Please swing by einmaleins Friday at 6 pm to check out the 5 benches that local artists have re-created from plain old city benches. The timing is perfect as it also happens to be the August 1st Friday, so when you're done appreciating the benches you can wander about downtown enjoying all sorts of other art, food and shops.

Olympia prides itself, as it should, on being an artistic community.  Downtown merchants pride themselves on being independent, local, family-run and eccletic.  Being independent can sometimes also make it difficult to be patrons to the artistic community as our coffers can run quite low.  That's why this bench program is so important.  Through Dave Rauh's (MIXX 96) hard work, and inspiration and support from Jeff Kingsbury and Stephanie Johnson, the PBIA was able to ACTUALLY PAY artists for their work.  And cover the cost of supplies.  Building these connections between two groups so invested in our community can only translate into greatness for all.  The PBIA advisory board looks forward to being able to continue this program and eventually have all the downtown benches reflecting the artistic prowess of our city.

Please come by and support the artists and the business people who are working so hard to keep making downtown more colorful and dynamic. 

FIRST FRIDAY in Downtown on August 1st.

Last Friday representatives from six different organizations with a stake in downtown met to take a full inventory of all of the other organizations associated with downtown and to discuss how all of these organizations might work together for the common good of our city’s core. The general impetus for the meeting was a recent surge in the number of organizations sprouting up in our community – each one to stake claim to their individual downtown-related causes.

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mathias

einmaleins

Last night I attended the quarterly membership meeting of the ODA. The theme was Olympia Goes Green in celebration of Earth Day. It was yet another zero waste event (something we're getting pretty good at downtown) and had quite a decent turnout. Several businesses were highlighted, including 510 Interiors, Eco-Lux, Radiance, Creative Office Supply and Casual Tee. 510 has made quite a name for themselves already, being honored at the Economic Development Coucil's annual business awards luncheon. Eco-Lux is on Washington St. had sells not only amazing organic body care products but also fantastic chocolate. Creative Office is a long-time downtown business and Casual Tee provides a highly needed service in a town like ours that prints more shirts per capita than we really need--environmentally (and economically!) friendly screen printing.

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The PBIA will be holding a regular business meeting tomorrow, Thursday April 10th from 6-8pm in the MIXX 96 conference room (located on Washington St. betwen 4th and State). There is time made for public comment at the beginning of the meeting. Ratepayers as well as other interested parties are encouraged to attend. Download the agenda here (doc). (Inconsequential note: I won't be there to chair because I'm going to see CHRIS ROCK. I won't tell you where my seats are cause ya'll will be jealous. The multi-talented Terry Z. from Espresso Parts will be filling in.)

From the press release:

Artists Sought to Spruce Up Downtown Benches

A downtown Olympia group is inviting area artists to submit designs to artistically enhance existing benches in downtown Olympia. The PBIA (Parking & Business Improvement Area) will be selecting up to five artists for the project, which is designed to add artistic interest to the streetscape of downtown Olympia, engage the local arts community in a downtown project, and create a more inviting, welcoming atmosphere to downtown. Each artist will receive an honorarium of $1000 plus up to $500 for materials.

I'm starting a separate thread because a discussion about the actual proposed PBIA budget, I believe, is important. However, the title of Emmett's post is misleading and a mistake made by many.