OPINION

How would the candidates spend money to solve problems here?

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It’s election season. Candidates have their websites up, signs are all over town, and we’re all trying to decide who will best represent our interests on the different councils and boards.

Something I’ve always appreciated about our local form of government is that it's pretty clean and open. We start with council members who are elected for the whole city, not just a small area or district.Thus they need to consider everyone’s opinions, listen to all the neighborhoods, and don’t advocate for a specific district of the city that they represent. That way the council members can’t be too provincial, at least not in their own city. 

Plus the candidates don’t have political party affiliations.  Now, we of course have a sense of which party they’d belong to, but the important and salient factor is that the political parties don’t dictate how to vote on any particular issue.  That’s a big deal and takes an entire dynamic out of how our representatives approach an issue and decide what to do. And once again they simply evaluate what’s best for the city and vote accordingly without external influence or pyurely political considerations.  We have more than enough of that on the state and federal levels.

We’re also fortunate that we don’t have large companies putting pressure on our local officials, no threats to leave town unless their demands are met. We do indeed all live in one big company town, but that company is the state. And while the state is certainly a big part of the dynamic when dealing with issues from homeless to parking, they aren’t dictating policy nor making demands for economic or environmental concessions.

I realize that not everyone will agree with this, that there is an undercurrent, admittedly not very subtle, that “the politicians are in the pockets of developers”. The spectrum of feelings and thoughts about growth, what it should look like, who should pay for what, what we want our neighborhoods and downtown to look like are as varied as the people who live here. But I’ve never seen any evidence of quid pro quo with any elected official.

What we do have is differing opinions on what should be done in a complicated system with multiple constituencies and beliefs.  I remember when impact fees were first debated and instituted that the councils were labeled “anti-growth.” Now with the level of downtown development the councils are “granting hand-outs to developers.” Neither is true; decisions are about accomplishing specific goals: financial, economic, cultural, social. And then later in time we reap the unintended and unforeseen consequences and it’s time to reevaluate and make adjustments. 

From what I can tell there is close to $78 million dollars coming into Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater and the County as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) over the next two years. With all that’s going on and the way our communities are intermingled I would hope that the local jurisdictions can work together to use these funds without devolving into parochial concerns.

Thurston County has stepped up to help Olympia with funding for homeless issues, and now there is a new regional opportunity to address the consequences from the pandemic. This money can be used in any number of creative ways to address any impacts resulting from the challenging last year. For example, we know that the ability to pay rent has been a problem for tenants and landlords alike.  This goes for a wide range of workers including those we call the working poor. Here are some ideas: 

  • We could provide rental assistance to enable people to only pay 30% of their income towards rent.
  • For $1M we could pay $500/month for a year to 166 people or families. 
  • We can increase funding to Olympia’s Crisis Response unit.  
  • We can find ways to assist small businesses that have a hard time in the best of times but are fundamental to our quality of life.
  • We can find ways to support our local theaters who have had a very hard time weathering this storm.

Now is a perfect time to be involved with our local representatives as they are just starting to evaluate options and what to do with this money.  This is a unique opportunity, one where if we’re mindful and we look across jurisdictional lines we can create programs to build upon and make a significant difference for all of us.  This is an excellent topic to discuss with the different political candidates:  How will you work together to be less provincial when addressing local problems? 

What would you do with the ARPA funding? Let’s go find out.

Pat Cole  -  pcbiglife@gmail.com - is a former member of Olympia's city council. As a private citizen, he seeks to set a positive  tone and  lead informed discussion about local civic issues. 

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