Joe DePinto, who officially took over as Yelm’s mayor on Jan. 1, 2022, said things are “going well” for Yelm as a city government. DePinto reached the midway point of his term on Monday, Jan. 1.
The mayor said the city has accomplished a lot since he took over in 2022, but he views his biggest accomplishment as the overall increase of transparency in the local government.
“We’ve done this through a couple ways, including starting quarterly stakeholder meetings. We’ve been doing it for over a year now with the military community, and we just had our first meeting last quarter with the business community,” DePinto said. “This is a good start for the quarterly business meetings. One thing we heard about was issues with our sign codes. I asked the council to take a look at it and to see if we could improve on it. The Public Services Committee, not to blame anyone, decided to not move forward on it.”
DePinto added that through the stakeholder meetings with the military community, Yelm has brought back the banner program to honor veterans. The program itself displays names of veterans on banners throughout the city. He’s proud the city introduced the Veterans Day concert as well.
“The concert was so important to our local veterans,” DePinto said. “It was sobering to hear when a veteran asked me in one of these meetings, ‘Why are we always the ones putting on these events for ourselves,’ and I said to myself, that’s a pretty good point. The first thing we did was create this veterans concert, and I think it was well-received.”
The mayor added the monthly conversations with community stakeholders have been helpful to gain insight on different concerns within the city. He said these events, which typically occur at local restaurants, are helpful for these businesses, as well, because of the added foot traffic.
“We also held the first town hall in years,” DePinto said. “We did it in a way that’s never been done before in Yelm. We had Congresswoman (Marilyn) Strickland, County Commissioner Chair (Carolina) Mejia, State Rep. (Andrew) Barkis and myself. We answered questions from residents for over an hour, and I’m hoping that we can do this every year.”
DePinto said another accomplishment was the acquisition of more water rights. After working on the issue for over a decade, the City of Yelm obtained these rights in 2022.
“Gaining water rights was a huge thing for us,” DePinto said. “These water rights will allow us to build out for the next 20 years. As we’re creating the new water reclamation plant, the WRF, that’s like a $37 million project, but we needed these water rights before we actually started building. We should be done by the end of next year, is when that should be finished.”
As Yelm approaches its centennial, celebrating 100 years since its incorporation, a centennial community board has been established to discuss planning efforts.
“I’d like to see us do a bunch of $19.24 specials around town. Maybe for that price you could have a three-course meal or something special at a restaurant,” DePinto said. “It’s very special to be the mayor during the centennial celebration. I’m looking forward to the centennial so much. We have a lot of fun things planned to celebrate.”
He said he’s also looking forward to the Prairie Days celebration, which he anticipates being a big event for Yelm in 2024. He said the city is looking at different bands or artists to bring to Prairie Days to perform. He expects the city to spend between $20,000 to $40,000 on a “big headliner band” for the event.
“These bands would be big items. They aren’t cheap. Fortunately, the LTAC committee (Lodging Tax Advisory Committee) is made up of representatives from the local hotel, event groups and myself. We upped the budget this year. Normally it’s around $35,000 or $40,000. It’s taxpayer money, but it’s taxpayer money that was raised through hotels through lodging tax fees, and over the years it adds up,” DePinto said. “Yelm hasn’t utilized that fund in the past and has a large amount saved up, maybe $300,000 to $400,000. One of the things the committee has said in the past is they want to save this money for one big event. If Yelm has a good, big event, they’d spend the money on it. What better way than to spend it on our centennial?”
He added the normal budget for these types of events was increased to $50,000 for 2024 and that the city will have another $100,000 for any events related to the Yelm centennial.
“This only happens once in the history of the city, so we’re going to do it big,” DePinto said. “We hope that everyone is proud of these events and proud to be a Yelmanite. This is my hometown, and it’s such an honor to be mayor, but it’s a huge honor to be the mayor during Yelm’s centennial.”
