No quarters from RVs

author : WIP News Service topic : War on the poor | RVs | City of Olympia

by WIP News Service

As the concrete dries on 'beautified' intersections, created with taxpayer money that could have and should have been spent on building affordable housing, the Olympia City Council is wasting no time in waging its continued war on the poor. The council is pushing through OMC 10.16.030 which will make it illegal to park an RV on any street in the city limits. And they are doing so, not surprisingly, at the cloaked behest of the Downtown Business Association (ODA), and without a public hearing on the issue.

Two businesses have complained about a resident RV parked on a city street in the superfund polluted area of downtown where the region's raw sewage flows, Acme Fuel and Alpine Experience, the latter owned/operated by ODA salesman and city councilmember Joe Hyer. The complaints go back years and have from time to time been studied by the city for policy development. Meanwhile the police have paid and continue to pay frequent and discourteous attention to the area. Why has this become goal number one for the city? Do those who live in their RVs refuse to pay the parking meters? No. So what's the problem? Don't their quarters in the meters add up just like anyone else's? Without logic it's just a matter of business to the Olympia city council -- 'Lacey style'.

Lacey has developed a style of civil rights attacks by banning things outright and passing off responsibility by claiming regional problems should be dealt with outside their precious city. Panhandling and tent cities are recent “don’ts” while anti-gay protections and council meeting prayers are historical do's. Lacey has a habit of doing whatever business wants, never mind what the facts are, which has resulted in the sprawling splendor of Lacey.

In January, the Olympia city council composition became nearly complete in business representation with three former officers of the ODA now in city decision-making roles. Their first actions have been in taking up the unfinished bigoted agenda of the ODA, including streamlining efforts for upper-income condos to be built downtown, defunding the Tenants Union and rededicating funds to beautifying downtown intersections, which WIP has previously reported on. They have also had their annual full-council scheduled meeting with the ODA, (the only such association with which they have such a meeting), where they formalized that group as a "Market Street" program to funnel more tax dollars to council interested downtown businesses. It is interesting to recall, as previously reported in WIP, that this designation now adds to the ODA's standing as a Parking & Business Improvement Area and as Olympia's premiere Neighborhood Association (even though no ODA officer or Boardmember resides in the neighborhood), each with their earmarked taxpayer funding. The council is all too eager to follow the blueprint for such white-collar panhandling.

With the new composition of the Olympia's council, they are bringing their actions in line with their current resemblance to the Lacey City Council. Many of the dozen or so, if not all of the RV dwellers are on a fixed income, most receiving GAU or SSI -- which are state and federal income programs for individuals that are considered to be at an unfair disadvantage in fully participating in the marketplace due to disability(s). They receive around $500 per month which is insufficient for them to obtain rental housing in this area because the low vacancy rate drives prices up. And motels cost even more. As an intermediary step to homelessness in pursuit of stable housing, people have managed to buy an RV to live in, but there are also not enough vacancies in affordable RV parks to allow them in. In addition to their limited incomes, many RVers have other factors that make them unwelcome to private landlords such as criminal backgrounds, kids and pets. So they park on streets, where parking is an encouraged activity at a metered price. But that's not good enough for the city now -- not only do they not want the RVer's money, they don't even want to see them around here. The city itself has numerous unused lots that could be used for overnight RV sheltering, but the city would rather have their lots stay empty then let them be used by the likes of the poor. The city's logic: none. How this fits the city's plan to end homelessness: pass the buck and blame it on the region. It's Lacey style!

The shining star of an example to the Olympia council, their hero no doubt, is Lacey business woman and longtime councilmember Ann Burgman. Set aside the fact that one of Lacey's former council is a registered sex offender and became so while in office, Burgman is as Republican as one can be in a non-partisan position ruling from the heights of 'family values' and 'business enterprise'. Her chip-off-the-old-block son is in jail for embezzling public funds through her own business. Who bore him? Who hired him? Who monitored him? Why is she still in office? Who trusts her decisions and oversight? Why is there no audit of everything she has done since becoming a leader? AND why does Olympia want to be like Lacey? Because apparently businesses can get away with it.

The ODA has a long history of relentlessly pursuing a bigoted and targeted agenda of criminalizing youth and homelessness that is really testimony to and evidence of the marketplace failures that result in abusive families, poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, unemployment, cynical politicians, and corporatized government. The difference between Olympia and Lacey, now extinct, was a certain understanding beyond lip-service to the socio-economic cause and effect reality. But now neither council has a member who has a civil rights orientation -- someone who understands that there are structural obstacles in the way of achieving an adequate standard of living like not enough jobs, housing and opportunities much less living wage jobs, decent housing, healthcare, etc. They are just about the facts of business, funneling as much public money into private hands as quickly as possible and creating more obstacles in the wake of their callous disregard for civil society.