News~Jan08

January 2008     Membership & Board    Walkability     Graffiti

NENA Membership and Board

Due to family emergencies, we have had to cancel the board meeting planned for January. Our next NENA board meeting will be on Wednesday, February 20. We'll post more details as that date approaches.

If you're interested in specific issues affecting our neighborhood, would like to help NENA accomplish current goals, or lead NENA in new directions, please consider joining us!

Walkability Update     Check out our Northeast Olympia Walkaround Guide!

NENA applies for an $8,000 Thurston County Public Health STEPs grant to continue work to make our neighborhood more walkable and beautiful

In December NENA submitted a grant proposal to continue work on making our neighborhood more "active-friendly." In this work, we will be promoting fun and interesting walking routes in our neck of the woods by creating wayfinding signs for key walking routes and a permanent neighborhood kiosk (to give the bulletin board at the bakery a break!). We will also continue our work to research and apply for grants to fund projects like the Roosevelt School parking lot improvements. In addition, we'll be partnering with the City of Olympia and the Woodland Trail Greenway Association to create GIS maps to illustrate how it will look when we've fully realized our vision of transforming our neighborhood into a safe and beautiful place to get active and connected.

San Francisco Street Sidewalk Project - Phase II - Quince Street to Easy Bay Drive to be completed next year

A key link in realizing our vision of creating an interconnected web of sidewalks and walking trails in our neighborhood will be complete next year. Last year the City finished construction of Phase I of the SF Street sidewalk project which runs from Garrison Ave. past the SF bakery and up to Quince Street.  In 2008, Phase II which will link Quince Street to East Bay Drive will be compete. With this new stretch of sidewalk, folks will be able to walk more easily and more safely to all kinds of exciting destinations including downtown Olympia, the Farmers Market, Priest Point Park, Roosevelt elementary and Reeves Middle Schools, and to and along the glorious new trails that were built this year in Mission Creek Park.

The current project schedule calls for the design to be complete this month, for PSE, Comcast and Qwest to relocate utilities between January and April next year, and for construction to start sometime in April.

Given the interest in and the importance of this sidewalk to our neighborhood and the community, NENA asked the City's Transportation Division to develop a web page with up-to-date project information. The City listened to us and has created a comprehensive web resource for this project. A big thank you to Sheri Zimny and her colleagues for their responsiveness to our request and for their hard work on this effort. Here are a few links to some of the information the City has posted online to keep us informed:

SF Sidewalk Phase II Project Information - detailed information and links on all aspects of the project

SF Sidewalk Phase II - Tree Removal Plan - NENA requested that the City provide the community with more detailed information about what trees will be affected by this project. This aerial photo and graphic shows the individual trees that will removed and explains why they need to be removed.

SF Sidewalk Phase II - Aerial Project Photo and Design - A detailed aerial photo of the project site showing exactly where the sidewalk will be built, where crosswalks will be installed, etc.

NENA's grant proposal to complete school walking route surveys and maps for Olympia's Elementary Schools is not chosen

The Group Health Community Foundation decided not to fund the $42,000 grant request that Melinda Spencer from NENA submitted together with "Feet First" to conduct school walking route surveys and create school walking route maps for elementary schools in the Olympia School District. One of the reasons we were not chosen is what the reviewers perceived as a lack of serious interest in and commitment from the Olympia School District to the work we were proposing to do as part of this grant. Although we submitted a strong letter of support from the District, it was not enough to overcome the perception that the District was not an enthusiastic and committed partner. As some of the reviewers mentioned, this work is work that the District is mandated to do and has not done in the past. Unfortunately we were not able to cite concrete examples of the District's efforts to meet this mandate in our application, and I think that hurt our proposal. Despite this setback, we will continue to look for ways to partner with the District and the City of Olympia to help ensure students have safe routes to walk and bike to school and that families are educated about how to get their children to school safely.

Graffiti Update

Our Graffiti Busters campaign has hit the blogosphere. You can now go on-line, post your graffiti sightings and photos and view and comment on what others have posted. When you visit our blog, you'll notice our new "Graffiti Busted" graphic, which we post for each location that's been cleaned up. In the past month, we've "busted" graffiti in more than 20 locations - some that were plastered with multiple tags including the phone booth and the signs at the Puget Pantry and the tags on the large fence and on the homes under construction in the 2200 block of Bethel St. Below is a note from our Graffiti Busters coordinator and NENA board member Valerie Adrian with directions on how to access our new blog.

Hello everyone,

In our effort to track down and erase graffiti from our neighborhood, we are asking people to report it for removal.

Please go to http://www.xanga.com/signin.aspx and sign in.

Username: Nena_Oly

Password: adrian

When you are signed in, click on "New Weblog Entry" and enter the addresses or intersections for new graffiti. If you can take a picture and upload it to the entry, that would be helpful.   Please be as specific as possible about where the graffiti is located, so it can be easily found by our clean up crews.

Please email me at ourcityonahill@yahoo.com after you have updated the site - so I can make sure it gets reported to the right folks. Also, email me there if you have any questions about using the blog.

For detailed information about graffiti removal and reporting, visit the City's Web site at City's Graffiti Removal Information

Our Graffiti Busters campaign is getting results because of the hard work of our volunteers and partners. Here's a partial list of those that have rolled up their sleeves"to get the job done:

Darrell Knoedler and the residents of the Touchstone Group Home in our neighborhood Darrell and his crew have done the lion's share of the work to rid our neighborhood of graffiti including the heavy tagging at the Puget Pantry and on numerous street signs.   They have volunteered to help us keep graffiti under control in our neighborhood over the long haul by agreeing to organize and send out clean-up crews on a regular basis.
Valerie Adrian for spearheading our Graffiti Busters campaign. Valerie has taken photos of and inventoried all of the graffiti along the main streets in our neighborhood and created and is maintaining our new Graffiti Busters blog.

Amy Stull with the Olympia Police Department and Bonnie Harrington with the City's Public Works Department - From attending one of our Board meetings to helping us get in touch with the right folks at the City to get things done, Amy has been an invaluable partner in our efforts to develop a workable system to rid our neighborhood of graffiti.  Bonnie has coordinated the development and distribution of the City's free graffiti removal kits and has created a number of helpful resources to support the community's efforts to tame this problem.

City of Olympia Streets Section - Although neighborhood volunteers have been cleaning graffiti off the backs of street signs, the City has asked us to call them to report graffiti on the reflective surfaces of signs - to ensure that they not are damaged when they are cleaned up. When we call in these reports, it's usually only a day or two before the City's Streets section gets it cleaned up.

Keith and Melinda Spencer for repeatedly painting over the graffiti on the old garage at the corner of Bethel and SF streets. It took a few reapplications of paint, but the garage has now been graffiti free for more than two months.

Tim Abbey from Abbey Realty and Alan from Moonrise Homes. Tim sent a crew out to paint over a heavily tagged fence on Bethel Street and has provided us with extra paint to help keep the graffiti under control, and Alan painted over the graffiti on one of the homes he is building on Bethel.

Frank Spickelmire with the Olympia Fire Department - The same day we reported graffiti on fire hydrants in our neighborhood, Frank arranged to have the hydrants repainted.

Puget Sound Energy and Pacific Disposal - These private companies have asked us to call them when we see graffiti on their property. When we report a tagging, they are usually out within a few days to clean it up.