Vision Without View, Sound Without Music

author : WIP News Service topic : Isthmus | City Council | Olympia | Noise ordinance | Tenants Union

by the WIP News Service

Written into the 2/11/08 Minutes of the Olympia Land Use and Environment Committee is a disturbing statement: “We already have the vision for downtown. To appeal to the public, we need to move from strategy to tactics.” Present at this meeting were Councilmembers Karen Messmer, Rhenda Iris Strub, and Joan Machlis, as well as City staff and assorted guests, including former councilmember and Triway Enterprise employee Jeannette Hawkins, and Russ Meixner of Rocky Mountain Development Company, a big contributor to several councilmembers’ campaign funds (see graphic).

What exactly is this vision for downtown that is going to require “tactics” to “appeal to the public”? Judging from the work being done by the new City Council, in place since January 2008, it would appear that their vision looks a lot like Bellevue. The City is spending municipal funds to promote the interests of developers who intend to construct high-end condos downtown, while withdrawing funding from the Tenants Union -- so perhaps in their vision, downtown is populated only by the propertied class. Judging from the Council’s willingness to ease the way for a re-zone of the isthmus between Capital Lake and Budd Bay, views of the Sound and Olympic Mountains are not part of the vision; the proposal for the isthmus would allow high-rise mixed use structures that would destroy views that have been protected by the existing zoning for decades.

This is a vision without much sound: The City is eager to pass a noise ordinance that will decimate the downtown music scene, so that future residents of the area will be able to enjoy their fancy condos in peace and quiet… almost as if they’re in the suburbs. Many of the local musicians who play – in essence, work – in downtown Olympia, feel that the City Council has virtually declared war on downtown’s culture with this noise ordinance.

No Sidewalk Conversations After 10 p.m.

The noise ordinance on the City’s agenda has the potential to further debilitate Olympia’s downtown music scene, already weakened by the city’s closing of the popular all-ages venue, Manium. This proposed ordinance for the downtown area has not arisen because there are significant noise issues downtown. It seems more likely that it is because noise ordinances are becoming trendy. Seattle will be enacting a new noise ordinance as of June 1, and Tacoma’s City Council unanimously passed a noise ordinance on 2/19/08. The Tacoma ordinance exempts certain construction noise but fails to extend similar consideration to working musicians.

Initiated by council member Jeff Kingsbury, Olympia is scrambling to follow suit, with an ordinance which would restrict sound from a commercial source (like a music venue) after 10 p.m. to 60 decibels. 60 decibels is commonly cited as the sound level of “normal conversation,” and is just 25% higher than the humming of the average refrigerator at 40 decibels. Decibel levels may be measured at the property line of the complainant, which means the sound insulation provided by walls might not be taken into account. If anyone ever organizes a musical festival at the Capitol Theater again, and someone in the Martin Apartments a block away complains about noise, decibel level could be measured at the corner of the building. If the decibels are measured at the property line, outside, the noise of a crowd of smokers hanging out a half a block away will almost certainly measure above 60 decibels. As written, any business which has congregations of smokers gathered outside its doors could be in violation of the ordinance during most of its hours of operation.

Ross Cowman, a local musician with the band June Madrona, commented that “Any ordinance the city makes should reflect the realities of Olympia's downtown life. The current ordinance is cut and pasted together from other Washington cities that are very different from ours.” Olympia’s thriving music scene has long been a magnet for independent musicians, and the art-loving hipster crowd that follows them around. Despite all the efforts of the Olympia Downtown Association to revitalize the downtown shopping district that was vitiated by the arrival of the Westfield Shopping Mall in 1978, a strong argument can be made that it was downtown’s low rents and its all-ages venues that attracted residents and eventually made it a center for independent music in the 1990s, and a thriving residential and commercial district today (see Tobi Vail’s letter to the City Council, also in this issue, which describes how downtown Olympia’s environment has provided opportunities for many working musicians). Given that its thriving music scene is such an important aspect of Oly’s cultural heritage, it is reasonable to expect that the ordinance be drafted in such a manner as to preserve the rights of working musicians to make a living, and of venue owners to keep their doors open.

Pit Kwiecinski, owner of the downtown bar and music venue the Brotherhood Lounge, opposes the ordinance, as proposed. “The law is completely reasonable in a residential neighborhood, but not in a commercial neighborhood like downtown Olympia. Whether or not you want to encourage housing downtown, you can’t really expect to change the nature of downtown to accommodate housing. Why do people want to live downtown, anyway, if not to enjoy the existing cultural milieu?” After attending a planning commission meeting on 4/7 that addressed the proposed ordinance, along with other downtown bar owners, downtown residents, and local musicians, Kwiecsinki is concerned that it could change the nature of downtown Olympia’s nightlife.

Possible Compromises

Existing downtown businesses that give downtown its unique character could be better accommodated if the ordinance was altered. Possible compromise solutions include declaring an “entertainment district” along the 4th Avenue corridor, and creating different standards for this district. Having different time limits and decibel levels for Friday and Saturday nights would also be helpful. Another potential compromise would be ensuring that the ordinance is complaint-driven, so that enforcement only occurs when a downtown resident complains about noise. Concerns have arisen that the OPD will be able to use the ordinance as a blunt instrument, selectively enforced to suit the whims of police. Since most anyone having a conversation on the sidewalk after 10 p.m. will be in violation of the ordinance, it has a huge potential for misuse, and could serve as a way of further limiting the use of public space.

Exemptions to the ordinance are provided for events such as Lakefair, Procession of the Species, and Arts Walk, events that are typically enjoyed most by non-residents who venture downtown only occasionally. Daytime noise restrictions included in the ordinance restrict sounds in excess of 70 decibels that persist longer than 5 minutes. Will this be used against people who have the fortitude to chant “Peace! Now!” all the way down Capitol Boulevard? Can this ordinance be used to restrict our right to assemble, to restrict the public’s use of public space?

In defense of the proposed ordinance, Jeff Kingsbury, whose Capital Playhouse typically ends its performances much earlier than other downtown entertainment venues, proclaims that it is in the best interest of downtown residents. In an email to Cowman, who wrote with concerns about the ordinance’s effect on the downtown music scene, Kingsbury replied that “this ordinance addresses the concerns that have been brought to us by a handful of current downtown residents, regarding their ability to live in quiet enjoyment after reasonable hours.”

Official complaints over the past two years have been few, however, and two out of the seven venues concerned are now closed (the Manium and the Mint). Complaints have also been made about late night trains and their signals going off accidentally, an occurrence that an ordinance is unlikely to change. Many people who live downtown say that the ordinance will do nothing to prevent the kind of noise that is most irritating (random shouting drunks, Lakefair, loud motors), while having a negative impact on one of downtown’s biggest attractions, its nightlife.

It appears that creating an area more attractive to high-end housing development is what truly matters to the Council. In an email that was widely circulated, Councilmember Kingsbury responded to a woman who wrote with concerns that the noise ordinance would “severely inhibit local musicians from performing.” Kingsbury responded by claiming that Seattle’s “more restrictive” ordinance has not had any impact on the nightlife there, which he claimed has “NOT been inhibited.” He goes on to say that “one of the challenges of Growth Management is putting more housing in our downtown. Urban living has consequences. This may be one of them.”

Very Very Absolutely

When public comments at the April 15 city council meeting addressed concerns about the noise ordinance, Jeff Kingsbury dismissed them, saying “Seattle…[has] a very, very strict noise ordinance that has done absolutely nothing to prohibit live music in their downtown.” Kingsbury might want to tone it down: calling Seattle’s proposed noise ordinance “very, very” strict is a little over the top. Very vague and subject to selective enforcement would be more accurate; the text of the Seattle ordinance states that it is “unlawful for a person to have allowed to originate noise from the property that is audible from inside the residence of a person of normal hearing.” Revisiting the scenario in which a complaint is made from an apartment a block away from the Capitol Theater, with an ordinance such as Seattle’s, the offending noise would be measured inside the thick, brick walls of the Martin Apartments, rather than at the property line outside. It is very difficult to see how Seattle’s ordinance is more restrictive than Olympia’s drafted ordinance.

Furthermore, it is perhaps premature to gauge the impact of this Seattle ordinance, since it will not take effect until June 1. Despite that, there has already been an impact on local music venues. The Seattle police have recently been visiting bars and nightclubs such as Neumo’s and Chop Suey, with concerns about noise levels, although these visits were not initiated by resident complaints, and the police saw fit to discuss noise levels without bothering to bring along decibel meters. If arbitrary enforcement undertaken at police initiative is defined as “absolutely nothing,” and Seattle’s ordinance’s impact is measured before it has taken effect, worries over the proposed noise ordinance for downtown Olympia may be, if anything, underestimated.

City of Olympia code enforcement officer Ruth Snyder, on the other hand, feels that concerns about the impact of the noise ordinance have been blown out of proportion. She asserted that most of the enforcement of noise violations would be performed by code enforcement officers, rather than police, and that venues exceeding the noise limits would first be issued courtesy letters, rather than citations. Snyder affirmed that there will be ample opportunity to reshape the ordinance before it is enacted. The next opportunity for public input is the Planning Commission meeting on May 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Olympia City Council Chambers, 900 Plum Street SE.

Paving the Way for Development

Clearly, the quiet enjoyment of current – and future – downtown residents is of utmost importance to the city council. The city has been giving a helping hand to several developers with their plans to build upscale condos in the downtown area. Most notably, the City has been very accommodating to Triway Enterprises (also a large contributor to several councilmembers’ campaign funds – see graphic in this issue) in its effort to re-zone the isthmus between Capitol Lake and Budd Bay in order to allow high-end, high-rise construction. The city, not Triway, in a “tactic” to promote its vision, paid for a forum at the Olympia Center to discuss the advantages of re-zoning the isthmus. Not too much discussion of the disadvantages of rezoning was allowed at the forum, which was run by a private consulting firm (paid by the city), MIG, Inc., which is located in California’s Bay Area. Although Triway and MIG produced what were obviously expensive graphics to convey a sense of how the isthmus might look with the expensive condos in place, the images were less than persuasive: some members of the audience gasped and others groaned when they saw what the future vision of the isthmus looked like.

The Olympian has published a number of letters to the editor that praise the Triway project which would require the re-zone. None of the letters, however, are very convincing: Jeannette Hawkins’ 21-year-old daughter wrote to express what must surely have been her deeply sincere approval of the project. Hawkins is a former City Council member, who now works for Triway. While in office, Hawkins worked to expand the wastewater treatment program, and otherwise prepare the downtown’s infrastructure for projects which would benefit Triway. Bob Greenway, a developer who benefitted from a rezone himself when 22 low-income housing units were destroyed to make way for the expansion of the Washington State Employee’s Credit Union office campus, wrote to express his undoubtedly heartfelt desire “to promote and encourage the development of residential housing in the downtown core.” Sharon Genzlinger, who is facilities manager for the Family Support Center (which recently received at $525 contribution from Tri Vo, principal of Triway Enterprises) wrote a letter to the editor to express her completely genuine appreciation for the lovely condo designs. Apparently, Genzlinger was unaware that the proposal is for rezoning, not for design, and any pretty pictures shown at this stage are merely speculative.

Tri Vo is busily spreading money around. After razing acres of woods in Lacey to create the Lacey Gateway Project -- featuring the popular destination store for hunters and people who like to enjoy the outdoors by buying expensive equipment, Cabela’s -- he can obviously afford to. Several recipients of his largesse now sit on the City Council. Triway Enterprises, along with a retired concrete business owner were Doug Mah’s largest campaign contributors in the 2007 campaign.

Triway is not the only developer for whom the Olympia City Council is extending open arms. Colpitts Development Co. of Seattle bought a large lot on Columbia Street between 4th and 5th Avenues, with the intention of building 120 “market rate units” -- provided that the City of Olympia pay for the site’s environmental clean-up, which may be upwards of half a million dollars. The City agreed.

Who Cares About Renters?

Since 2000, Pat Tassoni has been running the Thurston County Tenants Union, which serves the interests of low income people in the Olympia community by advising them of their rights under the Landlord-Tenant Act. After starting the TCTU as a volunteer, he has been paid very modestly while receiving funding through Community Development Block Grants administered by the City of Olympia, as well as grants from the Catholic Archdiocese and other, smaller sources. Typically, the Tenants Union advises 100 people a month, many of whom are facing possible eviction and the prospect of homelessness. In addition, the Tenants Union works on other projects that directly affect the well-being of low income people, many of whom live in our community, such as lobbying the local and state legislative bodies legislature for improved housing quality and stability. Tassoni has worked for legislation protecting tenants against discrimination based on their source of income, as well as measures granting tenants time to collect their belongings in the event of an eviction, among other things.

Out of A Job

“I would love to work myself out of a job. It would be great if tenants’ rights were so well-protected that I’m unnecessary,” says Tassoni. But that’s not how Tassoni’s potential unemployment scenario is playing out; the new City Council, with apparent disregard for its ten year plan to end homelessness, has seen fit in its distribution of CDBG funds to discontinue the $18,000 which has kept the Tenants Union running for the last seven years.

The Thurston County Tenants Union received this money -- its largest source of funding – since 2000. There is a very real possibility that the Tenants Union will shut its doors permanently this year if other funding sources are not secured, a prospect which does not seem to be of grave concern to current City Council members, all of whom are either landlords or homeowners.

To add insult to injury, the funding was cut without a real explanation to Tassoni – or the more than 40% of residents of Olympia who rent their homes and rely on the Tenants Union for advice and advocacy. In an article in the Olympian, remarks made by councilmember Jeff Kingsbury gave the impression that the Tenants Union had not been submitting proposals or providing accounting to the City on how it had spent CDBG funding. “’…We started asking some tough questions which were along the lines of … how do we track accountability?’ [Kingsbury] said.”

Tassoni wrote to Kingsbury to refute this statement, saying “My project has always submitted proposals for funding even before your staff [under previous city administration] developed and/or required such. The same is true for performance measures. Your city department should have a record of them as I have sent in quarterly reports as well as an annual report of my activities since 2001.” Kingsbury responded that the Olympian article had taken his comments out of context. No further explanation for why funding had been cut was provided to Tassoni.

A Really Bad Message

Renters are dismayed that their interests seem to be of such little interest to the same council that blithely allocated $50,000 to pay a consultant to create graphics showing what the isthmus would look like with condos on it and is planning to spend nearly half a million dollars to plant trees on Legion Way. Downtown resident and renter Jason Taellious remarked, “Cutting funding of the Tenants Union sends a really bad message …The less you keep people informed, the easier it is to control them. These are the same people – downtown residents – that the city council says they’re trying to protect with the noise ordinance.”

Longtime downtown resident Jenny Jenkins is also sorry to see the continued existence of the Tenants Union put in jeopardy. “Not all landlords are perfect, and not all tenants are perfect,” Jenkins acknowledges. “But landlords have people to advocate for them, and the law puts them in a position of power. As a renter, I’ll feel a lot more vulnerable without the Tenants Union to help me understand my rights.”

Although Tassoni expects to be able to keep working through most of 2008 and is seeking other sources of funding, the future is uncertain. Funds to protect the interests of low-income folks are getting harder and harder to find in the current political climate.

Conflict of Interests?

The city council’s enthusiasm for promoting development in downtown Olympia is concerning, in light of the fact that several members own downtown businesses or property and stand to benefit from the increase in property values that may result. When the council voted on the purchase of land from the Port to serve as the new site for the Hands-On Children’s Museum, Joe Hyer recused himself, explaining that he had a conflict of interest. Because his store “The Alpine Experience” is located adjacent to the site, Hyer stands to benefit from the increased use of the area; he also made reference to the fact that other members of his family own property nearby. The Hands-On Children’s Museum is relocating because the state has plans to construct a Heritage Center on its current site. However, some find the selected new location to be rather puzzling. Taellious, father of a two-year-old, says he has concerns about the site. “We know that there is ground contamination, and the water table is rising. We have land available that’s not contaminated, so why is it being built there?”

If the land around the isthmus and Capitol Lake are rezoned and subsequently developed, property values and rents will likely increase. Two large contributors to councilmembers’ campaign funds, J.A. Morris, and Orca Construction, own parcels in the vicinity.

It is also likely that the Free School will not benefit from this sort of development; in fact, it is dubious whether it and many other downtown businesses and organizations -- many of which are barely making ends meet as it is -- will survive the rent increases that may result as developers come in and change the character of downtown Olympia to match the city council’s vision.

Downtown Already Has Value

It seems that the current City Council favors economic growth at the expense of what is truly Olympia’s most valuable asset – its unique character. The present City Council’s vision of downtown emphasizes economic development without recognizing that the many people who live, work, own businesses and otherwise spend time downtown like it the way it is.

“My business is beautiful,” said Anne Buck, owner of Buck’s Fifth Avenue, scoffing at the notion that Olympia’s downtown core is languishing. “Business is better than ever, because people are staying home and cooking more.”

“What I don’t like is trying to make Olympia into just another town,” she adds. Although she doesn’t oppose the construction of more downtown housing, Buck does not feel that is a good idea for Olympia to change its zoning to allow high-rise condos on the isthmus. Kwiecinski, owner of the Broho, echoes her sentiments: “I am not opposed to new housing downtown but not if it comes at the expense of downtown’s character.” Taellious expresses a feeling voiced by many “It seems like it’s a top down thing, rather than from the people. This is something that is being forced on downtown based on somebody’s vision, rather than it coming from the collective vision. “

Whose downtown is it? Whose vision matters? Shouldn’t the City Council be more worried about the concerns of their constituents than about what “tactics” they can use to make their vision “appeal to the public”? Olympia’s citizens have strong feelings about their community, and ideas of their own about what is best for the city. The City Council should be paying more attention to seeing other points of view, and spending less effort forcing their vision on an unwilling public.