No state enforcement

“As Washington state implements its “nation-leading environmental policies”, I don’t know who wrote that, but please correct your statement – it is untrue and can absolutely be proven to be untrue!Wordsmithing can be very misleading sometimes, so it is with your above false statement. There can be no “nation-leading environmental policies” when you have no…

Stop building cul-de-sacs in unincorporated county

EDITORIAL OPINION Years ago, when the Spanaway Community Association was starting and the Growth Management Act was in its infancy, Pierce County explained to us that the housing developments with cul-de-sacs were useful to slow crime. The county was allowing, mostly even, asking developers to build all these little pocket communities on large parcels. Each…

Get together – Get it done!

By Marianne Lincoln I may be losing track now of how many times I have helped a group form and accomplish a major milestone for their community. However, I can still pinpoint where it started and who to blame (in a good way). My father was into airplanes. I mean, really into airplanes. So by…

Conservation Futures Information Sessions

If you have an organization located in Pierce County, you may be eligible to sponsor or steward a conservation project through the Pierce County Conservation Futures program. The next application funding cycle begins in 2025, and we want to ensure that your community doesn’t miss the opportunity to participate! Conservation Futures strives to ensure a high quality…

Saturday walk at Spanaway Marsh

By Marianne Lincoln Spanaway Concerned Citizens is raising money to fight a Pierce County Executive’s project to build a village of tiny homes to house homeless individuals with drug, alcohol and mental health problems. These are the hardest people to bring into a stable housing situation. There is a plan. (You can see it at…

Historical road from Nisqually to Spanueh Station

Historical information on Spanaway, Spanueh Station of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and native uses of the area Testimony for the Hearings Examiner on Pierce County Village, April 29, 2024 To local Indians, the area was referred to as “spáduwe” – “where [camas or fern] roots are plentiful”.[1] Multiple tribes used the area for hunting…

Lakewood, what have you wrought?

Don Anderson (Mayor/City Council), followed by Steve O’Ban (State Senator), both attorneys and officials from Lakewood, worked on County Executive Bruce Dammeier’s proposal to put a community of tiny homes in the watershed above Spanaway Lake. The city recently voted to contribute $1,000,000 to the effort. On the other side of the military base, lake…

House demolition, but no silt fence

By Marianne Lincoln Spanaway is watching. There is already a high level of concern about how the Tiny Home Village project was dropped on our community. There are lawyers being paid to defend the interests of people living on the lake self-taxing to improve water quality. Then this project comes along and threatens to make…

Fighting the City Hall that isn’t there

Unincorporated Pierce County has always been a difficult government to navigate. Now that planning and government has become computerized, the virtual environment is even more challenging to follow. Here is a brief, but hopefully helpful, list for navigating unincorporated Pierce County governance. If you are in another County, the system is going to be a…

Pierce County needs to use more caution with our water resources

By Cindy BeckettEPA certified Watershed Manager, WSU certified Master Watershed Steward Why are we still losing our water resources in this county?  “They” claim we must build housing fast enough to meet the need – to be precise, our share of the claimed 1.1 million homes the State says we (all counties together) need to add in the next 20 years, according…