The Olympia Standard

Abby Spegman joins us one more time to interview Nathaniel Jones and Cheryl Selby, candidates for mayor of Olympia. We add a few more questions to the mix, asking about the structure of city government and the role of the mayor, in addition to our questions on how the candidates will craft policy as an elected official. We explore how they think, how they function as a member of a team, and how they work in the community.

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Abby Spegman joins us again as a guest host to interview Matt Goldenberg and Dani Madrone, candidates for position 3 on the Olympia City Council. Our questions for Olympia City Council candidates focus not on specific policy proposals, but rather how the candidates will craft policy as an elected official. We explore how they think, how they function as a member of a team, and how they work in the community.

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On this episode of The Olympia Standard, Abby Spegman comes on the show as a guest host to interview Jessica Bateman, who is running for re-election for position 2 on the Olympia City Council. Phyllis Booth, who is also running for this position, did not respond to the invitation to participate. Our questions for Olympia City Council candidates focus not on specific policy proposals, but rather how the candidates will craft policy as an elected official. We explore how they think, how they function as a member of a team, and how they work in the community.

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One of our listeners asked us to cover the state of emergency healthcare in Olympia. We have heard about emergency rooms that are beyond capacity and ambulances being diverted to hospitals in other cities. To learn more about the state of emergency services, we interviewed Michelle James, the chief nursing officer at Providence who also oversees the Community Care Center downtown, and Chris Thomas, the senior manager of communications at Providence. We talked about the landscape of emergency medicine in the area, the challenges we are coming up against, and what is happening (and needs to happen) to address growing needs.

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With the public discourse that arose from last year’s election of the Thurston County Prosecutor, our listeners have asked us to keep tabs on issues of criminal justice in our area. We interviewed the recently re-elected prosecutor, Jon Tunheim, as well as the Director of Public Defense, Patrick O’Connor, to track some of the ongoing issues that have been in need of reform. We talked about case flow management, diversion, opioid response, bail reform, and how people can track the progress of a changing system.

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