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Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 11:00:00 pm
Primary endorsements David Curry, Marilyn Strickland, Julie Anderson and Lauren Walker stand out among a crowd of candidates. It's turnover time again at the Tacoma City Council. Tacoma Position 8, at large  This is, far and away, the liveliest and most interesting race in Tacoma this summer. Four strong candidates have stepped forward to replace outgoing Councilman Bill Evans in this seat that represents the entire city. David Curry, executive director of Tacoma Rescue Mission and chairman of the Tacoma Public Utility Board, stands out for his executive experience, analytical ability and independent judgment.  Marilyn Strickland, development officer for Tacoma Public Library, is an intelligent and promising newcomer to public life. The two other fine candidates in this race: Tacoma Council District 7, at large  This seat also represents the entire city. Only one serious candidate is in the race: incumbent Councilwoman Julie Anderson. One of her challengers, Will Baker, almost made a career out of disrupting Pierce County Council and Tacoma City Council meetings until he was convicted of this crime and sent to jail three years ago. Another challenger, Robert Hill, styles himself "The Traveler." He is not a credible candidate for the City Council. Tacoma Council District 3  District 3 chiefly represents the Hilltop and Central Tacoma. The race to replace incumbent Tom Stenger features two good candidates. Another credible contender is Donald Powell, an attorney who has been active in legal circles. He has served as a pro-tem judge and commissioner with the Pierce County Superior Court, and has held positions of leadership in the local and state bar associations. Walker's neighborhood ties give her the edge, but Powell would be an excellent choice for city boards and commissions. Also running are Jack Pleasant, a helicopter mechanic, and Ronnie Allen Warren, a former boxer who is now a street minister in the Hilltop. Tacoma Council District 1 UPDATE (AND CORRECTION) David Curry, endorsed above, is no longer chairman of the Tacoma Public Utility Board. His stint ended two weeks ago.
Posted by David Seago @ 08:07:08 pm
Former Tacoma City Councilman Kevin Phelps is leaving his post as general manager of the Landmark Convention Center to seek "a life of significance." Phelps informed his staff today that he sold his interest in the former Masonic Temple (later the Temple Theater) to his business partner. While the Landmark is doing well, he said, he's ready for a change after 16 years of running the business. I asked Phelps why he decided on the move:
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 05:17:36 pm
Pierce County voters will face three voting-related charter amendments in November, the County Council decided today. Here's a scorecard from council staffer Brad Chatfield:
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 10:15:47 am
We publish our endorsements in Tacoma City Council primary races. Preview will be published in editorial page blog at 11 p.m. Emotions are running high and lawmakers are calling for a special sessioin following the murder of Zina Linnick, but that’s not the best atmosphere for producing effective sex-offender legislation. The governor is right: Take the time for a review of sex-offender sentencing and notifications, and consider recommendations, if any, in regular session. UPDATE: The sex offender editorial is on hold. The Tacoma City Council endorsement editorial is running longer than expected, leaving room for only a short editorial. We'll run our endorsement in the single Bethel School Board race that will be on the Aug. 21 primary ballot. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 06:00:11 am
 I had a hard time figuring this one out, so I e-mailed resident sports guru Dale Phelps (listed in the masthead as deputy managing editor) for help. He forwarded this URL to explain it.
Categories: Editorial cartoons
Posted by David Seago @ 05:50:14 am
Word from the Roads & Transit campaign is that King County's Eastside business groups are coalescing behind the massive transportation proposal on the November ballot. That is significant because developer Kemper Freeman Jr., whose family practically built Bellevue, is a staunch ideological foe of Sound Transit in general and the Roads & Transit proposal in particular. The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce and the Bellevue Downtown Association recently endorsed the ballot package. The measure has also picked up backing from the Washington Roundtable, a statewide business group representing large companies, and chambers of commerce in Seattle, Tacoma-Pierce County, Everett, Redmond, Renton and Issaquah.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 05:03:22 am
 My friend Mike Madden is known to many here for his work with Tacoma-Pierce County Habitat for Humanity and as an avid cyclist. Mike, a former Nalley's executive who retired as Habitat director last year, is recovering at home after being badly injured in a cycling accident earlier this month. Mike was training for the annual RAMROD (Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day) event when his bike hit a rock on the road and jolted out of control. Mike's wife, Marcia, also known as an active community volunteer, says he will likely be bedridden at least 11 weeks but is using a passive exercise machine to facilitate recovery. The couple would prefer to have no visitors for a while. Mike and Marcia celebrated his retirement by biking on a tandem last summer from Tacoma to Atlanta by way of Denver and the Northeast – 5,000 miles without incident.
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Monday, July 30th, 2007
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 02:10:11 pm
 "His ears have gotten bigger and bigger" Those are some comments about President Bush by two of the political cartoonists who draw him on a regular basis, Matt Davies and Steve Kelley. An article posted on the McClatchy Newspapers' D.C. Web site talks with cartoonists about the challenges of drawing the president and other high-profile politicians. Who are they looking forward to among the current crop of candidates? The Miami Herald's Jim Morin says: "Hillary will be fun, Obama will be fun, Giuliani will be a blast. The only time it'll be difficult to draw somebody is if they're flawless." Is he talking about Mitt Romney and John Edwards? As the person who handles the political cartoons here at the TNT, I've noticed that those two guys don't show up in very many. The News Tribune has access to the work of about 15 cartoonists. Probably the funniest depiction of the president is by Mike Peters, whose color cartoons regularly appear on this blog. His take on Bush kind of makes him look like a manic basset hound.
Posted by David Seago @ 01:47:38 pm
I've got a lawyer version of "City Slickers" here. An Auburn couple just sent me a copy of a letter they received last week from a Tacoma law firm seeking information about a December 2005 car vs. cow collision on Military Road near Algona. The cow evidently had wandered on the road in front of a car; the impact damaged the car and injured the driver. The driver wants to sue, but he and his lawyers in Tacoma don't know who owned the cow. But the lawyers have a description of the suspects:
The couple who got the letter tell me they were in bed at the time of the accident and didn't hear a thing. They don't own any livestock. And they are highly annoyed.
I'm on the case, folks. Stay tuned. Anybody know what a "herfer" is? Imagine a cow "propped" against a tree. Rigor mortis?
Posted by David Seago @ 12:03:02 pm
News flash from a Pierce County Council staffer:
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 11:47:26 am
The Pierce County Council will put off a decision on going to all-mail voting until next year, council people tell me. Auditor Pat McCarthy asked the council to approve all-mail voting mainly to ease the burden on poll workers in the November 2008 election, the first to use ranked choice voting for most countywide offices. That decision can be made by council ordinance. But the council has its hands right now wrestling with proposed RCV-related charter amendments for this November's ballot. There will be plenty of time to deal with it next year; apparently the question won't be referred to the voters at the ballot. Tuesday, we'll have an oped piece from Secretary of State Sam Reed urging the council to switch to all-mail voting. Excerpt:
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 09:57:29 am
When only three candidates filed applied for a vacancy on the Tacoma Utility Board last month, the City Council's appointments committee decided to extend the application deadline. Good move. The council now has a strong field of eight applicants for the post, vacant since Bill LaBorde's departure at the end of June. He's moving to Seattle. Mayor Bill Baarsman says the appointments committee will interview candidates tonight; council action might follow in another week or two. The appointment is particularly important because the Utility Board will be hiring a successor to longtime Tacoma Public Utilities director Mark Crisson, who leaves this fall for a national public-utility industry post in Washington, D.C. The hopefuls: Peter Thein, Executive Director, Washington State Transit Association (he will be interviewed by phone from Sweden). Recommended by LaBorde. The following have been already interviewed: Becky Fontaine, director of the Pierce County Reading Foundation, former director of First Place for Children.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 09:14:11 am
Kelly Haughton, a leader in the drive to bring instant runoff voting to Pierce County, insists that no RCV-related charter amendment is needed this fall. The County Council will consider several election-related charter amendments Tuesday, including one that would repeal the ranked choice voting amendment voters approved only last November. The others would either delay the implementation to 2010 or make other "tweaks" thought necessary for legal reasons. No tweaks needed, Haughton argues:
Haughton was a member of the charter review committee that met last year. A switch to RCV was one of the amendments it recommended and the voters adopted.
Categories: Taking notice
• 5 comments
Sunday, July 29th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 06:51:10 pm
Part of my job as an editor is saying "no" to people. We reject letters to the editor if they're not fit for print or lacking in some other way. We turn down articles submitted for our opinion pages if they don't meet our test of what's appropriate for that forum. We're paid to exercise that judgment. Of course, that means we hear back from some unhappy readers and writers.
Sweet, huh? All in a day's work. After i chided the professor for poor manners, we ended up agreeing he could submit a shorter and calmer rewrite. We'll see how it goes.
Categories: How we work
• 3 comments
Friday, July 27th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 07:17:31 pm
Pierce County Council Chairman Terry Lee called today to answer a few questions I had about the controversial ranked choice voting charter amendments the council plans to consider Tuesday. (News story.) Lee said he favors putting just one amendment on the ballot in November – the one offered by Councilman Tim Farrell. That one would allow voters to rank their top three choices in each race in 2008; by 2010, voters would get to rank all the candidates in each race, provided suitable ballot tabulation software is available by then. Lee said he's sure County Executive John Ladenburg's proposal to repeal RCV voting outright will not make the ballot. But he couldn't predict whether two other amendments would share the same fate. Here's a look at San Francisco's experience with RCV from a pro-RCV point of view.
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 06:36:48 pm
Today we have a a guest editorial from Alicia Lawver, one of a plucky band of good citizens with a great cause. Over to you, Alicia:
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 04:54:50 pm
 It's not every day we interview a political candidate with a business card like this one. It belongs to Ronnie Allen Warren, who is running for the Tacoma City Council's Position 3 seat now held by Tom Stenger. Warren, a Wilson High School grad who now operates a one-man street ministry in the Hilltop, was an accomplished amateur boxer – says he was a junior national champion – and tried his hand a while as a pro fighter. Warren says he is "a man of faith, a man of principles, a man of love." "I'm running because God told me to represent him," he told us. Warren is up against Lauren Walker, head of the Affordable Housing Coalition; lawyer Donald N. Powell; and helicopter technician Jack Pleasant.
Categories: Who's visiting, Taking notice
Thursday, July 26th, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 05:52:20 pm
Fighting wackos on the other side of the planet has been getting old. How about a little scrap with the reasonable people up in Canada? It's not entirely out of the question. Canada has announced plans to build up its military in the far north to stake a stronger claim to the Northwest Passage, the navigable waters between it and the polar icecap. Apparently there's a lot of petroleum under the seabed. All the melting up there is bad for polar bears but may be good for oil revenues. The United States says those are international waters. And Canada is quarreling with Denmark again over a tiny piece of rock called Hans Island, at the eastern entrance of the Northwest Passage. If this were Russia or China, we'd call it saber-rattling. But isn't "Canadian saber-rattling" an oxymoron? Maybe a better question is, does Canada even have any sabers?
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 05:08:40 pm
The King County Board of Health banned trans fats in the county's eateries (and required menu disclosure) last week, and the Washington Restaurant Association doesn't like it one little bit. To be fair, the association isn't big on trans fats; it's just down on "mandates and unworkable timelines." (Pierce County, by the way, is opting for a voluntary approach.) Here's some excerpts from the statement the association sent us today:
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 03:08:47 pm
Pierce County Councilman Tim Farrell (D-Tacoma) paints a nightmare scenario if none of the RCV voting options the council puts on the ballot in November are approved by voters. The RCV ballots would have to be counted by hand, he says. The council is set to vote Tuesday on proposals to put as many as four charter amendments on the ballot, giving the voters the option of revising, delaying or even repealing ranked choice voting (same thing as instant runoff voting). Farrell says the option receiving the most votes would take effect, providing it gets a simple majority. If none of the amendments gets a simple majority, there would be no choice but to count the votes by hand, he thinks. That's because the 2006 charter amendment dictating an RCV system for most countywide races would remain in effect. That one requires allowing voters to rank all the candidates in each race. With no software available to do that, the auditor would have to do the ranking-and-elimination procedure by hand. Lord, let's not go there!
Categories: Taking notice
• 6 comments
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 03:08:21 pm
Exxon is the target of the latest flurry of so-called "turf" letters to the editor. As best as I can tell from a quick Google search, the campaign was launched by Greenpeace. The letters we have received are almost identical. The first tipoff: unusual language that pops up in all the letters, including the phrase "global warming denier groups." We don't run these form letters in our print edition. Here's the form letter that's going around:
Categories: How we work, Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 01:28:59 pm
The $300 million, 168-acre terminal the Port of Tacoma plans to build for the NYK line is a huge boost for the port, an economic boost for Pierce County, and the culmination of forward-thinking efforts that began with the landmark Puyallup Indian land claims settlement. Superlatives justified. Now that FBI director Robert Mueller has flatly contradicted AG Alberto Gonzales’ sworn account of his visit to John Ashcroft’s hospital room, Gonzales should do the president, the Justice Department and the nation a big favor by resigning and slinking quietly away to obscurity. The president should tell him to go. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming
• 2 comments
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 09:16:34 pm
Pierce County voters could be asked in November to choose among several options that would revise, delay or or repeal the instant runoff voting system they approved last fall. Council members tell me the council is considering putting four options on the ballot. I'm not going to go into detail here because I don't want to totally scoop the TNT news article scheduled for this weekend. The council will be discussing potential IRV-related charter amendments on Tuesday. I will, however, relay Councilman Calvin Goings' rationale for giving voters so many choices:
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 08:33:30 pm
We'll have to wait awhile for the "Tower of Power." But Harold LeMay's famed car collection could be on display near the Tacoma Dome by 2009, if all goes well. David Madeira, president and CEO of the Harold LeMay Car Museum, offered that forecast during a visit to update the TNT editorial board today. The board invited Madeira after the museum announced this month it would exercise its option on part of the Tacoma Dome parking lot near Interstate 5. Last month the museum board approved a revised plan that calls for "staging" construction of the museum, leaving the most expensive part, a showcase pavilion featuring interactive exhibits and other attractions, for last. Madeira pointedly sought to rebut the suggestion that museum backers are delivering less than the vision promised the city five years ago. "This is cause for celebration," he contended. "This (taking the option) means the museum is going to be built here. It means we're going to go." There is still unfinished business. Museum officials need to brief the City Council on their plans, probably in September. Then the city and the museum need to amend the original option agreement. The city, for its part, has to determine how it will meet its promise to provide parking for the museum. "What you're going to get is better than any car museum in the world," Madeira insisted. He said the planned "showfield" will attract car clubs and auto buffs from around the nation. A revenue-producing garage for private car collectors will feature glass-fronted storage spaces allowing visitors to admire classic cars. Madeira was accompanied by Bill Weyerhaeuser, a museum board member, and Paul Miller, a former Tacoma City Council member and vice president of the board's building committee.
Categories: Who's visiting, How we work
Posted by David Seago @ 07:53:15 pm
Looks like Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson, staring down the barrel of a threatened lawsuit, is backing off moves to enforce a 10-year-old ban on billboards in Tacoma. The city today released copies of documents exchanged by Anderson and a lawyer for Clear Channel Outdoor Inc., which owns most of the large billboards in the city. Two are drafts of legal action Clear Channel is prepared to file. The other is a letter from Anderson asking Clear Channel to avoid litigation and work with the city on a solution. I don't know what that solution might be. As we noted in a post last month, Clear Channel seems to have the upper hand. A Federal Way billboard ban much like Tacoma's was overturned by an appeals court. The Tacoma City Council banned large billboards in 1997 but gave owners 10 years to remove non-conforming signs.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 07:18:18 pm
Pierce County voters approved instant runoff voting last fall. Now County Executive John Ladenburg wants to ask voters this fall to repeal it – before the county has even used it. (Cut to commercial) The newsroom plans a story this weekend about this and other IRV-RCV-related developments. Please patronize our news pages. (We now return to our regular programming). Strange but true. County spokesman Ron Klein confirms that Ladenburg is drafting a proposed county charter amendment that would repeal the IRV charter amendment voters OKd last fall. Says Klein:
Categories: Taking notice
• 3 comments
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 01:58:13 pm
 In the past two days, we've received two letters from readers upset that Seattle Mariner
Can't we just be glad that we have this phenomenon in our midst? I've read that Ichiro actually does speak fairly good English, but prefers to use a translator when speaking to the media and public lest he make a mistake. The guy's a perfectionist on the field; why are some people upset when that spills out into other aspects of his life?
Categories: Taking notice
• 3 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 10:59:26 am
It’s way too soon for Pierce County officials to be talking seriously about building another jail. That should be absolutely the last resort. For now, it’s much smarter to focus on maximizing use of the county’s as-yet unfilled new jail and on alternative sentencing initiatives that reserve jail space for the worst crooks. Missing records in the Adhahn case demonstrate why it would be a good idea to scan old criminal records before routinely destroying them, as is the case now. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming
Posted by David Seago @ 10:48:12 am
Wednesday’s newspapers will have headlines about the threat of a rising Puget Sound caused by global warming. We'll have skeptical questions. The National Wildlife Federation is announcing a study on the potential rise in Puget Sound at a press conference today in Seattle. The same folks will discuss the study with the ed board Wednesday. The study, available here, studies scenarios ranging from a three-inch rise in global average sea level to as much as six feet by 2100. It contends new research indicates sea-level rise will likely be greater than the two-foot rise that was the upper end of the prediction by an international climate-change panel. From NWF's press release today:
There’s no doubt about the potential for a rising sea level due to climate change. We believe action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is vital. But many scientists caution that is difficult to make predictions about seal-level rise with scientific accuracy. This, from a recent Washington Post story:
For info on the work of our state's climate-change task force, go here. Monday, July 23rd, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:17:05 pm
Does Washington have a death penalty? When Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne explained his deal with the suspected killer of Zina Linnik – show us where you left her and we won't try to kill you – he mentioned the fact that capital punishment is rarely carried out in Washington. Read tomorrow's editorial for our take on the case. Only one condemned man, Charles Rodman Campbell, has actually been executed here against his will since 1963. Three others – Westley Allen Dodd, Jeremy Sgastegui and James H. Elledge – have also been put to death, but those were basically cases of assisted suicide: They refused to appeal their sentences. The Washington Supreme Court has been the graveyard of death sentences; it never meets one it likes. Here is the Department of Corrections' informative page on capital punishment in Washington – including a link to a list of every last criminal put to death here since 1904.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Posted by David Seago @ 05:59:54 pm
The newsroom's reader representative forwarded this complaint today; our response follows. (Incidentally, the Wikipedia entry on "comfort women" is locked down due to intense disagreements on the subject.)
From chief editorial writer Patrick O'Callahan:
Posted by David Seago @ 02:46:09 pm
Adhahn would seem to be a perfect candidate for the death penalty, but Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne had good reasons for making the deal that takes the death penalty off the table when Adhahn is prosecuted for the murder of Zina Linnik. His overriding reason was the slim chance the girl might still be alive if she could be found. The state auditor is not supposed to be an expert on the seaworthiness of state ferries. But it still seems wrong that state ferry officials can the the auditor to stay off one of their boats. This oddity turned up in the Everett Herald’s story on safety questions surrounding the state’s 80-year-old ferries. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming
• 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 01:21:57 pm
Ryan Dicks, who used to represent the Cascade Land Conservancy in Pierce County, is leaving the organization’s Seattle office to become a private consultant. Dicks became CLC’s vice president for conservation transactions last year. He plans to run own environmental and public interest consulting firm, AirWaterLand.Com. Now a Ballard resident, Dicks is the son of U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks. The younger Dicks will still serve CLC in a part-time consulting role for a while. Kevin Duffy, former Alaska fish and game commissioner and former executive director of a trade group representing the fishing and fish-processing industry, will succeed Dicks in the CLC post.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 01:01:35 pm
Pierce County's first ranked-choice voting election, scheduled for November 2008, may be pushed back to 2010. The County Council is considering putting four charter amendments on this November's ballot, one of which would delay implementation of RCV by two years. RCV is another term for instant runoff voting, which voters approved last fall for most county offices. Two other proposed charter amendments would make minor adjustments requested by county Auditor Pat McCarthy. The fourth would set a filing fee for any referendum filed by county residents. So far the council appears to be balking at McCarthy's recommendation that the county switch to all-mail voting in 2008. McCarthy said the switch is needed to reduce the burden on poll workers in a year when when presidential, statewide and legislative races would coincide with the first RCV, which would require a separate ballot. If Pierce County doesn't switch, it will be the last county in the state using polling places. Moving the RCV start back might address McCarthy's concern about dual ballots and defer, if not block permanently, a switch to all-mail voting. Update: McCarthy said today she will continue to prepare for implementing RCV in 2008, noting "that was the will of the people." A hearing on the four charter amendments is set for 3 p.m. July 31 in council chambers at the County-City Building.
Categories: Taking notice
• 10 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 05:48:56 am
We reported here earlier that Tacoma Port Commission candidate Dave Hyres favors reducting the regular countywide property tax levy the port collects every year without a public vote. A look at his campaign blog adds more specifics:
Hyres is seeking the Position 3 seat now held by Jack Fabulich, who is retiring. Others in the race are Don Johnson, general manager of Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co.; David Lovell, a retired union leader; Bill Casper, a Tideflats business owner, and Jerry Thorpe, former port and Metro Parks commissioner.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Sunday, July 22nd, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 01:32:55 pm
Bob Chamberlain, chair of the 2nd Legislative District Democrats, informs us that the Pierce County Democratic Central Committee has endorsed the Roads & Transit package that will be on the November ballot. The move is notable because the 2nd District includes the route of the controversial cross-base highway, and some of the 2nd District Democratic leaders are ardent proponents of the project. Environmental opposition to the highway nearly derailed the roads portion of the package at a crucial point last month. The environ won a deal that leaves funding for cross-base related interchange improvements at I-5 in Lakewood in the package, but funding for the highway itself is not included. Future funding to complete the highway is far from assured. Nonetheless, county Democrats voted June 14 to endorse the November package, citing the overall benefits of more highways and transit. One part of the party’s resolution might be misinformed:
I don’t think any of those things are part of the Roads & Transit plan. The drafters were probably thinking of the four “green” initiatives County Executive John Ladenburg announced during the tense negotiations with cross-base opponents. See what Ladenburg promised here.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 04:50:46 am
Whatever the merits of his arguments, Tacoma architect David Boe’s lament about the planned commuter rail at-grade crossings at South C and East D streets, near Freighthouse Square, is probably futile. (See today's Insight cover articles.) The costs of constructing above-grade or below-grade rail crossings for Sound Transit’s Sounder trains would be prohibitive, and route changes sought by the city are already adding months of delay and tens of millions of dollars to the cost of the 1.2-mile D-to-M street segment, as it is known. This segment, cutting across the south end of downtown Tacoma, is the critical "missing link" in Sound Transit's plans to extend commuter rail to South Tacoma and Lakewood. Conversations with Sound Transit engineers last week indicate that an alternative called Modified Alternative 3 is gathering both practical and political momentum. This is the route shown in the illustrations on the cover of the Insight section today. Click HERE to see another graphic that shows the full route from East D to South M streets in this alternative. South M is where the route would pick up existing tracks Sounder already owns to reach South Tacoma and Lakewood.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Saturday, July 21st, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 06:11:31 pm
Are you an education booster who thinks a simple majority vote should be enough to pass school levy requests? The campaign for HJR 4204 is looking for volunteers. Called Simply Better Schools, the drive is led by the League of Education Voters, a statewide group that was behind two successful earlier initiatives to boost public-school funding. HJR 4202, on the November ballot, would lower the current 60 percent requirement to 50 percent. That has long been the Holy Grail for the state's K-12 education establishment, but not until this year could it win enough votes to put the proposal on the ballot.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 07:09:24 am
We're still trying to digest that fact that the Tacoma School District couldn't summarily fire middle school principal Harold Wright Jr. after his recent rape conviction. I mean, if you can't unceremoniously dump a principal for a crime like that, for heaven's sake, what can you unceremoniously dump him for? Well, it turns out there are some dumpworthy crimes. See our editorial Sunday. I ran down the state law that requires a district to jump through the various hoops of due process before it can get rid of a felonious principal or teacher. It doesn't merely allow, but mandates, that educators be immediately terminated for major crimes against children: "the physical injury or death of a child" ... "sexual exploitation of a child" and "the sale or purchse of a minor child" and similar outrages. What's missing from that list? Murder, for starters. Assault with a deadly weapon. Rape (see above). Armed robbery. So long as the victims are adults.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Friday, July 20th, 2007
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 05:42:58 pm
As I write this, people are standing in line to pay for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last in the J.K. Rowling series. It goes on sale at midnight.  Thanks to a little foresight, I should have the book Saturday morning – free – thanks to the Pierce County Library. As we speak, library staffers at central administration are preparing 222 copies of the book to truck out to the branches tonight. Patrons who have put holds on the book will be able to start picking them up as soon as the branches open Saturday morning. Last time I checked, Pierce County Library had 545 holds on the book (plus another 148 for the large-print version), and I was 42nd in line. That's because I put the hold on it many months ago, before Rowling even released the title. I'm working on an editorial on the Potter phenomenon to run Saturday. I was the obvious one to write it as I've read all the books. I have my nieces, Julia and Olivia, to blame. I started reading the first book 9 years ago because they were reading it with their mom, my sister. They were excited about it, and I wanted to be able to talk to them about it. They're turning 21 and 18 this summer, and I think they're not as wild about Harry as they used to be. But I'm still hooked. And I'm not one of those readers who will cover my ears to avoid hearing any spoilers. First thing I'll probably do is peek at the last pages to see who's still alive at the end. Here's a sneak peek at the editorial:
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