Update on Olympia Downtown Association

author : Pat Tassoni topic : Olympia City Council | Olympia Downtown Association

by Pat Tassoni

I have presented my evidence as detailed in last month's WIP to the city council during Public Communications. My claim is that the ODA excludes a class of residential citizens from full participation in their organization, which is inconsistent with requirements of the city's Neighborhood Association program. The only reason that this matters, since the ODA is a business association, is that the city has recognized them as a Neighborhood Association and has funded them from that program for years. At my public testimony, Mayor Foutch lectured me about how the city doesn't give the ODA money to just give them money, and the money they give comes from a different source anyway. He promptly shut-up when another councilmember pointed out that the city has given NA money to the ODA for years. (It is interesting to note that that comment did not enter the city's official minutes of the meeting.)

City Staff generated their first report into my claim, dismissing it because they could find no evidence that the ODA limits votes in their organization. This is a really interesting position because it means one of two things (if the city is not just desperately trying to cover up for their ODA friends):

1.City staff did not take my complaint seriously so did not review the evidence I supplied them (or they just can't read) because ARTICLE VII of the ODA's by-laws limits voting rights to Business members only. It was probably hard to discern to city staff since it was buried in a stand-alone section confusingly titled "Voting Rights". No doubt a resulting city staff report on women's constitutional voting rights would find no evidence of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution because it is confusingly titled "Women's Right to Vote".

2.The ODA has fraudulently filed a different set of their organizational bylaws with the city than what they provide to their own members to misdirect the city to not understand the true nature and operations of their organization. I wonder what Mayor Foutch will lecture the ODA about? Ethics?

I have filed another claim (the same one actually) and supplied the city with additional evidence and a step by step process for their understanding. Of course, I was assuming the city would want to want to know the true nature of their relationship with the ODA. Since Olympia is a municipal corporation they are required to know, which is why I have also sent a complaint to the Washington State Auditor's Office.

Currently the Olympia Downtown business Association has concocted a plan - with the city's support - to force every business downtown to pay them to operate a parking garage . . . even businesses that will be perhaps 10 blocks away from the structure and even businesses that have their own parking lots or structures. In talking with downtown businesses, it is clear that they have not been fully informed on the Business Improvement District plan. Not surprisingly, the ODA has yet to provide them with a copy of the proposal and has not informed businesses that whether or not they agree, the ODA is planning to force them to pay. Surely, there must be some measure of disclosure and some standard of informed consent needed to be met before one-sided measures are enacted. But maybe city staff can't find that paragraph!

Finally, despite the ODA's historic negative campaign on downtown safety, Olympia was recently found to be the third safest place in the nation. That report has prompted The Olympian to begin to focus on white-collar crime (such as is described by the ODA information above). But there has been no article yet on the ODA, and The Olympian still demands we search for the WMDs of Olympia's safety: graffiti and panhandling.