Now I want to be fair, and you know I am always fair, but when I heard that the Intercity Transit Authority decided they only need to meet once a month starting April — April 1st, no less, which I am choosing not to read into — I had to sit down with my coffee and really think about what that means for the people who actually live here. Twice a month wasn't exactly a grueling schedule. I have a book club that meets more often than that and we are all retired and two of us have bad knees. The point is, when you reduce the number of times you sit in a room and make decisions about the buses that carry people to work and doctors' appointments and wherever else they need to go, you are not streamlining anything — you are just making yourself harder to reach. And I remember when the transit authority felt like something you could actually show up to, back when the Pattison Street building still had that squeaky door on the left side that nobody fixed for about eleven years, and people went and said their piece and felt like it mattered. Maybe it still matters. I am going to circle back on that.
And another thing — and this connects, bear with me — the Olympia City Council canceled their March 31st meeting entirely. Just gone. Now I understand there are holidays and scheduling conflicts and I am not saying anyone is shirking, but there is something about watching the number of meetings quietly shrink across the board that makes a person notice a pattern. The Civil Service Commission is still meeting that week, which, fine, good for them, and I do not begrudge anyone their Thursday morning agenda items, but the full council? Gone. Meanwhile, speaking of things that have quietly disappeared, whatever happened to the parking validation at the farmers market because I have asked three separate people and gotten three completely different answers and I have lived here since before that entire block was a parking lot and I think I deserve a straight answer — that is all I will say about that for this month.
Now the housing bill the Governor signed, allowing homes to be built in commercial and mixed-use zones — and I know this was something he specifically asked for, so it did not sneak in sideways — this is the kind of change that sounds reasonable in a press release and then you drive past your old video rental place and it is a four-story building with a rooftop and the sign out front says something like 'The Arvo' and you think, well, that happened fast. I am not against people having places to live. Goodness knows the people who actually live here have been watching housing get further and further out of reach for years, and that is a real thing, and I acknowledge it. I just think we are allowed to ask questions about what gets built and where and whether the street can handle the parking — there it is, I said it, I only get once a month and I used it — and whether anyone thought to ask the people who have been on that block since 1987 how they feel. Someone should have knocked on some doors is what I am saying. Someone always should have knocked on some doors.
That's all for this week. You know where to find me.