Olympia Candidates Discuss Sea Level Rise Plan

Candidates Fishburn, Zita, Miller, Gilman and Rollins comment about sea level rise 

Above: Port of Olympia Commissioner E.J. Zita meets with Rueben Males after a community meeting regarding the City of Olympia's sea level rise plan on Tuesday night. Males wants the Port of Olympia to be part of the climate solution, and not the problem, by initiating job creation to renewable energy and promoting the local sale of locally produced electricity. 

By Janine Gates

Little Hollywood

http://www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

Several elected officials and candidates for public office were present at the City of Olympia's community meeting on sea level rise issues Tuesday night. 

The city revealed a schedule of activities to be spearheaded by the city, the Port of Olympia, and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance. 

The process is expected to take 18 months.

This past week, Little Hollywood asked each candidate who was in attendance what they thought about the sea level rise planning meeting, the concerns expressed by community members, the concept of a strategic retreat, and what, if any, questions they had about the process.

Bill Fishburn is running for Port of Olympia commission, District 2, currently held by Bill McGregor.

“….What I see is a plan for a plan….Through a project management lens, I see that the engagement with the public seems late in the process. The first workshop comes three fourths of the way through what appears to be the third phase,” said Fishburn.

“The Squaxin Island Tribe, Washington State, and environmental groups appear to be absent from the early discussions and planning. And much of what I can see of the 'plan for a plan' appears to be focused on downtown. Such a narrow scope has the risk of leading to narrow solutions.

“That said, I was impressed by the number in attendance and the willingness of the city to engage with the public outside the milestone dates in their schedule. Since the city signed an interlocal agreement with LOTT and the Port, it was also good to see at least one port commissioner in attendance.

“My question would be: Given some of the pollution present in the impacted areas, what are we doing proactively to deal with that pollution? Between now and 2050, are there other phenomena such as king tides and heavy rains that need to be considered in our interim solutions?

“The strategic retreat discussion is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. I think it's worth exploring, but I think there needs to be a concerted effort to involve the public in how such a retreat would be planned.

“I also find it interesting that at the same time we are talking about sea level rise and how to perform a strategic retreat, the city appears to be still considering permit issuance in places that will be clearly impacted by sea level rise. I wonder if that will make the city and taxpayers responsible for costs associated with sea level rise impacts to buildings resulting from those permits?”

Port of Olympia Commissioner E.J. Zita was in attendance at the meeting. She is running for reelection to her seat in District 3, and has a challenger.

“The City of Olympia has a great start on evaluating risks to our area due to sea level rise,” said Zita.

“Andy Haub and colleagues have shared scientific knowledge so we can understand the impacts to Olympia. When seas rise two feet, we can expect flooding downtown every other day.  This is likely to happen in our lifetime, since climate scientists expect seas to rise by two meters, over six feet, by 2100.  King tides already flood downtown more often, so LOTT has already lifted and waterproofed some of its critical equipment.” 

“Do Olympia, LOTT and the Port need to consider moving or retreating from some infrastructure and operations? Other cities at sea level or built on fill show that we will have no choice but to consider these options. Many in Northern Europe have developed floating buildings. Does it make sense for Olympia to approve traditional construction where flooding is likely, in the lifetime of proposed buildings? We started some important conversations that will be continued. 

“It was disappointing to see no material from the Port of Olympia…. Should the Port increase global warming and sea level rise with fracking sands, or decrease warming by supporting renewable energy infrastructure and job creation? Voters will have a clear choice in the fall port commissioner election,” said Zita.

Above: Allen Miller contributed his opinion on a yellow sticky note at the City of Olympia's community meeting on sea level rise planning Tuesday night. It reads: “Dredging Capitol Lake every decade for flood control is much less expensive than removing the tide lock and returning to mud flats.”

Allen Miller is a candidate for Olympia city council position #5, an open seat. Two other candidates are also in this race.

“This is certainly the most important environmental issue the city faces.  I remember learning about the greenhouse effect in 5^th grade….One of the reasons I led the effort to get the Olympia Metropolitan Park District established was to raise the revenue to buy LBA Woods, the Capitol Center Building and the 'Big W' trail,” said Miller.

“The 'Big W' trail from West Bay marina to Percival Landing, along the Port Peninsula, and up to East Bay will give us the opportunity for public access to the shoreline while protecting downtown from sea level rise by building the trail at elevation.

“The best available science from Evergreen State College professors Oscar Soule, David Milne, and the late Kaye V. Ladd shows that retaining the tide lock and dredging Capitol Lake will be best for water quality, sediment management, and wildlife, while also providing flood control in downtown and the North Capitol Campus. 

“I foresee a Capitol Lake management committee forming with the State, Port, Squaxin Tribe, Thurston County, Olympia, and Tumwater as members which will work together to manage the Lake and Deschutes watershed into the future.

“The State Environmental Policy Act will require us to consider the alternatives including a retreat from downtown.  The preliminary information shows that the environmental and economic costs of retreat will be much greater than providing downtown with more flood control, but a cost/benefit analysis will need to be part of the process under SEPA,” said Miller.

City of Olympia councilmember Clark Gilman is running to retain the seat to which he was appointed in 2016, Position 4, and has a challenger.

Soon after Gilman was appointed, he famously "threw the skunk on the table" at the council’s dramatic study session on sea level rise in February 2016 by questioning the assumption that downtown should be saved.

Little Hollywood asked Gilman after the meeting if he still felt that a strategic retreat should be on the table and explored.

“There were several important questions raised this evening. Most valuable to me were the comments about who should be considered a stakeholder or a recognized organization. I appreciated Judy Bardin's suggestions that we should broaden our outreach and consult with groups who represent social equity, environmental, and community economic development concerns,” said Gilman.

“Seeking reelection has not changed my deeply held understanding that the forces of the river and the ocean are mighty and that our best approach to sea level rise is to harmonize waterfront development with those powerful forces.

“I intend to listen and actively participate as a member of Olympia's Land Use and Environment Committee throughout the sea level rise planning process. My position at this point is that it makes practical sense to protect buildings currently in use through their likely useful lives.

“I don't see the community value in advocating for additional residential or commercial development on the port peninsula. I think it makes sense to apply our policy and incentive influence to encourage investment and revitalization on higher ground,” said Gilman.

Above: Renata Rollins, right, visits one of the storyboard stations explaining the City of Olympia's sea level rise plans at a community meeting on Tuesday night.

Renata Rollins is a candidate for City of Olympia council Position 6, currently held by Jeannine Roe. There is one other candidate in this race.

“We need to have all options on the table. By limiting the scope of the discussion, we can’t be sure we’re going to make the right plan, in terms of the environment and the financial/economic costs to the community,” said Rollins.

“I also think it would behoove us to plan further than 20 years. We have 100-year sea level projections already, and we know sea level will continue to rise for centuries even if we make drastic CO2 reductions today. The question of whether a particular action is cost-effective depends on the time scale we’re looking at. Defense might seem to pay off in the short term when compared against costs such as relocating LOTT and other downtown development. But over 100 years? 500 years? Besides, hopefully by then we’re using composting toilets and other sustainable wastewater filtering/treatment methods, making LOTT at its current scale obsolete.

“The fact is, our downtown has been fighting the wisdom of a natural system since the settlers first began to fill the Salish Sea. We take the first step to addressing sea level rise in a realistic way by acknowledging this fact. Doing so doesn’t negate the real sentimental value downtown has for many of us, nor the significant financial investments made there by public and private entities, including our friends and neighbors. It costs nothing to acknowledge the wisdom of natural systems. And it opens the door in the present vantage point to understanding our past and envisioning our future in alignment with this wisdom.

“Rather than fighting sea level rise, we can take it as an opportunity to build a resilient community in the face of climate chaos. Perhaps instead of one town “center” we need the neighborhoods to have their own central social and economic hubs, residential options for all incomes and families, and urban farms to guard against food system instability - a development that will be needed as Washington’s fastest-growing city. 

“We need a plan for emergency services to reach all parts of the city even if downtown streets are flooded. We need to move toward a more ecological plan for our wastewater, including significantly reducing wastewater, rather than depending on an Old World solution like LOTT.

“The creative and practical possibilities for responding to sea level rise are exciting. And I say this as someone who loves downtown and has been emotionally invested in it for years. As someone who loves downtown Olympia, I really feel the folks who have made significant investments here. I think it’s only right to reframe the discussion and center the need for a longer-range sea level rise plan, over 100 years, and to choose the best and most cost-effective course of action from that data,” said Rollins.

Little Hollywood has written extensively on downtown Olympia sea level rise issues, flooding incidents, the management of Capitol Lake, current sea level rise projections for Olympia with maps and photos. Go to Little Hollywood, http://www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.comand type key words into the search button.

Olympia Plans for Sea Level Rise

Above: Community concerns regarding the City of Olympia's plan to address sea level rise are written on yellow sticky notes, reduced to the length of a tweet, at a community meeting Tuesday night. 

By Janine Gates

Little Hollywood

http://www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

The City of Olympia is about to embark upon a very traditional planning process to address the most critical environmental issue threatening the city's very existence: sea level rise.

At a community meeting at the Olympia Community Center Tuesday evening, the city revealed a schedule of activities spearheaded by the city, the Port of Olympia, and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance. 

The process is expected to take 18 months.

Omnipresent yellow sticky notes were made available to capture and reduce community concerns to soundbites.

City staff also encouraged the public to place little colored coded stickers on a map of downtown Olympia to indicate answers to typical softball questions: “Where have you seen coastal flooding in Olympia in the past?” and “What are your favorite shoreline areas?” and “What features do you like?”

About 40 people were in attendance.

Andy Haub, director of water resources for the City of Olympia, began his presentation with an explanation of how, in 2010, the Olympia city council committed to protect downtown and its infrastructure.

Most notably, this includes the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant, located in downtown Olympia, which treats the region’s 12 million gallons of wastewater per day. Valued at $500 million, relocating the plant would cost an estimated $1.2 billion.

Built on fill about 100 years ago, the area of the Port of Olympia, the seventh largest marina in the state, is also expected to be dramatically impacted by just one foot of sea level rise.

“The time is now, and we’re vulnerable….The future doesn’t feel that far away anymore,” said Haub. 

Susan Clark, project manager for the city’s sea level rise plan, outlined how the plan will be developed and engages the public.

The city has hired an international engineering firm, AECOM, to help implement the plan.

“At $250,000, the planning process reflects the next step. It is not the end point of sea level rise planning….We want to get this right. It’s too important not to,” said Clark.

She said that over 20 internal working groups are working to develop a framework for the plan. The groups include staff from many departments, including parks, transportation and emergency management, along with elected officials.

An inventory of assets will be conducted, including open space, from the Fourth Avenue Bridge and the isthmus to East Bay and Marine Drive. Private property on East Bay and West Bay will not be included. Then, a vulnerability assessment on those assets will be conducted.

The final step will develop adaptation strategies such as tide gates and retrofits to existing buildings.

The city says it will conduct focus groups with the business community and others, including three workshops, the first to be held in October. The idea is to wrap up the plan by December 2018.

The city has a new electronic newsletter addressing sea level rise planning issues.  Community members can self-subscribe to it at olympiawa.gov/subscribe

Above: The city is looking to cutting edge sea level rise planning efforts currently underway around the country. It is particularly looking for guidance from the San Francisco Sea Level Rise Action Plan and the Marin Shoreline Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment. The draft Marin Ocean Coast Sea Level Rise Adaptation Report is currently out for public review, said Susan Clark, project manager for the City of Olympia's sea level rise planning efforts.

Several audience members expressed their displeasure with the Port’s contract with Rainbow Ceramics and continued acceptance of ceramic proppants. Others wondered where the funding was going to come from to protect downtown.

Rueben Males was disappointed with the region’s approach to sea level rise planning, and said so at the meeting. He has started an organization called Jobs in Renewable Energy, a non-profit cooperative whose purpose is to incubate worker owned cooperatives.

He said he wants the Port of Olympia to be part of the climate solution, and not the problem, by initiating job creation to renewable energy and promoting the local sale of locally produced electricity.

He suggested that the Port of Olympia host the space necessary for a solar farm at the port district's airport property and/or for a solar farm at the port property on Budd Bay.

Community member Judy Bardin, along with several others, was disappointed that the city has apparently still not reached out to local environmental organizations for their assistance and guidance on sea level rise issues.

“Stakeholders are taxpayers,” she said. In April, after the last community meeting, Bardin provided the city a comprehensive list of local organizations to contact.

When asked what organizations the city has consulted with to date, Haub responded that he has met with the city’s Planning Commission and two Rotary groups, and the Coalition of Neighborhood Associations.

“We need to define what downtown means to us…We can’t capture it all, I’m sure. Give us suggestions and a venue and we’ll be there,” Haub responded.

Local attorney Charlie Roe, father of Olympia city councilmember Jeannine Roe, said that one of the requirements of stated law within the state's Shoreline Management Act is that one option needs to be no action. He asked if the possibility of no action on sea level rise has been ruled out.

“The state is providing some guidance on climate change and sea level rise but it is not a clear mandate. We see this as a local initiative...we have chosen to incorporate it into the city’s version of the Act, requiring setbacks along the shoreline…Unfortunately, to be candid, the guidance from federal and state government is very limited these days and we need to move forward,” responded Haub.

Little Hollywood has written extensively on downtown Olympia sea level rise issues, flooding incidents, the management of Capitol Lake, and current sea level rise projections for Olympia with maps and photos.

Recent articles include “Olympia Starts Sea Level Rise Planning” at http://janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com/2017/04/olympia-starts-sea-level-rise-planning.html and “Olympia’s Sea Level Rise Plan Begins with Port, LOTT” at http://www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com/2017/04/olympias-sea-level-rise-plan-begins.html

For more articles, go to Little Hollywood, http://www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com and type key words into the search button.

Above: Former City of Olympia councilmember Karen Messmer was happy to express a few opinions about the city's sea level rise plan using several yellow sticky notes at Tuesday night's community meeting.

Fishburn Enters Race for Olympia Port Commissioner

Above: Bill Fishburn is running for Port of Olympia Commissioner, District 2, to unseat incumbent Bill McGregor. Fishburn, 47, of Rainier, is a project management consultant and active community member with the Hispanic Roundtable of South Sound and other nonprofit organizations. He made his announcement in front of a group active with port issues on Sunday night in downtown Olympia.

By Janine Gates

Little Hollywood

http://janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

Bill Fishburn, 47, of Rainier, has formally announcedthat he is challenging Port of Olympia Commissioner Bill McGregor for his District 2 seat.  

He made the announcement in front of a group of community members active with port issues at a meeting on Sunday night in downtown Olympia. About 35 people were in attendance.

According to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, McGregor has raised $24,600 to date for his reelection campaign.The filing deadline for the position is May 19.

For Fishburn, the decision to run wasn’t rocket science, but luckily, he is a rocket scientist, having received his bachelor of science in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from the University of Washington, and his master of science in mechanical engineering from University of California, Berkeley.

Employed for 21 years with the Intel corporation in a variety of capacities, Fishburn was a senior technical program manager in DuPont until he was downsized out of his job during a recent restructure. 

While at Intel, he earned a division recognition award for creating two new processes that saved the division an estimated two million in time and resources.

Unemployed since October 2016, he recently decided to go into business for himself as a consultant.

His business, Six Pennies Consulting, now consults on project management, human resources, team development issues, executive coaching and the performance management of employees.

Appearing a little nervous in front of the group, Fishburn readily acknowledged that he has a lot to learn. He took questions for well over an hour, which turned into an educational listening and learning session about current port issues. 

He says many people don't know that the Port of Olympia serves all of Thurston County.

“I want to strengthen the idea that led the people of Thurston County to create a public port in the first place: exploring new, forward looking, pioneering ways of developing our economy for the good for the county's residents.

“The Port runs four distinct businesses - not just the marine terminal, but the airport, Swantown Marina and Boatworks, and several large properties around the county. Three of these operate at a deficit. To put it another way, if you live in Thurston County, more than five million dollars of your taxes are supporting three money-losing ventures every year.

“When I learned that, I realized the Port is not providing value to the community, it's taking value from the community. That appears unethical, and I want to change that....I want the Port to be fiscally responsible. I want it to be an ethical asset,” he told the group.

“As I look at the Port of Olympia, a port depending on fossil fuels as a revenue source, a port clinging to an industry of years gone by...I know there are new ways to responsibly use our tax dollars, new ways to drive a 21st century economy, and new ways to better reflect our values,” he said.

When asked, he said that it was time for the port to recognize that the Port's decisions have impacts far beyond our county borders, and he would revisit controversial cargo and business contracts, such as the port's acceptance of ceramic proppants.

Bev Bassett, an articulate, active watcher of port activities for the past three years, says she is supporting Fishburn and will be volunteering for his campaign as a field organizer.

“The better I know Bill, the more enthusiastic I am about him. He demonstrates a fast learning curve and his values shine through. He talks about fiscal responsibility, integrity, and environmental stewardship, as if they are rooted in his world view. That's refreshing. His high level science and project management skills make him a perfect fit for reshaping the Port of Olympia in ways that will take us into the future of global warming so that our basic needs can better be met by our shared community resource — the 1,650 publicly owned acres that are the Port of Olympia,” said Bassett. 

Port Commissioner E.J. Zita, who is running for re-election to her seat, was in the audience, and said she has endorsed Fishburn.  

“I'm getting to know him and I think he's a great guy. I think he'd be a great colleague. He's clearly responsive to the needs of the port and the people, and he values fiducial responsibility and accountability. He values transparency and openness, he's listening to the people, he values economic stewardship and he's a smart businessman. He knows that we have to look at both the costs and the benefits square in the face in order to make ends meet, and we have a responsibility to the people to do better,” said Zita, after the meeting.

Above: Bruce Fortune, left, shares some of his questions and concerns with Port of Olympia candidate Bill Fishburn on Sunday night in downtown Olympia.

Little Hollywood Interview

Little Hollywood tagged along with Fishburn for a portion of his busy Saturday, starting at the Olympia Timberland Library down to the Olympia Farmer's Market, asking him questions about his life, why he is running for the position, and his thoughts about a variety of port and community concerns.

Fishburn came straight from the March for Science rally at the state Capitol Building to speak to participants of a writing workshop conducted by Kathleen Alcala at the Olympia Timberland Library. 

Fishburn is president of the Hispanic Roundtable of South Sound, and the event was cosponsored by the organization. He began representing Intel as a member of the Roundtable in 2008, providing support for the group’s annual Latinx Youth Summit. 

The summit rotates throughout the five counties at regional two and four year colleges. 

Partnering with about 15 federal, state, and local entities, including nonprofits, business, and government, school districts, and the regional Timberland Regional Library, the summit held late November at The Evergreen State College gathered 496 students, the most ever in its 14 year history.

The Hispanic Roundtable of South Sound is also involved with civil and immigration rights, educating the Latinx community about what they can expect from law enforcement and other officials.

Fishburn is also a board member of the Girl Scouts of Western Washington.

He is married to his wife of 26 years, and has two biological sons and an adopted nephew, all in their 20s. He lived in Lacey from 1996 to 2003, and has lived in Rainier since 2003.

Little Hollywood: Why and how did you come to the decision to run for port commissioner?

Fishburn: One of the things that attracted me to running for port commissioner was that I live in rural Thurston County and pay my taxes, but I didn’t know, like many of my neighbors, that our taxes are going to pay for this port.

I’m a Bernie-crat. I was getting frustrated with our national candidates during the presidential election process, and the state’s superdelegate and primary process. Then, after Trump won the election, I couldn’t sleep for two weeks. During that time, I just kept getting more and more vocal and started looking for a progressive group that I could get involved with. I found the Thurston County Progressives and members of that group encouraged me to run for port commissioner.

Asked about the port’s involvement with its continued acceptance of ceramic proppants and other controversial cargo, Fishburn questioned the Port’s stance that the Federal Shipping Law of 1984 determines the port's acceptance of any and all cargo.

Fishburn: The thing that’s interesting to me about the port that I’ve heard is that cargos are amoral, and I don’t know if I agree with that.

I think that every business decision has some sort of base in morality, whether that’s a religious basis or a secular basis, and we have to look at more than just how many dollars something is going to produce. We have to look at whether it’s the right decision for our community and the values of our community. Those values define what morality means for our community.

Based on my research, it seems pretty obvious to me that the community is being ignored on specific cargos such as fracking proppants and military cargo. These seem to me to be cargo the community clearly does not want transported through their yards and neighborhoods but they are being ignored. I just have to ask myself, why is that?

LH: Do you agree with this stance, that the port must accept ceramic proppants and any other cargo?

Fishburn: There’s a lot of room for interpretation in that ‘safe and legal’ language.

LH: So what should the port be doing? 

Fishburn: Do I have an alternative cargo? No, but we can find alternative sources of income. The port seems to be holding onto a lot of 20^th century cargo concepts and opportunities. We could be looking at alternative energy products. 

In Washington State, ports are pretty powerful entities and if we want to start looking forward to 21^st century energy concepts or job opportunities, we have to look at clean energy.

I think a huge opportunity that the port is missing out on right now is solar electric farms. They’ve got the land to do it, it sounds like. There’s open space at the airport that could be leveraged, and there could be some discussion with the FAA on how that interferes or follows under guidelines and rules.

LH: Is your background at Intel helpful for finding these alternatives?

Fishburn: One thing project management skills have brought me, and you learn this early on in becoming a project management professional, is that in order to have a successful project together, you have to bring all the stakeholders into your project and have a discussion about how your project is going to proceed, what those deliverables are, and how those deliverables will be executed and delivered.

When you do that, you get this broad perspective of opinions, views and expertise. If you don’t bring all those views to bear, you end up with a project that can very easily fail. At Intel, we didn’t like our projects to fail.

LH: Longshoremen and their families rely on port business and are in regular attendance at port meetings. They, in particular, will want to know whether or not you support the marine terminal.

Fishburn: I support job creation and concepts that look to a vibrant economic future for Thurston County. If the marine terminal meets those criteria, then I’m in support of it.

I’m a third generation union family. I was told my grandpa started a steelworker local in Spokane. He used to work for Kaiser Aluminum and a magnesium plant. My uncle was an executive for years with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (in Spokane), and Dad worked for 28 years as a member of the IBEW as an electrician for Burlington Northern.

So, it’s a tough position. The Longshoremen have a strong union and have done a great job at creating livable wages for themselves, but if you read the Port’s current mission, it’s all about making money, and from what I’ve seen on the finance side of the marine terminal, it doesn’t look like it's making money. Three out of four port businesses are losing money.

LH: Last November's citizen rail blockade of a train that carried ceramic proppants from the port put the tenuous relationship between the city and the port on full display. The relationship appears to be quite dysfunctional, and the Port and the city seem to work in separate bubbles. 

The community is very interested in sea level rise issues, and now the City of Olympia, Port of Olympia, and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance will be collaborating on roles and plans. 

How do you think the Port should work with the City of Olympia?

Fishburn: I attended one port meeting, and I was so surprised by the language used at the meeting. It was so exclusionary! I heard language like ‘the port makes its own decisions,’ and I thought, wow, this is an entity whose front door is Olympia, and this is how they talk? I live in a rural area and if I had that kind of attitude about my neighbor across the street, we wouldn’t get anything done.

If you can’t build a coalition, you are going to have a short lived project, whether it’s for sea level rise, or any other project. It’s going to be late, over cost, or out of scope.

LH: Do you believe in climate change and the impacts of sea level rise?

Fishburn: I absolutely believe in climate change. Deniers deny science. Our lives revolve around science.

Asked about the role of the port’s executive director, Fishburn says the lack of transparency about how decisions are being made bothers him.

Fishburn: I’ve never met the executive director, but the way that I believe that these entities should relate, based on my nonprofit experience, is that you have a board of directors - the commissioners, in this case - and you have an executive director and staff. The executive director is beholden to the commissioners, not the other way around. He’s their employee. Sometimes, by the nuances I’m picking up, the commissioners are reporting to the director, and that seems backward.

LH: The port recently changed its policy of not transcribing citizen comments into the meeting minutes. Now just the person’s name is listed, with no context of what they said. Commissioner McGregor says that anyone who wants to know what was said can just go to the video. Are you interested in revisiting the issue of how meeting minutes are transcribed?

Fishburn: To have access to information 100 percent of the time, you have to have access to technology, and not everyone does, and not everyone learns the same way. If we truly want to be an inclusive community, we’d make those minutes available in a variety of ways to as many people as possible. I know someone who has a hard time hearing. She’s 90 years old. She’s supposed to watch a video or come to meetings? That’s excluding her from the conversation.

LH: On to a couple of other random port issues, how would you have voted regarding the recent fuel dock expenditure and construction? The fuel dock was approved by two out of three commissioners knowing it would lose one million dollars over the life of the fuel dock and cost over three million in permits and studies.

Fishburn: It could have been a private enterprise that could have met the same regulations. It’s another business endeavor based on aspirational finances. Typically, fuels have very low profit margins and based on the cost, it’s going to take a long time to earn back the money on a fuel pump. I question the fiscal responsibility of that decision.

LH: The port recently entered into five year option to lease the port's property to developer Walker John and his company, Urban Olympia LLC, located on State and Cherry Street near East Bay Drive in downtown Olympia.The property is near the mouth of Moxlie Creek, a stream that begins in Watershed Park and is now buried underground, and piped to East Bay and Budd Inlet. Many favor shoreline restoration of the area and are concerned about past contamination issues at that site. What is your position on that decision? 

Fishburn: I don't agree that the only option is to allow a developer to come along and develop the property.

LH: Are you in support of removal of the Fifth Avenue dam on the Deschutes River and Budd Inlet?

Fishburn: I am. We’re not the only port at the mouth of a river in Washington State. Thurston County is at the crossroads between the Cascades and the Olympics. There’s no reason that the natural beauty of our region can’t be better utilized to bring tourism through those crossroads as a gateway to other beautiful parts of Washington State.

Above: Bill Fishburn buys a bunch of radishes from a vendor at the Olympia Farmer’s Market, which sits on port property. “I love the Farmer’s Market. If I had time, I’d have a stall for my barbeque sauce.” Fishburn said his dad developed a special family barbeque recipe after going to Oklahoma for summer camp with the Marine Corps.

As operations manager of the Intel DuPont Community Garden since 2009, Fishburn oversaw the production of 8,000 to 13,000 pounds of produce per year for five years for food banks in Pierce and Thurston counties. 

He also set the strategic direction and governance for the organization involving more than 80 gardeners.

A quick stop at the Olympia Farmer’s Market led Fishburn to ask questions about the relationship between the Port and the Market. 

“I’m not seeing the connection between local food producers and their relationship to the Port. One of the concepts of creating a food hub is connecting local agricultural workers, community farmers, and food producers. Is the Market producing revenue for the port? With all the commerce going on here, we should be shipping this around the world....”

Fishburn, who is Hispanic and speaks Spanish, was asked if his experiences in Malaysia, the Philippines, India, and other countries could be an asset to the position.

“Absolutely. Working in different countries, I learned an appreciation for other cultures. In India, I learned that you can’t be told yes if you don’t ask. There, they aren’t shy about asking for something they need, so it’s like an iceberg – watch what you see on the surface, but see below that surface, and you’ll gain an appreciation for other perspectives.”

LH: What do you do for fun?

Fishburn: I brew beer, I have a granddaughter who will be 4 next month, and I like to bow hunt.

LH: Tell me about bow hunting.

Fishburn: It’s a little more ethical than rifle hunting and here’s why: you are on the ground, face to face with your quarry. I’ve taken three animals with my bow, and they died every bit as fast as they would have with gunshot. The longest shot I took was with a 25 yard shot, so that, to me, is a challenge, when you are on the same footing as the animals you are hunting. That, to me, is more ethical than if you are shooting something from a quarter of a mile away, or a half mile away.

LH: What kind of beer?

Fishburn: All kinds. I love IPAs. Those are my absolute favorite. I make a great oatmeal stout. I’ve won a couple of awards with it and it’s a fun beer to make....I made it past the first round of a national homebrew competition with an Imperial IPA, which is huge, because it’s a competition with over 700 other beers, potentially, and the two biggest categories are IPA and Double IPA. I took third, I think. I should know this. I’m trying to start a brewery.

LH: So, is this in Rainier?

Fishburn: Yes, we’re in the Thurston County Agritourism Overlay District that provides zoning advantages to food producers, craft distilleries and craft breweries. The Agritourism Overlay District provides recommendations to people who want to start something like that. It’s intended for 10 acres and over. 

My property is just on five acres. If they waive me in, the idea is to put a brewery that will produce about 1,200 to 1,500 barrels of beer a year. For me, it goes back to supporting the local economy with local business.

For more information about the Port of Olympia, go to the Port of Olympia at www.portolympia.com or Little Hollywood, http://www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.comand type key words into the search button.