Nisqually Valley News

06/25/2026

Daytime travelers who use northbound Interstate 5 in Tumwater should plan ahead, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) advises.

From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, June 25, the right lane will close at Trosper Road. The lane closure creates a work zone for WSDOT crews to repair the pavement.

Northbound I-5 ramps to and from Trosper Road will remain open throughout the work.

Daytime travelers who use northbound Interstate 5 in Tumwater should plan ahead, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) advises. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, June 25, the …

06/25/2026

Today we honor the life and love of Justin.

20 years ago today, Justin was tragically killed on the battlefield of Baghdad Iraq by an improvised explosive device (IED).

Forever Missed ♥️ Never Forgotten

WE LOVE YOU JUSTIN 💕🇺🇸

06/25/2026

A two percent pay hike negotiated as part of a 2025 contract kicks in on July 1. State employees got a three percent increase one year ago in the first year of the two-year contract.

Specific job classifications, such as those in the Department of Corrections, are getting higher general raises, with some receiving a 4% increase on July 1.

State workers in Washington are about to get a raise, while secretive union negotiations that could include another raise get underway. A two percent pay hike negotiated as part of a 2025 …

06/25/2026

Thurston County Board of Commissioners approves homeless services contracts after one-week delay:

The Thurston County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to approve $15.29 million in homeless services contracts for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

The approval of funding to 17 organizations through 49 contracts comes one week after the board decided to delay a vote in order for the City of Tumwater to ask further questions to the Regional Housing Council, which regularly recommends homeless service contracts for the Thurston County Board of Commissioners to approve.

Those contracts are intended to cover homeless services across Thurston County and the cities of Olympia, Lacey, Yelm and Tumwater.

More here: https://tinyurl.com/5cdc9jfz

06/24/2026

The three-judge panel’s 10-page decision last week in favor of Oregon Public Broadcasting found that records from Oregon agencies cannot be withheld from the public “simply because they have been provided to another agency investigating or prosecuting a crime.”

The Oregon Department of Corrections had provided an inmate file of the 2017 MAX train murderer Jeremy Christian in response to a lawsuit in Marion County Circuit Court from the news agency, but the court declined to grant OPB’s request for a declaration that state corrections officials have been misinterpreting public records law. The new decision directs the Marion County Circuit Court to adopt a declaration in alignment with the appeals court’s finding that such records cannot be exempted from disclosure.

“Where, as a factual matter, a record is compiled for reasons unrelated to criminal law purposes, it is not factually accurate to describe it as being compiled for criminal law purposes simply because the record is subsequently provided to law enforcement in connection with a criminal investigation,” wrote Chief Judge Erin C. Lagesen.

Documents that show up in criminal investigations undertaken by Oregon law enforcement are not automatically exempt from disclosure under state public records law, the Oregon Court of Appeals …

06/24/2026

Some of these changes include allowing low-rise apartment buildings to have just one stairway, reducing how often building codes are updated and rolling back specific electrical or fire safety standards.

But critics have raised safety concerns, noting that existing rules were shaped by past tragedies and aim to prevent future harm.

For example, having only one staircase could allow a developer to add another unit or expand the size of units, said Nicolle Aube, principal and founder of Civex, a planning and civil engineering consulting firm, and an American Planning Association board member.

“But then there’s this flip side, that by removing these codes and protections, it carries this additional risk for the developer and the occupants of the building if the worst-case scenario happens,” she said.

States and cities are loosening building code requirements in an effort to lower construction costs and boost affordable housing. Some of these changes include allowing low-rise apartment …

06/24/2026

The West could be in for “one of the strongest El Niños we’ve had,” Larry O’Neill, Oregon’s state climatologist, said Monday. The ocean and atmospheric weather pattern that occurs every few years and touches all parts of the West typically brings with it warmer and drier temperatures from August through winter, but during a super El Niño — of which there have been only three since 1980 — it does the opposite, bringing greater rain and mountain snowpack.

“The very strong ones don’t follow the typical rule of thumb,” O’Neill said following an online drought and climate outlook meeting hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That could be great for many drought-stricken parts of Oregon and the region, where heat, record low snowpack, depleted reservoirs and low stream levels have caused Gov. Tina Kotek to declare a drought emergency in nearly half the state’s counties. In April, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a statewide drought emergency for the fourth year in a row, and that same month Idaho Gov. Brad Little declared a statewide drought emergency for the first time in 25 years.

Warming temperatures at the equator could paradoxically bring the Northwest a wet fall and high winter snowpack, according to climatologists. The West could be in for “one of the strongest El …

06/24/2026

Democrats swept all statewide executive posts, gained seats in the Legislature and defeated conservative-backed ballot measures. They followed up in 2025 with Democratic candidates capturing every special election for a legislative seat.

It should come as no surprise that when nearly 900 Democrats attended the state party convention in Spokane last weekend, they had a shared vision of turning Washington bluer, and reclaiming control of Congress and the White House from Republicans.

Shasti Conrad, the party chair and a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, contended, as she has since 2024, that Democrats have the right message and positions. They just need to communicate the party’s agenda better to win over more voters, Conrad said.

“What we’re celebrating is not automatic,” she told convention attendees Saturday night. “We’re showing the country what leading with values looks like.”

As the Democratic Party’s national leaders engaged in public soul-searching after a disastrous 2024 election cycle, their counterparts in Washington state celebrated a banner year. Democrats …

06/24/2026

The court on Tuesday heard arguments in the case of Amber Kim, who had been held in the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor before she was moved to the men’s prison in Monroe due to an infraction.

Kim argues this decision amounts to unconstitutionally cruel punishment that puts her safety at risk and sets back her transition.

The Trump administration is now investigating how Washington houses incarcerated trans people, after a lawsuit from a prisoner in the state’s women’s prison alleged a transgender woman attacked her there.

The U.S. Department of Justice told Gov. Bob Ferguson last month that it was looking into reports the state “failed to protect female prisoners from s*xual and physical violence, harassment, voyeurism, and intimidation from male prisoners who identify as female.”

Kim was the first transgender woman transferred back to a men’s prison in Washington. It came after she was found to have had s*x with her cellmate at the women’s prison.

“The department did something far beyond what was necessary to address any legitimate concerns it had about Ms. Kim’s conduct,” said Adrien Leavitt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington branch, who is representing Kim.

Washington’s state Supreme Court justices will weigh in on where a transgender woman held in state prisons should be confined, as the state faces a federal probe over the issue. The court on …

06/24/2026

The Postal Service acknowledged an inquiry about the situation from the Standard, but didn’t immediately provide comment.

The rule proposed this month would require state election officials to share with the Postal Service a list of mail-in voters. It also sets new conditions for states to send ballots via mail, including design of the envelopes.

“States would retain full control over who would (or would not) be able to vote by mail in federal elections within each state,” the rule says.

This is the latest in Trump’s long-running crusade against mail-in ballots.

Democrats, who in other states more often vote by mail than Republicans, see it as an intrusion on elections, which are run by states. Critics of the plan also say adopting the changes so close to the November elections could cause chaos.

U.S. Postal Service officials were set to meet publicly with Washington state lawmakers Monday as the agency considers a sweeping rule change to add federal oversight to mail-in voting. But the …