OPINION: Many thanks to the voters of Olympia and Tumwater

Many thanks to the voters of Olympia and Tumwater who saw through the baseless rhetoric of Proposition 1, and voted overwhelmingly to reject the formation of a Regional Fire Authority.

The Cities spent $22,000 to print and mail a blatantly promotional flyer (multiple complaints about the use of public funds now being processed by the Public Disclosure Commission).  Plus a huge amount of staff time went into developing the proposal – there is no accounting for those costs.  The PRO committee raised over $30,000 for their deceptive campaign, most of it from the firefighter union locals. 

The NO campaign, Citizens for Integrity in Government, is a mini-political committee, limited to a maximum of $7,000 in total expenditures.  So we were outspent about seven to one. 

But the public saw through the color glossy photos (and apparently took the time to read the paragraph on the CON website that should have been on the back of each one) to reject the proposal by almost a 2:1 margin.  And the public read the Voter's Pamphlet, a very important part of our election process.

This is a victory for smart voters who took the time to study the measure and make the right decision.  We have protected our local fire departments (for now) from takeover by an unaccountable new government agency.  We are not at risk of losing our excellent emergency response, they way that citizens in Rochester and Littlerock did, when their Regional Fire Authority funding scheme collapsed. 

Our City Councils can now get back to the task to which they were elected:  making tradeoffs between important investments that voters support (parks, police and potholes) and those which voters have rejected (a bloated bureaucracy for an unnecessary additional layer of government).  

And finally, many thanks to voter education groups:  The JOLT News, League of Women Voters, Works in Progress, Olympia Indivisible, and the local Thurston County Democrats and Thurston County Republicans.  Each provided a forum to educate voters on this terrible proposal. 

An educated public makes the best decisions.  

          ~ Jim Lazar, Olympia 

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily those of  The JOLT's staff or board of directors.  Got something to say about a topic of interest to Thurston County residents? Send it to us and we’ll most likely publish it. See the Contribute your news button at the top of every page.