I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. Your City is working hard to further improve our community and our region – I hope you’ll have the opportunity to get out and see what we have been up to. Things are going well as planned projects are now starting to be realized. Please take some time to learn about the various initiatives that we have undertaken to not just improve the City, but to make it thrive.
I am excited that we continue to find ways to create jobs and economic impact while preserving our much-appreciated rural character. Our work in agriculture is creating opportunities for local farmers to grow their businesses, which provides a huge economic benefit to our community. Visit the City website and read about the Agricultural Business Park initiative that has a tremendous amount of steam.
Partnering with the County has allowed us to focus a lot of effort on Park renovations and improvements. Our Park system is, in large part, County property due to the bike trail. We now know that most of the thousands of park users are not City residents, so it makes sense that the burden of cost needs to be shared. Naturally, the County accepts and appreciates that the Tenino City Park is the best Park in South Thurston County. Renovations of the park are currently underway with even more to come. A $300,000+ renovation of our beloved Quarry Pool will not only improve the aesthetics, but also its accessibility, function and efficiency. We hope to secure a grant to replace and improve the Park’s core with new multi-generational play structures, walking paths and adult fitness stations.
I am very excited to see all that is being accomplished, but I am also excited to see what’s next. Your City Council chooses what to focus on primarily based on strategic objectives and what is available and financially achievable. We’ve gotten good at this. I am constantly aware of our core responsibility to meet the needs of our basic infrastructure, like roads, bridges, and water and sewer systems. These things are critical but also expensive. We have heard your concerns about our roads and I want you to know that we’re working on it. If I could convey one thing, it is that we are advancing. Tenino is in a good place right now, so let’s enjoy and appreciate it.
There’s an old saying, commonly attributed to Voltaire, that goes, “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” To me that means that we should not let remaining challenges cause us to lose sight of the good things around us. We live in a beautiful little City full of amazing and talented people and if we can all rally around that? There’s no limit what we can do.