineer.
First, I was saddened at the loss of a really good man from our community, a man who by all accounts was a good husband, a good father and a good co-worker. Secondly, I was disappointed that he passed without most people recognizing his contributions to our community.
In the early 1980s, Olympia changed from a City Commission to a City Council. Along with this change came a group of council members and numerous visions for improving the city. As a result, the city undertook construction of the Olympia Center, the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, the Percival Creek Bridge and a major expansion of the LOTT Wastewater Treatment Plant, all at the same time. Al managed all of these projects, and despite his department being severely understaffed, all of them were successfully completed. When the usual kinds of issues arose, Al was vilified by some elements of the community and by the local media.
While all this was going on, Al was working daily with representatives of Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency to get the best possible funding for the LOTT project. The result was that Olympia ended up paying only 5-10% of the project cost, which was orders of magnitude below what communities could hope for at that time and unheard of today. Therefore, Olympia was able to hold down debt and utility rates and build a treatment plant that would carry the community for years to come.
Art O’Neal, Olympia