by Beth Ward

When people talk about the Olympia Downtown Association (ODA) it seems like they either love it or hate it. Some describe it as a welcoming, inclusive group while others view the ODA as an exclusivist association dominated by downtown retail interests. So what is the ODA?

Founded in the late 1980's, the ODA is recognized by the city as a neighborhood association, which is a conglomerate of people who join together to improve the quality of their neighborhood and can choose to complete the proper paperwork and be recognized by the city as an official association. The ODA's boundaries . . .

On May 1, 2005, two detectives of the Olympia Police Department took digital pictures of participants of a street march downtown. The next day, Copwatch Organizer Drew Hendricks requested those photographs from the City of Olympia. The photographs are city public records, and as such should be releasable to the public unless they are currently part of an active case file.

by Drew Hendricks

On May 11, 2005 the US Naval Vessel Pililaau prepared to leave the Port of Olympia's marine terminal. Before 7:30 pm, the ship had already discharged a very large quantity of water from above its Port side waterline, out into Budd Inlet. A jet of white foam could be seen extending well into the navigation channel as the water was stirred with the discharge from the ship's bowels. Near the guest moorage south of the ship, a large quantity of floating, greenish brown material spread out on the water in a sheet hundreds of feet across. The constellation of floating debris drifted . . .

[A speech delivered by Phan Nguyen at the Sylvester Park Peace Rally on May 30th, 2004]

A few days ago the Olympian had an editorial about the city council's hearing on the nuclear sub. The editorial said, "There's plenty of room for dissent in this community. There is no room to rebuke the men and women fighting to preserve freedom and democracy."

by Sam Husseini

Sectors of the peace movement in the U.S. -- at least those which still show signs of having a pulse -- have seized upon the Downing Street Memo which might finally draw out in some substantive fashion the deceitful manner in which the U.S. moved toward the invasion of Iraq. The group AfterDowningStreet.org has called for an inquiry into possible impeachable offenses committed by Bush.

by Norman Solomon

Keep them behind the war curve.

While some Americans are exposing the deception for the latest war, steadily lay the groundwork for the next one.

Focus plenty of news reports on alienated youth in Iran, spotlighting despair that borders on nihilism. Meanwhile, give scant media attention to the growth of civil society, with many thousands of Iranian young people and their elders striving to create a diffuse yet coherent social movement for democracy and human rights.

by Drew Hendricks

Olympia Police used force on 43 occasions in the first four months of 2005, but only used TASERS in four cases of the 27 times force was reported used in February through April 2005. This is a drop from the previous monthly average of 4.5 TASER uses per month seen in the previous two years.

Olympia, WA -- 6/22/05 -- Since 1999, WROC has been grading DSHS on customer service and the WorkFirst Program. Olympia WROC members delivered this years grades to Region 6 Administrator, Cindy Mund, on Wednesday, June 22, 2005. We were surprised that the entire management team for the region was also present.