- There are seven positions; position #1 is always the mayor.
- Each position serves for four years. Elections are staggered-- three positions change in one election, and the other four change in the next election. This year, positions 1, 2, 3, and 7 are open for new candidates. In the next election (elections are held in odd-numbered years) the 4, 5, and 6 positions will be open for new candidates.
- All positions are non-partisan.
- All seven members have equal voting authority.

This is a March 2010 interview with Jim Cooper, when he was appointed Executive Director of the local nonprofit organization TOGETHER!

Cooper and Dick Pust (current Olympia mayoral candidate) discuss Cooper's responsibilities and the organization itself.

In which mayorial candidate Karen Rogers discusses:
• How she hates the new parking meters and what could be done with them.
• The time she panhandled in Anchorage, AK to go to a zoo.
• Lewis eats hamburgers and Rogers asks if Kenny and Lewis go to Le Voyeur.
• A caller asks if Karen Rogers has seen the television show Parks & Recreation.
• And much, much more. An hour's worth of more.

Dick Pust is running for mayor of Olympia, and here he appears on TCTV talk show Your Daily Hour With Me.

Dick Pust is a radio guy, and the show starts out with Pust interviewing Kenrick Ward, the host of Your Daily Hour With Me. Pust brought some McDonalds to share. That was odd.

Pust's favorite chicken nugget sauce is currently honey mustard. He also likes ranch.

Scott Yoos sent an email to The Olympian explaining that his arrest for trespassing on June 1 at Twister Donuts was based on two things:
• a misunderstanding because of his being mute and communicating emphatically through signing
• police officers recognizing Yoos as someone who attends and photographs protests

Know about politics in the area? Or want to learn? We could use help filling out this guide to local elections and writing blog posts about the candidates.

Read our guide to get a sense of where we are so far in our coverage.

There's a lot of information about candidates that we haven't compiled yet, and we could use your help.

Interview with Ross Cowman of Fabricated Realities. from News Northwest on Vimeo.

Fabricated Realities is a story game convention in Olympia, Washington on June 3 through June 5. What's especially neat about it, though, is that Ross Cowman, Jackson Tegu, and Grace commissioned these cool artists to break up the Procession of the Species Art Studio into different fabricated realities rooms depending on the story game played in there.

May 13 - 19
Super
You know Dwight Schrute from The Office? The same actor plays a superhero in the movie Super. Super is playing at the Olympia Film Society this week. Check the times it's playing, buddy, because this matters.
http://www.olympiafilmsociety.org/2011/03/10/may-13-through-may-19-super/

My interview with people from Mutually Assured Productions, started a few minutes late. We had to wait for Ken Carlson. Ken "had to" (which he immediately changed to "got to") shoot a TEDx conference about education paradigms earlier in the day up in Seattle.

I asked him if there was anyone interesting or famous at the conference.

Like most municipal websites, it's not the easiest thing in the world to use. The images above show how to use it (I hope). Just after you hit the "contains" button type in Olympia.

This gives a breakdown of how much money each candidate in the August elections received and spent with who gave them money and who gave or donated things in-kind (equipment, skill sets, and stuff that can be monetized) in Olympia (or anywhere else in Washington State, really).

A farmer’s market will be held on May 14 on the westside of Olympia.

This is serious. Seriously exciting.

The vendors currently listed on the market website: 8 Arms Bakery, Delphinia Community Farm, Olympia Coffee Roasters, OlyKraut, Sunbreak Farm, Township 18 Farm and Learning Center.

The market will be held at a grassy area at the intersection of Garfield and Thomas. It’ll happen every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

It’ll be great.

1. A federal case against the City of Olympia started and ended this week. Patricia Imani, Cristen Love, and Stephanie Snyder sued the City of Olympia after they were forced to disrobe to their underwear after arrested for participating in a 2007 anti-war protest downtown.

Olympia looked different. It's fun to imagine how different the city would have been laid out if the natural landscape was left intact. You can zoom in and look at the details at Big Map Blog.

The Olympia map was done E. S. Glover. Look at a bunch of other maps of cities done by Glover.

The federal case against the City of Olympia came to a relatively quick end today. The jury ruled against the plaintiffs Patricia Imani, Cristen Love, and Stephanie Snyder who claimed the City of Olympia violated their civil rights when an officer forced them to disrobe to their underwear and ending up exposing themselves to other people.

The three plaintiffs were all arrested during a protest in 2007, trying to prevent military equipment from returning from Iraq to Fort Lewis.

Did you know that area mayors get together for a mayorial hang out session the first friday of every month? It was in Olympia last month. This month it's in Tenino. What do mayors talk about? Are non-mayors allowed? If you happen to go to the Tenino mayor meeting, let us know what you find out.

Anyways, this show seems awesome:
May 3, 8 p.m. at Northern: Lust Cats of the Gutter, Morgan & the Organ Donors, Night of Joy and Sara Century

The Cunningham Building, which houses The Northern and art studios, was sold recently. The building (pictured above) is downtown on the corner of 4th and Adams Street.

Every year people dress up like strange creatures and walk around downtown, and every year there are more and more people with cameras documenting the walk. This is a collection of as many of the videos and photos as I could find from the spring 2011 Procession of the Species. If you know of any that I did not include, let me know in the comments.

Here's a super long video of the procession from TCTV:

A 3-part playlist of the procession:

Remember how there was going to be a film festival called the Olympia Awesome Film Festival?
It was going to be held at the Loft, but then the Loft closed down and relocated just days before the festival was supposed to happen.

Well it's still happening.

May 14 at the Olympia Ballroom.
116 Legion Way Southeast.

The remains of Olympia Fireplace & Spa is being investigated to determine the cause of the fire that occurred on Sunday, April 24.
Firefighters needed to wait until the structure was stable, according to fire marshal Rob Bradley, and as of early afternoon on April 28 have not found any clues as to the origins of the fire.

More about the fire:
Olympian story with details about the fire:
http://www.theolympian.com/2011/04/25/1628119/fire-ravages-warehouse.html

2011 LUMINARY PROCESSION from News Northwest on Vimeo.

(photo: dreamsjung on flickr)

It won't be long before people are dressed like not people. People will be dressed like animals. People will walk around downtown dressed as animals.

It will happen soon.

If you're still working on your animal costume, the procession studio will be open in March and April 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and noon to 10 p.m. weekends until the walking as animals commences.

The studio is downtown in an alley connecting Columbia and Capitol right by the Royal Lounge.

Here is a project called The Flickr Hive Mind which says it is "almost certainly the best search engine for photography on the web." Basically it is a search engine that mines Flickr.com for certain tags and bit of information. I found this sort of database of Olympia graffiti while researching another project.

At least two photos here which are Not Safe For Work (NSFW), which makes this the first post on News Northwest awarded that distinction.

(Illustration by Charlie Daugherty)

Members of the city council have decided that current city law restricting panhandling and sitting on sidewalks is not enough. At the city council meeting on April 12, members voted 6 to 1 in favor of passing a new ordinance that prohibits people from panhandling within 25 feet of parking pay stations or ATMs.

An amendment to E2SSB 5073 (which would overhaul Washington State's Medicinal Marijuana laws) would require:

(Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship?)

04/11/11
Northern Flickers- animation & experimental films

04/15/11
Japan Benefit: D+, Lois, Calvin Johnson and The Maxines

04/21/11
Dark Dark Dark, Y La Bamba, Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship? and Angelo Spencer et les Hauts Sommets