From The Olympian:

Work-living space project would provide affordable units

By Matt Batcheldor | The Olympian • Published October 28, 2008

OLYMPIA – City officials are considering trying to attract an affordable-housing project for artists to downtown.

Officials have spoken with Artspace, a nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis, that develops buildings with artists' workspaces and living quarters in the same complex.

The Olympia City Council will consider tonight whether to invite Artspace to tour the city. Council Member Jeff Kingsbury said he supports the idea.

A city delegation including Kingsbury and Councilwoman Rhenda Strub visited two housing developments the organization has built in Seattle. The organization also has projects in Everett and Portland.

The idea behind such a development is that rising rents can otherwise price out artists, particularly in places such as Seattle, which saw its downtown gentrify in the 1990s.

I just went to The Olympian website looking for news about the suicide jumper on Capitol Blvd... and was surprised to find an article that paints Triway in a pretty negative light and casts doubt on their ability to responsibly develop the Isthmus.

Excerpt:

Residents have complained of crawl spaces filling with water and lawns installed improperly — among many other things.

Triway project manager Janine Smith declined to comment, "until we have a meeting with the city of Olympia."

Triway is the same major South Sound developer that has asked the Olympia City Council to raise building height limits on the strip of land between Budd Inlet and Capitol Lake.

What's going on here?

From the 5th October Olympian

The Mason County coroner determined that the Parkland cancer patient who died after being mauled in a Shelton nursing home died of natural causes.

Michael Warner, 55, died Sept. 12 after puppies mauled him and used him as a "food source." Warner's daughter and caretaker were arrested and 27 dogs were taken from the home. Warner was dropped off at Tacoma General Hospital, where doctors discovered his injuries and called police.

I believe that The Olympian has done a disservice to the community in regard to what has been its biased coverage of the Isthmus debacle. I submitted a letter to the editor last week (on Wednesday the 24th of September).

I just telephoned the paper today to ask about it - because I usually receive a verification call within a couple days of submission. Not so this time. It turns out the letter was not selected for publication. The letter contains a critique of The Olympian's coverage of the Isthmus Rezone.

Another letter I can remember having gone unpublished was a critique of The Olympian's "comments section" - where hate speech against gays, against people of color, against ethnic groups, and etc., is tolerated.

Does The Olympian have a policy of not publishing letters that are critical of The Olympian?

Maybe the newspaper would be more successful if they found a way to integrate constructive criticism.

Here's the unpublished letter, without further ado:

September 24, 2008

To the Editors:

Coverage of the isthmus rezone proposal in The Olympian has been disappointing. Coverage has been incomplete and biased in favor of the rezone. Where is the appropriate skepticism and attitude of oversight?

Meanwhile, the Olympian has portrayed those who oppose the Urban Waterfront Isthmus Building Height Rezone (proposed by Triway Enterprises) as "simplistic nay-sayers." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, opposition to the proposal is based on a multitude of reasons: reasons that are both complex and meaningful, and sophisticated and solid. To brand the opposition as somehow simplistic is, quite frankly, insulting.

The Olympian newspaper has a policy of liberally publishing letters to the editor. I have submitted several letters to the editor - and most have been published. However, a few of the letters that I have submitted have gone unpublished. Common denominator? The unpublished letters were critical of The Olympian newspaper.

Do you have a letter that has not been published? Well, you're welcome to publish it on OlyBlog. Of particular interest are letter to the editor submissions that have gone unpublished for political reasons.

bert

Gary Pruitt, CEO of the McClatchy Company that owns The Olympian, has stepped down. This has sparked considerable speculation across the financial industry that the company is thinking of going private. Many of you may remember that Sam Zell and the Tribune Company did the same thing last year.

Check the "Editor & Publisher" article below but please keep in mind that the commentary comes directly from a representative for the company. Anyone who doesn't think that they're positioning themselves to either go private or downsize their operations significantly simply isn't paying attention to the writing on the wall. It's only a matter of time!

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003846810

From the comments section:

It is 5:30pm PDT she doesn't speak until 7:35pm PDT how does the Daily 0 have an article posted already? j | 09.03.08 - 5:42 pm

The article the writer is referencing contained excerpts from her speech, a speech hours from being delivered. An hour later the phrase 'in remarks prepared for her prime time address' were added to the on-line article. Nice recovery except the verb tense of Gov. Palin's quotes, quotes out of order to how they were actually delivered,  remained past.

It's sad when the MSM is so lazy it no longer bothers to even pretend to do reportage.I know, I'm beating a dead horse. I just wanted to get this in the public record.

It's been over a year since my last original blog entry here but I wanted to share something that I heard earlier tonight from a friend who used to work for the O. (Victim of the recent cuts, sadly.)

Vickie Kilgore, Executive Editor since 1998, announced her retirement on Friday afternoon. No word on who is taking over her position just yet. 

This Sunday, June 15th 2008 Editorial Board of the Olympian officially came unhinged. In an editorial titled End the blight, approve the height they went on a hysterical name-calling rant worthy of, if not inspired by, their on-line comments cesspool. Interestingly enough, the comments sections on both the editorial and the front page article were 90% anti-Triway.

Y'all know how I feel about the Triway proposal. I feel there is there is no need to critique this unpaid advertisement for Triway as written by Oly2012 for it is so over the top it is embarrassing. I suspect it will backfire on it's authors. Weigh in on the editorial and reportage if you's like but I think it would be fun for people to suggest alternative to the End the Blight, Approve the Height cheer leading chant. Here's a couple from the Olympian's comments section

I've never been good with rhyming and poetry and stuff but I'm confident other Olybloggers are. Let's see your whit in verse.

Edit. 16 June 08.

I have willingly removed two offensive sentences at the suggestion of a docent. The sentences were equating prostitutes to the Olympian editorial board.

His actual work phone number and email address was posted in the comments section at The O tonight at 10:45 PM. I found it at 1:35 AM and tried to call a human being at the O to request the removal of the info and the poster be banned for doing it but could only get voicemails in every department.

Larry XXXX (360) 943-XXXX   XXXXX@thurstonXXXX.org
SpinEmmaBlue | 05.03.08 - 10:43 pm |
Click here to report this comment to The Olympian.

Posting his or anybody elses home or work information is completely unacceptable in any forum without his permission to do so.  This poster did so under the assumption Larry is even a poster in the comments section.  So many posters are accused of being Larry that even if he had the spare time to be all of them it still wouldn't be enough time!

This really saddens me that somebody would stoop to such a low out of spite and revenge because someone doesn't hold the same values or opinions as the vicious poster.