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Several dozen dogs and their two-legged companions made the most of the sunshine in the late morning hours of May 2 as Yelm city officials celebrated the grand opening of the city’s dog park with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Numerous City of Yelm representatives attended the grand opening of the park, including Mayor Joe DePinto, city councilors Joshua Crossman, Terry Kaminski and Stephanie Kangiser, Public Works Director Cody Colt, Projects and Programs Manager Brad Chatwood, Communications and Recreation Coordinator Line Roy and others.
“I’m excited for the dog park. I was happy with the turnout,” DePinto said. “It was a huge turnout with dozens of dogs. I appreciated the energy from it today, and I’m excited it finally came to fruition after such a long time.”
DePinto said he was happy with the strong turnout at the grand opening despite the dog park receiving some negative feedback online. He’s hopeful residents will put the park, which features separate areas for large and small dogs, to good use.
“I figured we’d get four or five dogs,” he said at the opening. “This is amazing. People are using it. There’s smiles on their faces and smiles on their dogs’ faces. They’re loving it, it looks like.”
DePinto said the project couldn’t have happened without federal funding or partnerships with the state of Washington.
“Outside of Yelm money, they paid for about 85% of the funding, which is amazing. Anytime we can have a project paid 85% without city funds, it’s amazing,” DePinto said. “It’s good, and it’s helpful for the community as it brings projects that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to have. We wouldn’t have this dog park if we didn’t have that funding.”
He added the City wouldn’t have spent $700,000 to $800,000 on a dog park if it required diverting funds from streets or other projects that are “necessary and needed.”
“We were very fortunate to find those funds and we were able to move forward with it,” he said. “What we haven’t seen yet are some of the toys that come with the park. There’s a lot of businesses that are excited to sponsor a jump, a crawl area for a dog, all the things you can train dogs with — those are coming up.”
Reflecting on the project, DePinto said he loves the dog park and believes it will be greatly used. He believes dog owners living in apartments will be the most frequent visitors at the dog park.
With the construction and opening of Yelm’s dog park in the rearview mirror, DePinto highlighted several upcoming projects that the City will be working on, including a potential medical facility and road upgrades.
“People are saying that we’re building and we don’t have the infrastructure. We’re building streets. We’re building dog parks. We’re building all these things that people need when they move to Yelm,” DePinto said. “All these things are for the future. We’re really planning for the future.”
He highlighted the biggest upcoming project as the Yelm Loop, also known as the Yelm Bypass. Construction for the bypass project, which will redirect traffic coming from Interstate 5 away from Yelm Avenue and downtown Yelm, is slated to begin next year.
“It’s been like a myth. I was a kid here, and it was being talked about, but (the Yelm Loop) never happened. There’s a lot of variables in it from state government and the funding from them, to relationships with different entities and partners,” DePinto said. “One of the last holdups was with the Nisqually Tribe. We needed to make sure there weren’t any cultural artifacts there from them.
“That was the last hurdle. We’re off to the races here,” DePinto said. “In January, we’re going to be opening up bids. We’re going to start getting it built in early spring or the middle of summer, and it will take two years to construct, maybe a year and a half, but construction will start next year, and I’m really excited about that. Traffic is going to look different here in a few years.”
DePinto said the Yelm Loop will increase freight mobility for bigger semi-trucks and reduce traffic in conjunction with the construction of roundabouts planned.
“The bypass itself will move people that are trying to get through Yelm, not necessarily shop in Yelm. They just want to go to work in the morning in Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater. If they’re coming from Spanaway, Puyallup or Pierce County, they’re traveling through Yelm,” DePinto said. “It will get people to their destinations quicker, and for the residents here in Yelm, it’ll clear up a lot of our main corridors that the general traffic uses every day.”
The mayor attended the South Sound Military Community meeting on May 2 and said that Yelm was highlighted at the event.
“One of the things they were talking about was Yelm. One of the priorities for this region is ensuring the bypass, Yelm Loop, gets put in with those roundabouts. There’s only one other real viable way across the Nisqually, and it’s here in Yelm. If those two bridges are out, there’s no real way you’re going south unless you go to Kitsap or east of the mountains.”
