Yelm City Council approves code change to allow acceptance of donations, sponsorships for public purposes

During a Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 27, councilors unanimously approved the adoption of Ordinance No. 1143 to establish Chapter 3.46 of Yelm Municipal Code to authorize the acceptance and admission of donations, sponsorships and memorial gifts for public purposes.

Elizabeth Jones, the City of Yelm’s grants manager, spoke to the council and attendees of the meeting as to why this code change should be considered for adoption.

“Dear councilmembers, this agenda item is to consider adoption of donation acceptant ordinance, establishing Chapter 3.46 of Yelm Municipal Code,” Jones said. “Currently, the city does not have a standalone ordinance that clearly establishes authority, procedures and safeguards for accepting donations citywide. This ordinance is intended to fill that gap and authorizes the state to accept monetary and non-monetary donations for public purposes.”

Jones noted that the ordinance has been reviewed and revised by the City of Yelm’s attorney, Brett Dille. She recommended that the council adopted the ordinance as presented.

“The ordinance allows the city administrator to accept routine donations up to $25,000 and requires city council approval for higher value donations or those that create ongoing maintenance or contractual obligations,” Jones said.

Councilor Tracey Wood asked Jones what an example of the City of Yelm receiving a monetary donation might look like.

“This came up because of the Veterans Memorial (Park). We’re going to have some items that we hope people will donate to,” Jones said. “We have some bricks that we wish to sell. We have some benches. When I started researching, I saw that we didn’t have any code. I took the initiative and directed this and set it to the city attorney. Here we are.”

Learn more about the Veterans Memorial Park and other City of Yelm projects by visiting their website, https://tinyurl.com/YelmMemorialPark.

The City of Yelm became one step closer to honoring local servicemembers through its planned Veterans Memorial Park during a Yelm City Council meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, as councilors unanimously approved a professional services agreement with LDC, Inc., for the design and engineering of the Mill Road-based memorial.

The agreement between the City of Yelm and LDC Inc. has a limit of $654,648 for the design and engineering of the project. Cody Colt, Yelm’s public works director, stated last August that four total groups submitted applications for the project, but LDC, Inc. was picked through the requests for qualifications process.

“LDC kind of came out on top,” Colt said, on Aug. 26. “They have some experience with some similar things, and they also have an architect who worked on our stage. It’s cool he already has some connection to us. It’s nice to have those connections.”

Colt previously noted that LDC, Inc. has “a really aggressive timeline,” which is something the City of Yelm liked, and added that the timeline for engineering is expected to wrap up in May of 2026 before going out to bid.

“We have money in 302 (fund) to do this, and it was planned for to do something with it,” Colt said. “It makes sense to get the design done with our money to get to the commerce grant and try to apply for more money to continue this out.”