About Us

The Burbank/Elliot Neighborhood Association was started by Jim Burri around 1988, or so. He and his wife lived in a house, built by George Han in the early 1980's. This is the Northwest Olympia neighborhood around "the Handy Pantry" store on Division ST , GRUB (Garden Raised Bounty), down to Budd Inlet, and North.

In the 1980's Jim Burri would walk up and down our neighborhood, with his dog, and talk to all of the neighbors. He would always say "HI" to us, was happy, and really a nice guy. He talked a bunch of us into getting involved in the Neighborhood Association. He had yearly gatherings, and it was a good time to be with our neighbors and discuss life.

We remember the ice storm of 1997; it rained hard, then froze hard, to around 15 F or so. The huge 60' tall Fir Trees up and down our streets, had 3' long ice cycles, and the cold dry air was brutal. The cold froze the sap inside of the trees. We could hear the trees snapping, and popping up and down the streets, with the frozen sap inside them. Some trees fell from the weight of the ice on the branches. Huge 20' long branches fell from these Douglas Fir trees, and our neighbors helped pile the branches in the street, allowing some cars to go past.

Then our neighborhood lost power for 12 days, only the Capital Mall was open with heat, and many neighbors went there to warm up. Everyone was using their fireplace, or wood stove to keep warm, day after day. One neighbor's house caught fire from the fireplace usage. It was raining hard by then, but we still did not have electricity to our houses. Many neighbors saw the huge fire truck pull up to this burning house, and we all piled out of our cold dark houses, to stand in the rain with umbrellas, watching our neighbor's house burn in the red flames; it was horrifying.

So it was important to Jim Burri, to "pull us all together" during these difficult years, when we lost power regularly. The Burbank/Elliot Neighborhood expanded, and grew, up and down the streets, people wanted to attend our meetings.

We are still going strong with our Burbank/Elliot Neighborhood Association. The City of Olympia started supporting our neighborhoods more in 2005, and now we have city staff support, and we have a CNA: Council of Neighborhood Associations group where all the neighborhoods meet (on line still) and discuss "Best Practices" with our outreach to neighbors. There are City grants that can help neighborhoods, and there are new rules and city neighborhood code enforcement laws that have to be studied and applied. It is a hole new "ball game" now.

The neighborhoods are being torn apart by proposals of developments that would plop around 300 houses in the middle of our areas; that is a huge change. We have neighbors who have seen and documented some environmental pollution of our neighborhoods, some environmental destruction of our creeks and wetlands. Neighbors have pulled together to work on these issues of keeping our "stomping grounds" clean for future generations of neighbors. It is a huge job, and many of us attend City planning meetings, and City Council meetings often, to be aware of these new developments, laws, and projects.

We love our Neighborhoods more than ever. We see how fragile they are, how they can be broken and destroyed. We have many new neighbors, many new friends. Some "Old guard" 80 year old neighbors still are around, too. They have seen it all, from being a thick forest near downtown Olympia, to being an urban corridor and a "residential freeway" to the downtown businesses.

We hope to pull into our Neighborhood meetings, families with children, they are the life blood of a neighborhood. We hope to have a sense of respect and responsibility to our neighbors and friends; in times of trouble, the only real help often comes only from your neighbors! We need to be ever aware of that, and work to enforce a sense of camaraderie and respect to all of our neighbors, up and down all of the streets of Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, and else where.