Mayor Harding, Community Relations Director Teixeira & Community Development Director Grant Beck have answered no emails from this writer in recent months.

That's fine, for if there was an urgency, the city would have received a Freedom of Information request (FOIA) from me, which they would HAVE to address by law.

In any event, more kudos to the Nisqually Valley News (NVN) for picking up on a Yelm Community Blog story and getting an answer concerning the Wal-Mart connector between Yelm Highway and 103rd Avenue, covered here extensively on November 23, 2008 & May 24, 2008:

"The only thing keeping Wal-Mart from building a connector to 103rd Avenue is a permit from the state Department of Transportation.

A stipulation for approving the superstore was that the connector had to be built 18 months after right-of-way was purchased, Yelm Community Development Director Grant Beck said.

The right-of-way acquisition was completed July 2007...

Once the Yelm Loop is constructed, the connector will be ripped out and replaced to become part of the bypass. [Ed. Note: That is years into the future, as covered here previously, because the Bypass construction funding is tenuous, at best.]

'It’s just a city street for now,' Beck said.

The only thing stopping them is a permit to get onto the property.

Beck said he contacted WSDOT Sept. 4, but still hasn’t heard from them...

The permit is still being processed, but it should be complete within the next two weeks, said Dale Severson, development services engineer for WSDOT.

'It’s just a matter of getting all the pieces together,' Severson said," quoting the December 5th NVN.

AND ON ANOTHER ISSUE, THE NVN TOOK UP A STORY RECENTLY COVERED FOR YELM COMMUNITY BLOG READERS IN TODAY'S PRINT EDITION WITH THEIR QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
"Do you think acquiring funding for the Yelm Ave. Bypass is an achievable goal in the current economic environment?"
The majority of the responses were not so optimistic.

THANK YOU NISQUALLY VALLEY NEWS FOR COVERING THESE IMPORTANT COMMUNITY ISSUES! AND FOR READING THE YELM COMMUNITY BLOG.