If the initiative passes, Olympia would become the second city in the state with a cultural access program funded by sales tax. (St. Louis was the first in the U.S. to establish a special tax district, in 1969, to support the local art museum, zoo and museum of science.) In 2018, Tacoma became the first local government in Washington to pass such a program, after a 2015 state law allowed local counties (and later cities) to tax themselves for arts, culture and education. A similar measure in King County failed by a narrow margin in 2017.
“We’re only in our second year of contracting with cultural organizations, and it’s been
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