For 36 years the Community Sustaining Fund (CSF) has funded individual and organizational efforts to strengthen the fabric of people, environments and habitats that make up our Thurston County communities. The Community Sustaining Fund (CSF) was able to offer support to four local community organizations as part of its Fall…
Posts published by “Desdra Downing”
Dear Madam Congresswoman, As a lifelong Democrat who eagerly voted for you to succeed Lt. Governor Heck as our community’s representative in Congress, I am shocked and saddened by your yes vote for H.Con.Res.9, “Denouncing the horrors of socialism.” This resolution states that “Congress denounces socialism in all its forms,…
The major fiery train wreck in Ohio last month serves as a reminder of just how potentially dangerous long and heavy trains can be. Add to this the fact that in the last 10 years, Class One rail carriers have dramatically increased both the length and tonnage of the average train, while cutting back on maintenance workers and inspection times,..
We can’t escape our future. The sum of our collective actions as humans acts as another force of nature, influencing the big physical systems that underpin the small blue, watery planet we’ve all come to know. We are in the process of making our own collective future. Our collective status…
The Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan: Framework for Climate Mitigation Action for Thurston County and the Cities of Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater was finished in December 2020. It starts out by listing several years of previous city and county resolutions, strategies, and plans – all concerned with slowing global warming.
When Thurston County’s Board of County Commissioners created a stakeholder committee to provide additional input on zoning changes to rural wireless facilities, hopes were high among the private citizens in the group that the safest and most conservative decisions would be made to protect public health and property values.
Olympia Community Solar and South Sound Solar just completed installation of a solar array at Quixote Village as part of their work to leverage solar energy as both a powerful tool for equity and a contribution to Thurston County’s renewable energy transition.
Home in Tacoma for All and Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America announced an important victory for residents of Meridian Mobile Estates, who faced mass eviction from the mobile home park in Puyallup slated to close October 1st. Following protests, the owners of Timberlane Holdings, a large developer, agreed to negotiate with tenants.
The most dangerous times on an airplane are take-off and landing. These are transitional times between two conditions that are not clearly defined. In the first case, the mass of the plane is yet to be airborne, and in the second case, a mass that is elevated in the atmosphere needs to come down.
Come to the Estuarium on December 17 to discover the orcas that share the waters of the Puget Sound. You will learn the history of southern resident orcas in this area and the survival challenges they face.
PERSPECTIVE: The Olympia School Board’s unanimous decision to appoint Talauna Reed to the board has sparked vocal ire cloaked in concern. Ms. Reed is the first African American board member and has criticized the police in the past.
Reader Review Grant is back…but with a difference. Each issue we will suggest a book to review. If you’re interested in reviewing the book, email us and put BOOK REVIEW in the subject line. We will buy the book (or reimburse you if you buy it) and pay $50 if…
After almost three years of stymied contract negotiations, rail workers voted 99% this summer in favor of a strike. That threat was averted when the Biden administration stepped in. By September there was a tentative proposal agreed to by the companies and submitted to the unions. But it’s not over.
A new Washington state report highlights the stark reality that black and indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) would need to buy more than 140,000 houses in the state to achieve parity with white homeownership on a percentage basis. The housing gap is even more significant today than in the 1960s, when housing discrimination and redlining were legal.
To the WA state legislature, Governor Inslee, WSDOT, Thurston county local leaders, stakeholders and members of the community: We the undersigned strongly oppose creation of a new major commercial airport in Thurston County.
Indigenous peoples have been among the most vocal proponents of solutions to climate change effects, but their advocacy has often been marginalized. A recent conference titled Evergreen Tribes and Climate Change Conference at the Squaxin Island Tribe’s Little Creek Hotel (November 8-9) made that advocacy more visible. One hundred faculty…
Another Co-Opportunity! Blue Heron Bakery, which has successfully served the South Sound community and beyond for over 45 years, will become a community-owned cooperative in 2023. The bakery joins an increasing number of successful businesses operating as co-ops, to the benefit of both workers and consumers. “Our intention is to…
The day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating a constitutional right that had stood for nearly 50 years, much of Washington revolted. Thousands of pro–choice protestors took to the streets of Olympia and Seattle in response to the Court’s June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization.
In June, Rhode Island passed a $10 million pilot program that will use COVID-19 stimulus money to build mixed-income public housing.
For years, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources has treated its responsibility to manage state forests as requiring them to maximize timber harvest and revenue generation for public services including, especially, school construction.
Many stories in this issue say that our governments’ priorities don’t reflect the priorities of the governed but instead serve the demands of profit. Their decisions direct public resources—and even the modest resources of workers and other members of the public—into the hands of investors for their private gain. Illustrating…
Maybe they’ll drive electric cars?...Maybe we didn’t need new taxes....Maybe it’s worth fighting....Maybe Washington could address the wage end of the “affordable housing” crisis....Maybe ensuring everyone has access to basic needs is scary.
What the hell is “ordered liberty”? Most people in the United States are not familiar with this archaic legal term, but it reveals the direction that the current attacks on our freedoms and civil rights are headed.
In 2020, the same year Ed Troyer ran for Sheriff of Pierce County, Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier commissioned a study of use–of–force incidents committed by the Sheriff’s Department. Published in November 2021, the report of the Pierce County Criminal Justice Work Group noted that black residents of Pierce County…
The Rape of Orithyia, mountain gale nymph, by Boreas, god of the north wind, a mytho–poetic interpretation of the wrath of the Goddess and her hand in the devastating Marshall Fire, Colorado 2021.