SPEECH President's Messageby Janine Gates March marks the 19th anniversary of SPEECH's incorporation as a non-profit! To celebrate, we invite you to our open house and annual meeting on Sunday, March 14. We will be meeting at our office from 1:00 pm- 3:00 pm at Media Island International, 816 Adams St., across from the Olympia Timberland Library. We'll serve refreshments and because this is Olympia, we'll have cake, of course! With your continued financial support, we will plan on taking SPEECH out of our awkward teenage years and becoming more mature. Part of that maturity process is recognizing when we need to make changes. This edition of the South Sound Green Pages is our first quarterly, which we will try for a year. With so few volunteers producing the Green Pages, this change will allow us to focus on establishing a stronger organizational infrastructure. For example, several of our recently acquired green distribution boxes have been removed by unknown persons including the ones outside the Eastside Co-op and Wagner's Bakery. Some have been vandalized, like the one outside Traditions, and others are in need of repair. We need volunteers to maintain these boxes, and help with the internal structure and growth of the organization, including general office duties. We need others to do regular columns in the Green Pages. Please consider serving SPEECH as a volunteer! We are also always ready to welcome volunteers who feel they would like to serve as board members. Come by our open house to see the office, and find out how we can work together. SPEECH is excited to welcome a former board member, Krag Unsoeld, back to the organization. Krag previously served SPEECH for many years in a variety of capacities, including president. This Winter 2010 issue of the Green Pages highlights some concerns around Olympia's dwindling public waterfront and the operations at the Port of Olympia. As Olympia continues to delve into its comprehensive plan and shoreline management plan processes, the overriding concern is how these plans involve the public and the confusing relationship between the port, the city, and the public. It's a strange, complicated love triangle. Just getting onto port property and into the administrative offices can be a struggle, as I recently found out, even with an appointment and a press pass. Homeland security issues aside, it shouldn't be so hard to get answers to questions posed by the public. As several citizen activists have recently discovered, what you are told by one agency doesn't exactly jive with what they are being told by another agency. No wonder people become frustrated trying to offer fresh perspectives and ideas which they believe are then ignored. The port has a new commissioner and the Olympia city council has several new members. This is not the time to get burnt out. We, the public, must persist in demanding accountability on the policies and actions of all our elected officials. Spring is around the corner and more light will fall on our part of the earth. It might be easier now to harness that energy. I encourage you to enlighten our elected leaders about how you feel about these critical issues. Janine Gates is president of SPEECH and can be reached through her website at http://www.janinegatesphotography.com or her Olympia news blog at http://www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com
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