For Immediate Release: June 3, 2008
Contact: Janine Gates, President, SPEECH, 360-791-7736

Community Forum, "Envision Downtown Olympia"

A public forum on Downtown Olympia's future will be held on Thursday, June 19, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 1224 Legion Way SE.

The forum, "Envision Downtown Olympia," is sponsored by the non-profit organization South Puget Environmental Education Clearinghouse (SPEECH) with support from the Community Sustaining Fund. The public is invited to envision different perspectives on what we, as a community, want for downtown Olympia. The forum will also address the Urban Waterfront Rezone proposal submitted to the city by Triway Enterprises.

Forum speakers include Rich Hoey, Water Resources Director at City of Olympia Public Works, who will give a presentation on predicted sea-level rise in downtown Olympia; Barbara Gooding, former director of the Washington State Department of Community Development and former City of Olympia planning commissioner, who will offer a brief history of Olympia's current downtown zoning issues; Steve Cooper, downtown property owner; and Bob Jacobs, former mayor of Olympia and member of Friends of the Waterfront. Eve Johnson, former president of the League of Women Voters, will be the moderator.

Audience members will actively participate in the visioning and discussion.

SPEECH can be reached at (360) 528-9158, speech.greenpages@gmail.com or www.oly-wa.us/greenpages.

One of the interesting things about working with Friends of the Waterfront against the request to rezone the space between the lake and the sound has been looking at what the planning commission and the City Council actually *see* when they're deciding what Olympia will look like in the future. I'm just starting to do some pages for the FOTW website with comparisons, like this...:

Views from the 4th Avenue bridge

The City's visualization from the public workshop March 22nd — which includes the rezone on the other side of the street, not just TriWay's imagined buildings.

TriWay's visualization — notice that the street lights on the left look about five stories high, making the buildings feel appealingly small...

http://www.nuprometheus.com/friends/comparebridge.html

Best,
Thad

If you'd rather not have a bunch of new 90 and 65 foot high-rises built on the isthmus between Capitol Lake and the Sound, where the ugly high rise is now, you might look at the new website for Friends of the Waterfront. We're opposing the rezone. (We opposed the last request, in 2002, too; it was turned down by the City Council then.)

For more information:

www.friendsofthewaterfront.org

There are lots of suggestions about things to do on the website, but the next really important thing you might do is attend the City Planning Commission meeting at the Olympia Center, 6:30 PM, June 24th, and sign in as opposed to the rezone, or testify against it. (If you want to testify, you'd better come early; Tri Vo has sent out a postcard to his potential supporters asking them to get there and sign in at 5:30.)