Events Wrap-up
A Summary of the Idea Bank Tour.
When the Foundation rolled out the Washington Idea Bank, frankly, we didn't know whether Washingtonians would be interesting in sharing their ideas with us at the Foundation. The answer has been a resounding "Yes."
The positive response for our Idea Bank events was overwhelming. It all started in Wenatchee , and after about 3 minutes, we knew we were on to something. The people in attendance had such positive and thoughtful ideas, and it was made clear to us that Olympia indeed does not have all the answers.
We here at the Foundation didn't think it was such a ground-breaking idea to actually listen to the people of Washington, but, after our twelve Idea Bank events, it is apparent that people are surprised and pleased to be asked their opinion. It is also apparent that both the will and the knowledge to bring about positive change exists among our friends and neighbors. The Foundation is simply attempting to harness this positive force for change and direct it toward Olympia in a positive way that will ultimately make Washington a better place for all of us.
We have finished our Idea Bank Tour (for now.), and it really was a lot of fun. We traveled, literally, across the state, from Pullman to Hoquiam, Vancouver to Bellingham, Wenatchee to Pasco, Spokane to Issaquah, Yakima to Port Angeles, with Gig Harbor and Longview thrown in for good measure. During the tour, we talked to folks and soliciting solutions for the man-made problems that exist in Olympia. It has been incredibly encouraging to meet so many great people with such optimism and pride in our state.
We even had an operative from the state Democratic Party join us at each event to videotape them. Dino tried to tell him that it is unnecessary to videotape the events because all the best ideas will be combined into a document that will be presented to the legislature next year, but our Democratic friend was undeterred. As we said all along, the events were open to anyone, so if our Democratic friends want to videotape all the good ideas to use for themselves, well, that's fine with us. We just hope they will give proper credit to the individuals who came up with the ideas in the first place.
Now that the tour portion of the Idea Bank has wrapped up (for now.), we are going to enter all the ideas into our database and submit them to the board. The ideas that the board thinks will be the most beneficial to the future of Washington will be posted on the web site for all to see and will be included in our document that we will be presenting to the Legislature in January. We will also be posting the document online so that everyone can follow the progress of our citizen-driven initiative. After seeing the more than 400 ideas that have already been submitted from ordinary Washingtonians, it is clear that our leaders in Olympia will have a lot of useful ideas to work with as they proceed in next legislative session.