Works in Progress News Digest
A selection of articles from our August release.
A Historic Library Levy Lid Lift Will Appear on Ballots this November, Putting Timberland Regional Library’s Fate in Voters’ Hands
by Kylie McQuarrie
2026 has been a tumultuous year for the five-county Timberland Regional Library (TRL) system. With a new levy lift measure on the ballot, the library’s financial woes will continue until at least November, when voters could choose to solve those problems with a mild property tax bump.
But whether they’ll opt to trust Timberland after years of mismanagement (by Board members and library administrators alike) remains to be seen. If they want a lid lift to pass, the Board and admin have just under 100 days to rebuild public trust, connect with community members, support staff, and take responsibility for past actions.
Read more TRL coverage here, here, and here.
by Ronda Larson Kramer
In December 2025, federally threatened Mazama pocket gophers played a key role in halting a plan to significantly expand the Olympia Regional Airport. Seven months later, the species and its Bush Prairie habitat at the airport have become part of a nationwide effort to stop a sweeping rollback of the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries Services — federal agencies that say their mission is to conserve species and and “their habitats” and “the ecosystems they depend on”— have finalized a rule that redefines “harm” under the Endangered Species Act to exclude habitat destruction.
At issue is whether governments, companies, and landowners may destroy habitat occupied by protected species. Tribes and conservation groups insist that protecting endangered species necessarily includes protecting the habitat they require to survive and recover.
by Morgan Atwater
While we were tabling at a No Kings protest, a Palestinian man from out of town stopped by and said to us, “I can’t believe a group like this exists in Wenatchee. You expect to see this kind of thing in Seattle, not out here.”
We were handing out zines and flyers promoting our Apartheid Free Wenatcheecampaign and collecting email addresses for the Wenatchee for Palestine mailing list. Beside us, a Boycott Chevron trifold poster teetered in the breeze.
Everyone knows that American-style democracy is a two party system. Whether red/blue, Democrat/Republican, or conservative/liberal, it all points to an either/or outcome. However, substituting this systemic fact for political analysis ignores what’s really going on.
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