Here's a Halloween tour of the Murray Morgan Bridge. You'll see why state engineers closed it to traffic last week – probably for good.

A lift span – we hope so, anyway.

Looks like the innards of a shark. It's really the innards of a bridge column.

Rusted through. But it is holding up the bridge (for now).

Note the rusted out rivet head. There are a lot of them elsewhere.

All photos courtesy of the state Department of Transportation, which was supposed to maintain this bridge.

If you like your news raw.....The feds came out today with a new plan to protect endangered salmon on the Columbia-Snake River system, hoping to pass muster with a federal judge in Portland who rejected a previous plan.

Is the plan an improvement or not? Depends on who you ask. Environmental groups and fishing interests quickly pronounced the plan no better that the earlier one. They still advocate removing four federally-owned hydro dams on the Snake River.

An alliance of utilities, ports, farmers and business groups says the new proposal is a big improvement and should satsify the judge.

Here is the raw, unfiltered, immediate reaction from both camps. Just read on.

=> Read more!

In the wake of a tawdry sex scandal involving an alleged gay male prostitute, the state House of Representatives didn't waste any time purging Rep. Richard Curtis, R-La Center, from its ranks.

News of Curtis' resignation came over the AP wire at 1:52 p.m. Within an hour, his bio was already off the House's online roster. A note on the site read: "This Representative's page is no longer available. The Representative you are looking for is no longer a member of the Legislature and the page has been removed accordingly."

However, whoever was responsible for the purge forgot about the Web site's photo page. Curtis' head shot was still there the last time I checked.

UPDATE: The photo's still on the site as of 11:35 a.m. Thursday. And I've learned a new term, thanks to a blogger on a Spokesman Review site: "prostidude."

The chances of restoring or rehabbing the Murray Morgan Bridge in its historic form are receding toward nil, although the city is hiring a consulting firm to make another assessment. All we know at this point is that DOT Director Paula Hammond seems far more interested in resolving the issue than her predecessor, and the city needs the transportation link that was provided by the old bridge. Not replacing the bridge should be off the table.

State should establish licensing requirements for house inspectors. Right now, there is no guarantee these guys have any idea what they are doing, and it’s easy for home buyers to end up as victims.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Before it connected to Sea-Tac Airport, Sound Transit's light rail project used to be ridiculed as the "Train to Nowhere."

Now – according to Seattle Times editorialist Bruce Ramsey –  it's the "Train to Fife." Maybe his theory is that Fife sounds like a more ridiculous destination than "Nowhere."

An excerpt from Ramsey's rail-bashing column in today's Times:

Light rail to Fife. Imagine that. Imagine what it will cost, and how many people who now stream by Fife's car dealerships will get out of their cars, buy a ticket and wait for the train that stops at South Federal Way, Federal Way, Redondo, Des Moines, South 200th Street, Sea-Tac Airport, Highway 518, and on up the Rainier Valley into downtown Seattle.

Some opponents of Proposition 1, like Ramsey and King County Executive Ron Sims, have decided it would just cost too much to extend Seattle's light rail line down to low-rent Pierce County.

But at least Sims acknowledges that Tacoma – not Fife's car dealerships – would be the terminus of the line. As a destination and population center, Tacoma sounds just a little more credible, don't you think? Maybe that's why Ramsey – no slouch at framing issues – mentions Tacoma nowhere in his column.

If Gary Coy, the owner of Sperry Ocean Dock, succeeds in building a berth for a couple more huge, gray ships near Schuster Parkway, it won't be without a fight.

No one who has ever driven Schuster can possibly have missed the two 600-foot military transport vessels – both of them hulking and ugly as sin – that are parked more or less permanently at the dock. Coy wants to do an expansion that would bring in another one or two.

Coy came by last week (see Dave Seago's post) to explain and defend. Today the opposition dropped in. This high-powered group included Brown & Haley CEO Pierson Clair, former PLU President Eugene Wiegman and five others – all of them residents of the neighborhood just upland of the dock.

Short take: They don't like the oceangoing monsters that are already there, and certainly don't want any more.

David Rietmann, CFO of U.S. Oil & Refining, went into the chemistry of the high-sulfur "hydrocarbon particulates" the ships' engines occasionally dump on his property:

"That is acid rain in its most extreme form."

An old Merchant Marine officer himself, Rietmann has no objection to the vessels per se. "These ships are just doing what ships do. The issue is just proximity to a neighborhood."

The group suggested they belonged in an industrial, not a residential, area.

When Coy was in, I asked him: "Couldn't you do submarines instead?"

Terry Conner, former Tahoma Audubon Society president, brought down the house at the group's annual breakfast this morning with a slip of the tongue.

Extolling the virtues of birds, Conner noted that arctic terns "circumcise the globe."

After the laughter settled, the group presented awards to:

State Rep. Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor, for work on geoduck legisation.
Tacoma City Councilman Tom Stenger for work on the Green Tacoma Partnership.
The Woodbrook Hunt Club for protecting Fort Lewis prairies by opposing the Cross Base Highway.
Sara Siemens-Luthy for promoting nature education in schools.

The Tahoma Audubon's Early Bird Gets the Worm breakfast fundraiser this morning nearly drew a quorum of the Pierce County Council.

Council members Shawn Bunney, Dick Muri, Calvin Goings and Terry Lee were on hand. I didn't spot any others, so it apparently wasn't an illegal meeting. The environmental vote apparently counts for something around here. I don't think the electeds came for the packets of bird seed and candy worms that graced the tables.

Update: Oops. Four members do count as a County Council quorum. I guess if the members all sat at separate tables they're off the hook. I hope. (Ace TNT columnist Peter Callaghan further sets me straight about this; click "read more" to see his note).

Bunney informed me that the council will give the Pierce County Alliance a full hearing on its controversial Prometa drug treatment progam at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 14. Last week we citicized the council for yanking funding for the program without giving the Alliance a chance to defend it. (Editorial).

We expect to publish an oped piece from the alliance on Sunday. Reporters in the newsroom are taking a deeper look at the program's disputed success rate but it won't appear right away.

In other council news, Councilman Calvin Goings (D-Puyallup) showered praise on fellow Councilman Dick Muri, R-Steilacoom. Muri's strong stand on a transfer of development rights (TDR) proposal resulted, Goings said, in 5-0 committee approval Monday.

Backers of the proposal, which would allow developers to buy development rights from farmland owners in return for greater project density elsewhere, told me Councilman Roger Bush groused about it but ended up voting for it.

The vote was a setback for the Master Builders Association of Pierce County, which recently began lobbying for a voluntary approach. Backers are optimistic but wary of potential weakening amendments when the measure hits the full council.

=> Read more!

What you're about to read here is worth what you paid to read it. It's only a guess.

But we think we figured out the odd letter to the editor in today's print edition from Robert Hill, the fella whose referendum-filing spree last spring is the reason for Proposed County Charter Amendment No. 8 on the Pierce County ballot. (We endorsed it.)

Even though the amendment is aimed at serial filers like Hill – who filed 14 referenda – he claims to be in favor of it. In fact, he says he's the "official spokesperson" for the amendment. In fact, the amendment was initiated by County Councilman Dick Muri, who thought Hill was wasting taxpayer money spent processing frivolous referendum filings.

What Hill is really after, we suspect, is space in the county voters pamphlet. If he gets to be the "official spokesman" for or against any ballot measure, he gets to provide the statement for or against the measure. And Mr. Hill has lots of, shall we say, odd ideas he would like to publicize.

We sent Hill an email asking if he really meant to say he was for Amendment No. 8. He replied with a long complaint about how the county auditor rejected the copy he wanted to place in the voter guide. Hence our theory.

Incidentally, Hill, who accomplished the feat of finishing behind Will Baker in the August primary race against Tacoma City Councilwoman Julie Anderson, indicated he wil be a candidate for the Legislature next year. Looks like another try for space in the voter guide.

There’s been some hoopla over a letter sent to Lakewood voters about how Mayor Claudia Thomas should be bounced in favor of her younger opponent (see our editorial today). It was sent by three Lakewood CARES council members, John Arbeeny, Pad Finnigan and Ron Cronk.

I thought the whole age issue was kind of funny, given something I know about Herroner: She can really cut a rug (for younger readers, that means she's got moves).

I attended an event earlier this year commemorating the 50th anniversary of Alpha Kappa Alpha in the South Sound area. Thomas, a member of AKA, the oldest national sorority geared to black college graduates, helped put on the event.

When the music began, Thomas was one of the first to hit the dance floor. And I have to say, she can get down. Literally. She must have the knees of someone half her age. She may be 76, but I hope I have her energy (and knees) when I get there.

In case you live outside Lakewood and didn't see a copy of the letter in question, here it is:

=> Read more!

We noted earlier that $300,000 a year has been accumulating in a special Pierce County historic preservation fund since 2005 – and that people are bound to have conflicting plans for spending that kind of money.

Sharon Winters, president of Historic Tacoma, is getting nervous. She notes that the committee charged with figuring out how to allocate the county's money was given a strangely narrow mandate – by the Pierce County Council – to "examine the preservation of historic records and documents, and architectural renderings."

Winters wants to see a good share of that money spent preserving historically significant buildings and the like, as the Legislature permitted, not devoted solely to architectural renderings and the like.

"I'm puzzled as to why the committee was named 'historical documents' rather than acknowledging the broader language cited in the enabling legislation," she emailed, "It implies that there was already a decision to direct the funding exclusively to document preservation."

It's hard to imagine that the council would earmark all this money to saving paperwork. It's also hard to imagine that somebody in county government won't come up with a scheme to divert the money to some program only tenuously connected to saving the county's heritage.

The county's vigilant historic preservationists will presumably keep a hawk's eye on what this fund actually winds up funding.

UPDATE

County Councilman Tim Farrell – who runs the above committee – dropped in Tuesday with a message: No way, no how is he going to let the money go solely to preserving paperwork.

He brought in the Oct. 10 committee minutes to prove it; the minutes do make it clear they are talking about "bricks-and-mortar" as well as document preservation.

Farrell says he's a hard-core preservationist himself.

A couple key Pierce County land-use issues are close to being decided by the County Council: the fate of a proposed transfer of development rights program, and the Alderton-McMillin community plan.

Lots of behind-the-scenes dickering the past few weeks. Might pop up at the council level this week or next. We have our fingers crossed.

In August, we took a stiff editorial shot at Republicans on the council's community development committee for amending the Alderton-McMillin community plan. The plan covers the fertile valley between Sumner and Orting; the amendments would have largely gutted the existing zoning that protects the best farmland in the county.

After County Exec John Ladenburg threatened a veto, Councilman Terry Lee (R-Gig Harbor) withdrew his support, and the council sent the plan back to committee. I'm told that county officials have been negotiating a possible compromise with Invesco, the big Sumner-based development company that backed the amendments.

A deal might allow Invesco to develop property just south of Highway 410, the so-called Orton Farms site, if Invesco purchases development rights or actual farmland elsewhere in the valley for preservation.

Transfer of development rights, or TDRs, allows developers to purchase development rights on ag and forest lands in return for more density inside urban growth areas. The Community Development Committee approved a TDR plan earlier this month and it looked like smooth sailing. (Read our editorial here.)

But the Master Builders of Pierce County dropped its previously neutral position and now wants to make the plan voluntary. TDR backers say that would make the program ineffective. I'm told a couple Republican council members who previously backed the proposal are now waffling. Backstage talks on this one, too.

I wish this stuff would get done in the open. Too often we find out about these land-use deals too late to give them the scrutiny they deserve.

At least this educator is kissing the staff, not the students.

Driving down Sprague Street after dark last week, my heart was warmed by that rarest of sights: a Tacoma police officer actually lurking on on a side road looking for traffic violations.

I've been driving through Tacoma for more years than I'd care to admit, and I think I can count on both hands (OK, maybe a toe or two) the times I've seen a cop on traffic patrol.

I thought: They're finally going after those idiot berserkers who run red lights and kill people on occasion.

Wishful thinking. As it turns out, the Tacoma Police Department and 49 other law enforcement agencies are currently doing a seatbelt emphasis patrol, passing out $124 tickets to people who've haven't clicked it.

Question: Why seatbelts? Drivers who think belts cramp their style threaten only themselves; they're candidates for the Darwin Award. Drivers who tailgate, tempt fate at traffic signals and drag race on city streets threaten the lives of others.

In Tacoma, which is so rife with more serious road violations, I'd vote for prosecuting the unbelted under the law of natural selection.

If you've already got your mind set to vote against insurance companies and for Referendum 67, you'll get a chuckle out of this online video ad. If you work for an insurer, it will make you cringe.

Nothing too subtle about the tactics of Fuse, a new online advocacy organization launched last month to back "progressive" causes in Washington. Executive Director Aaron Ostrom used to hold the same position with Futurewise, the group Formerly Known As 1000 Friends of Washington.

I didn't discover Fuse until today, but Seattle Times political blogger David Postman had this item last summer, asking an appropriate question: Does Seattle really need another liberal activist group?

Dino Rossi ends the non-candidate pretense and makes his 2008 rematch with the governor official. He’ll be fighting uphill this time, facing an incumbent who benefits from a strong state economy as well. But Rossi is the best candidate the GOP has, and he’ll be a worthy opponent.

Three Lakewood City Council members aligned with Lakewood CARES were out of line in suggesting rather baldly in an open letter that Mayor Claudia Thomas is too old to serve. If voters compare the qualifications of Thomas and her challenger, Lakewood CARES-backed Lisa Ikeda, they’ll be wise to choose age, experience and wisdom over (relative) youth and a lack of qualifications.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Don't look at us. We don't have the answer, either. We're not happy about the state's closure order, like most fans of the historic bridge. But we're holding off editorial comment for now.

We were expecting to meet with Mayor Bill Baarsma and City Manager Eric Anderson last week to discuss the situation, but they found they couldn't meet with us until Wednesday. We'd like to hear what they have to say before we tackle the topic.

Did get this note from Baarsma:

I do have copies of the WDOT’s turn back agreement promising to maintain the bridge and to build a new one or replica and then returning the bridge to the city. The new bridge was based on WDOT’s premise that it would be less costly than a rehabilitation of the structure.

An independent consultant hired by the city concluded that a rehab would be less costly. After a series of community meetings focusing on funding strategies involving in one case a presentation from the Spokane public works director (that city had rehabilitated a historic bridge) the city was prepared to move forward.

We were ignored or derided by WSDOT. This has not been the case with Paula Hammond, who did contact us to see how we could reach a satisfactory means of retaining the 11th street corridor (critical to the Foss as well as public safety—in addition to the historic significance of this one of a kind bridge).

Now, of course, saving the bridge may not be possible (although we have not given up.) I would be happy to talk to you further about this sorry state of affairs.

I have a working theory that one factor at work was the city's reluctance in the Corpuz era ago to take responsibility for maintaining the bridge even if it was repaired or replaced. Plus the fear of seting off a war between preservationists and advocates of a new bridge. In any case, now it could be too costly to repair and too costly to remove. We'll be lucky if we can make a planter out of it.

That reminds me: Don Meyer, executive director of the Foss Waterway Development Authority, has a vision of constructing a pedestrian overpass linking the area near the Dock Building and the Foss Waterway Seaport to the bluff above.

That's a long way off, if ever. But he's right in that the more pedestrian connections there are between downtown and the Foss waterfront, the better.
Perhaps if nothing can be done to save the Murray Morgan Bridge, the state money could be used for a new pedestrian overpass. Just a thought.D

Two articles of faith among many anti-road greenies: 1. We can't build ourselves out of congestion. 2. Highways do nothing but produce sprawl.

For some, that's the "case" against Proposition 1, because it would expand and improve highways, not just mass transit. (Forget for the moment that many of the measure's road improvements are HOV lanes – transit projects, in effect.) Here's our latest editorial touting Prop 1.

There's truth in both the congestion and sprawl mantras, depending on what project you're talking about. But I personally have seen one highway, Interstate 5, build a big swath of the Puget Sound region out of Old 99's congestion and keep it that way for many years.

And journalist David Brewster – a Seattleite, no less! – this week ventured the unorthodox opinion that failing to improve urban highways can produce sprawl. Here's an excerpt from a defense of Prop 1 he posted in his online newspaper, Crosscut:

Fixing the choke points on our highways and bridges may seem immoral because it lets drivers keep driving their evil cars. But it also helps fight sprawl, by keeping major employers closer inside the urban boundaries rather than throwing up their hands and moving to Moses Lake or Spanaway. A basic cause of sprawl is companies moving far out, to avoid congestion and to get cheaper land and the ability to move their trucks.

If you keep making congestion worse, you get a few people who move close to a job or switch to transit but a lot more people who vote with their feet.

With the Nov. 6 election fast approaching, we’re getting a lot of election-related letters. When letters tend to fall heavily on one side of an issue (especially letters that aren’t generated by organized campaigns), it generally indicates how the election will go.

If I had to make a prediction based on our letters, I’d say that Referendum 67 – the one that allows triple damages against insurers who unfairly deny claims – is the surest thing on the ballot. We have received many letters from people citing their horror stories in dealing with insurance companies. They write about paying premiums for years, and then when they make a claim, they are denied or lowballed. Often their only recourse is to go to court.

Floyd and Kathleen Kuzmick of Gig Harbor had the best story: They got a letter from the insurance agent who sold them their homeowner’s policy asking them to reject R-67. His company is the one they had to sue to get compensation for their severely water-damaged home. This is a company they had paid premiums to for 15 years without making a prior claim.

They write:

It took over 1 1/2 years of litigation, over $100,000 in attorney fees and countless hours to finalize our claim. Mediation at the final hour before trial was the only way this situation would be resolved. As the mediator stated: “The insurance companies will outlast you. You will have to give in to get this matter resolved. They have more money for attorney fees than you.”

The lawyers for the insurance company threatened to drag out any judgment for years and were prepared to appeal any settlement through the courts. Had the possibility of treble damages and the payment of our attorney fees been in effect, maybe this matter could have been resolved “fairly and timely.” That’s all we wanted!

Needless to say, they plan to vote for R-67.

In 2002, Tim Eyman attempted to repeal Sound Transit's regional car tab tax with a statewide initiative, I-776. I asked him this morning if he had any thought of trying to undo Prop 1 (the regional transportation package) should the voters approve it Nov. 6.

Short answer: Probably not.

"It's going to go down, so we don't have to worry about it. In the one in a million chance that voters vote for it, the sales tax is not anything we've gotten hot and bothered about, but the car tab is something we've always felt very passionate about," he said.

He and his crew went after Sound Transit in 2002, he said, because the agency hadn't delivered what the voters approved in 1996. But Prop 1's pros and cons have gotten plenty of publicity this year.

"Our attitude is if the voters vote for a tax increase, the voters beware."

I know what Harold Moss, former member of the Tacoma and Pierce County councils, was doing Thursday afternoon. A recorded phone message was evidence:

Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Seago, this is Harold Moss. I'm a candidate for the Tacoma City Council. I'm calling to as if you received a brochure from me and also to ask if you have any questions or comments for me.

If I have the right Seagos, the question is really silly. Anyway, sorry I missed you. If you have any questions, my number is 620-1290. Thank you again.

As Harold well knows, our ed board endorsed his opponent, incumbent Tacoma City Councilman Spiro Manthou. But I don't think Harold's call was silly. Points for calling in person instead of using robo-caller. And I'm sorry my wife, Anne, didn't get to talk to Harold. He's got her vote.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg also got a jab from us in today's editorial for owning stock in Hythiam, the company that licenses Prometa. He sent us this email Thursday explaining his position:

The story seems to imply that I held stock in Hythiam and then went out and promoted the Prometa program they have. Actually, the opposite is true.

I found about Prometa from the Alliance and met with some of the addicts that were in the program and with some of the drug counselors. I was very impressed with the stories we heard.

We then met with a company doctor and heard their explanation of it.

Thereafter, I supported getting some Pierce County money into the program and asking the state to do likewise. Only AFTER I had supported the public expenditure of funds did I consider and then decide to buy a small amount of the stock.

As required by law, I reported through my F-1 filing with the Public Disclosure Commission that I now owned some stock in that company. The reality is that I suggested public funding and then put some of my own money where my mouth was.

My support for the program is not lessened by the my sale of that stock and I do not support the sudden cutting off of funding.

Secondly, I own stock in a number of companies, all fairly small amounts and all reported and public. The county and state do business with a number of these companies, like Microsoft.

Lastly, this was originally presented to the county and state as a new and experimental program. We all knew full well that we were supporting a program that had yet to be proven clinically and that is why we didn't put all our eggs in that basket.

For councilmembers to now say they are surprised it is not clinically proven yet is absurd, Muri used that argument to vote against it in early 2006.

You'll note that this blog has been devoting a lot of real estate lately to Prometa, the Pierce County Alliance and the Pierce County Council.

We jabbed councilmembers Shawn Bunney and Dick Muri in an editorial today for using a quick-and-dirty probe to jam through a cutoff of funding for the Alliance's experiment with Prometa.

Here's their side of the story:

Bunney: "There were some pretty serious contentions coming off the audit. We can virtually immediately release those funds if they can show us we're wrong. ... I don't like the idea that we are marketing a private company using the image of Pierce County. This in my opinion is going to (make us) a laughingstock for falling for a scam artist."

Muri: "We should not have given them the money in the first place. It's a theory with no scientific background and basis; it has all the markings of snake oil ...
"Shawn (and I) have believed from the beginning that this worthless program was nothing but a very expensive placedo being used by a company to pump up their company and their stock.
"If this company really wanted to be legit, they will raise the venture capital, fund the study, and they should be pumping millions of dollars to the Pierce County Alliance to do this."

Friend of the Port Ronnie Bush came back from today's Tacoma Port Commission study session buoyant about the prospects for getting commission meetings on the air or the Internet.

The Friends of the Port group she and former port employe Dick Dorsett founded this year recently asked the port commission to either broadcast its meetings on public television or at least use streaming video to make them available online.
(See our editorial endorsing the idea here).

Port Communications Director Rod Koon, Bush reported, gave the commissioners a postive report on the potential for online video.

Rod Koon gave a really good presentation and recommendations on televising and webstream. He seemed to lean heavily towards webstreaming, which is understandable as the Port's world extends far past the boundaries of Pierce County. Mr.Koon has a very good sense of humor and was able to make a good case as to why the Port of Tacoma needed to open its doors to the public it serves.

There will be another study session on November 8th, where this will be talked about again. The budget and vote and public comment is on November 16th.

I believe that with Rod Koon . . . presenting such a positive picture of the benefits of webstreaming, (it might be) starting in January 2008. The path may have a few bumps. Commissioner Bottiger immediately wanted "hit counts" from other ports before agreeing to anything. But from the applause after Mr.Koon's remarks, I believe this will happen.

Almost-congratulations to the Port of Tacoma!

Officials of a nonprofit drug-treatment program whose funding was yanked by the Pierce County Council on Tuesday met with the ed board this morning. (Wednesday's news story here; Thursday's here.)

Bottom line: They criticized Republican council members Shawn Bunney and Dick Muri for "orchestrating" a critical audit report and "blindsiding" the alliance without giving the alliance a fair hearing. They defended the program, said the new drug shows great promise, and said they "would do it again" without reservation.

They contended that the "auditors" who prepared the critical report were not qualified and did not give them the opportunity to respond to negative findings that is customarily part of audit procedures. Jack Hill, former head of the county's Department of Assigned Counsel and president of the alliance board when the program was launched, staunchly defended the program.

The ed board and senior news editors questioned the officials about the executive director's purchase of stock in the company licensing Prometa, the drug the alliance is pilot-testing in treatment for meth and cocaine addiction.
Alliance Board President Tom Leander confirmed that executive director Terree Schmidt-Whelan had cleared her purchase with the board and that the board saw no problems with it.

Our first editorial on this issue will appear Friday. We think people should reserve judgment about the Prometa trial for now. More questions need answers. Our news reporters – remember, the newsroom and the ed board operate independently – are still digging into the story. We do think the council should have acted with more deliberation.

There are still a lot of questions surrounding the Pierce County Alliance drug-treatment organization and its Prometus drug-treatment program, but one thing we’re sure of is that the County Council didn’t give Alliance officials a fair chance to tell their side of the story before yanking county funding.

Our endorsements in the Federal Way School Board race. This election is a chance for voters to steer the board away from its tendency to get distracted by minor issues like flip-flops.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Exciting times in the Pierce County Council chambers this afternoon.

The county's pit-bull performance auditors had just released a report raising serious questions about the Pierce County Alliance's experimental Prometa addiction-treatment drug regimen (which is "unproven" or "promising" – take your pick).

Wielding the report like a light saber, Councilman Shawn Bunney – a longtime Prometa skeptic – had just succeeded in pulling funding in funding for the pilot project out of the county's budget.

The News Tribune's Alex Otto had just reported the above – and the fact that the Alliance's executive director, Terree Schmidt-Whelan, owned shares in Hythiam, the company that licenses Prometa. As did her predecessor, state Rep. Dennis Flannigan. As did (for a while) Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg. All three had advocated public funding for Prometa treatment.

You've got the makings of an explosive story here, and it showed when the subject came up at the council's performance audit committee meeting.

Committee Chairman Dick Muri, another skeptic, called Prometa "a hypothesis that came out of nowhere."

=> Read more!

We're itching to comment on the concerns surrounding the Prometa drug-treatment program that was being pilot-tested by the Pierce County Allliance, with state and county funding. For the program's director and County Executive John Ladenburg to be owning shares in the company making Prometa looks to us like a serious breach of ethics.

However, additional reporting is being done today and we expect a fuller picture to emerge in Thursday's news coverage. Patrick O'Callahan is attending an an audit committee meeting on the matter today. We'll probably opine on Friday.

So for Thursday, we'll lead with our endorsement in a hotly contested Puyallup School Board race and publish our annual call for volunteer reading tutors in Tacoma elementary schools.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Ted Pease, "professor of journalism and interesting stuff" at Utah State University, has a gem in today's edition of his email feature, "Today's Word on Journalism."

Deviant punctuation:
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
   --Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), author, A Man without a Country (2005)

This makes me feel guilty, because I'm a fan of semi-colons. They are a great substitute for the overused "and" construction that creates compound sentences that should really be separated by a semi-colon – or, as Vonnegut would prefer, a period. (Yes, I went to college).

If you want to get on Ted's list, email him at ted.pease@gmail.com

If you’re familiar with the left-leaning The Nation magazine, you probably don’t buy it for the sports coverage. That’s why I was bemused to get a notice today peddling a column on the World Series by one of the magazine’s writers.

I wasn’t aware that the Colorado Rockies were considered “God’s team.” I totally missed the flap that resulted last year when the team announced it was looking for players with “character” – meaning that it preferred Bible-believing Christians.

Or as The Nation writer David Zirin, put it, players “who have chosen Jesus as their personal Lord and manager.” He dubbed the Rockies “the most sanctimonious team in the majors.”

If you ask me, Zirin and The Nation are indulging in some gratuitous faith-bashing here. Check it out here and tell me what you think.

Does this mean liberals have to root for the Red Sox? Does Limbaugh have money down on the Rockies? Gimme a break.

Gary Coy, the owner of Sperry Ocean Dock, visited the ed board today to explain his controversial to proposal clean up the old Schuster Parkway dock near Tacoma's Old Town and add a second berth for one or two more big ships. (News story).

He started off by showing us this image of his original plan for the dock – a 750-foot long building and berth that was to house an equipment-making operation for AT&T. I had forgotten about that: His plan sparked a big civic battle and opposition by city officials. In 1990 Coy won a shorelines permit for the project thanks to a 5-0 ruling by the state Shorelines Hearings Board.

But AT&T lost interest and the project died. Coy's point was that he had been legally permitted to build a 750-foot-long structure that would have obstructed water views much more than his current proposal. The new plan calls for a $3 million-plus environmental cleanup of the shoreline and the addition of a second, 600-foot-long berth. It would leave a 100-foot view corridor between the ships moored at the existing berth and the new one.

I won't go into all of Coy's argument here, but he emphasizes the environmental benefits of removing nearly 1,600 creosote-soaked pilings and replacing them with 231 concrete pilings. State and federal regulatory agencies like the project because it will reduce contamination and improve salmon habitat, Coy says.

Disclaimer: Describing Coy's views here doesn't mean the ed board will support his project. That remains to be seen.

We endorse SJR 8212, the proposed state constitutional amendment that would allow prison industry programs to operate at state penal institutions. They are an important part of rehabilitation efforts, and will be structured so that they do not compete unfairly with private industry. For example, inmates must be paid wages comparable to private sector, but any restitution, child support and other obligations they have are deducted from those wages. The amendment is necessary due to a state Supreme Court decision that said previous programs represented unfair competition.

Our endorsements in Bethel School Board races.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Not to be outdone by soon-to-be official rematch opponent Dino Rossi, Gov. Chris Gregoire will hit Tacoma Nov. 5 on her own "listening tour" of the state.

She'll hold a Town Hall meeting at 7 p.m. in the Stadium High School cafeteria. Her office is taking RSVPs if you want to be sure of a seat.

You can do that online here. Or call Ian Morrison at 360.902.4111. Walkups are OK, but once the cafeteria's full, that's it. Click here for directions and parking.

The email notice says:

Governor Gregoire invites you to share your thoughts on the issues most important to you, your community and Washington.

Is the governor campaigning? Of course not. She's being responsive. Was Rossi's "listening tour" as president of the Forward Washington Foundation really campaigning? Of course not. He was just gathering ideas. To quote the late, great Vonnegut, "So it goes."

This editorial will appear in Tuesday's print edition.

Johnson and Petrich for port commission
Simpson executive Don Johnson has a strong record of leadership; incumbent Clare Petrich has the port in her DNA.

Port of Tacoma Commissioner Jack Fabulich’s retirement after 30 years leaves a big hole to fill in the Nov. 6 election.

Fabulich has seen the port evolve from a sleepy backwater to a major presence in West Coast shipping. And the port’s best days are still ahead, if the port continues to benefit from favorable economic trends and from strong leadership from elected commissioners and executive staff.

Port commission candidate Don Johnson is a perfect fit to replace Fabulich, the former Parker Paint president who is currently the only commissioner with significant experience as a corporate executive.

=> Read more!

Ann Daley, the executive director of the state Higher Education Coordinating Board, was in today with some dismal statistics.

First, leakage from what's known as the "pipeline": Out of about 95,000 ninth graders in the state, about 83,000 make it to the 12th grade.

Of those, about 71,000 actually graduate from high school.

Of those, about 38,000 get to college – either a 2-year or 4-year program.

Of those, less than 19,000 actually get their degrees.

Washingtonians, says Daley, rank 36th in the nation in earning bachelor's degrees and 38th in earning science and engineering degrees. (This isn't because we can't do homework; it's because there aren't enough college seats for our would-be students.)

Yet – get this – we're No. 1 in the nation in hiring engineers and No. 6 in hiring computer science people.

That means:

a) We're giving many of our best jobs to other people from other states because we're undereducating our own children.

b) We're exporting many of our brightest students to states where there are seats for them – and many of them never come back.

And, c) many parents must pay private or out-of-state tuition because we're "saving" money by providing less college opportunity to Washingtonians.

A shame all around, I'd say.

Here’s a curious reason to vote for a candidate: Because she’s younger.

At least that’s the insinuation in a letter sent to Lakewood voters signed by Lakewood City Councilmen John Arbeeny, Ron Cronk and Pad Finnigan. It supports fellow Lakewood Cares member Lisa Ikeda over Mayor Claudia Thomas for Position 6.

Their letter reads, in part:

Lisa is in her middle thirties while the average age of the council is around 60. Her generation is not represented on the council, yet it will have to live with today’s council decisions. It is important that the council reflect the energy and vision of the “younger" set in the city.

What the three signees don’t mention is their own role in the ripeness of the council. Let’s just be nice and say that they aren’t exactly spring chickens either. Although Arbeeny is retiring from the council, the other two better hope that age isn’t an issue if they seek re-election.

Curiously, the three also endorse another Lakewood Cares candidate, J. Paul Wagemann – even though he’s obviously quite a bit older than the Position 7 incumbent, Walter Neary. Age apparently isn’t an issue for them in that race.

The letter very well could backfire in Lakewood, where the electorate tends to be older and retired. At least one can hope that voters reject this really low blow against the much-respected Thomas, the state's first black female mayor.

Breaking news from the AP at 3:45 p.m.

Rossi expected to announce run for governor this week
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Republican Dino Rossi, who narrowly lost the 2004 governor’s race, is expected to announce his second campaign at events scheduled around the state this week.
A Rossi spokeswoman confirms that the former state senator is scheduled to announce his 2008 political plans on Thursday, in Issaquah and Spokane.
Rossi won’t offer more details about his announcement.
But Rossi adviser Fredi Simpson says the nearly 700-person turnout at the state GOP’s recent “Run, Dino, Run!” fundraiser has energized the Rossi camp for another run.
Rossi lost to Democrat Chris Gregoire by 133 votes in 2004, after three vote counts and a court challenge.

Previous clues below:

Peter Callaghan notes in the Political Buzz blog the rampant speculation that Dino Rossi will stun the state this week with the shocking news that, yes, he IS going to run for governor in 2008!

Another sign – well, maybe two signs – that Rossi is about to “come out” soon are:

(1) He’s speaking Wednesday to the Seattle Rotary Club, one of the state’s premier public forums, on “State Government’s Role in Creating Economic Growth” and (2) Rossi’s stepping down as president of the Forward Washington Foundation, which provided a legally non-partisan platform non-candidate Rossi used to criss-cross the state making public appearances.

Former Senate Majority Leader Dan McDonald, a Bellevue Republican, will succeed Rossi at Forward Washington.

In case you forgot, former Republican legislator Rossi just narrowly lost in 2004 to Chris Gregoire in the closest gubernatorial race in state history.

Pierce County’s laws against vicious dogs are all but toothless, as The News Tribune’s Saturday reporting on dangerous dogs demonstrates. The county should adopt the same legal tools against problem dog owners that Tacoma is considering.

We endorse retiring Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co. executive Don Johnson and incumbent Clare Petrich for seats on the Tacoma Port Commission.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

If you don't like President Bush or the Republican Party, be sure to vote for Referendum 67.

That was the message in a pro-Referendum 67 mailer that arrived at my home Saturday. Injection of such a partisan note in a fight over a statewide ballot measure surprised me.

But then, Republicans have long accused trial lawyers of being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. This mailer may prove their point. It features a photo of George W. Bush standing next to piles of cash superimposed over the outline of the U.S. The text says:

"Since 2000, the insurance industry has spent nearly $100 million buying elections for Republicans and special interests nationwide . . . Don't let them do it here in Washington."

On the reverse side:

Don't let the insurance industry stuff the ballot box . . . Since 200, the insurance industry has been a big ally of the Republicans, spending nearly $100 million to help everyone from George W. Bush to Dino Rossi. Insurance CEO Mike McGavick even tried to win a U.S. Senate seat . . .

The referendum represents the insurance industry's challenge to a new law passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. The law allows judges to awared triple damages in in lawsuits in which insurers are found to have unfairly denied claims. (Reject67 site here).

Trial lawyers, of course, are major backers of the law, but they're being heavily outspent by insurers in the campaign fight. Given Washington's "blue state" status and the 2005 defeat of an initiative capping medical-malpractice damages – another measure backed by insurers as well as doctors – it makes sense for the pro camp to play the partisan card. But it isn't pretty.

Remember, voting "yes" on Referendum is a vote for the new law. A "no" vote is a vote for repealing it. As TNT columnist Peter Callaghan put it Sunday, which side do you distrust less?

See our editorial on Referendum 67 here.

A lot of campaign mailers were strategically timed to arrive along with the mail ballots Saturday. One from Elly Claus-McGahan caught my eye.

The former UPS math professor is challenging 18-year incumbent Debbie Winskill for a Tacoma School Board seat; so far she has run a much more visible campaign.

Claus-McGahan also touted some significant endorsements. Backers included the Central Labor Council, Metro Parks commissioner Ryan Mello, state Rep. Dennis Flannigan, Tacoma City Councilwoman Julie Anderson and black community leaders Tom Hilyard, Tom Dixon and Bil Moss.

Haven't seen any mailings or endorsement proclamations from the Winskill camp yet.

For readers who follow school-reform efforts in Washington and elsewhere, a new blog created by the Partnership for Learning is worth checking out. (Find the blog here)

The latest post today, for example, links to a story about New York City Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to provide bonuses to teachers who succeed in raising test scores in high-poverty schools. Bloomberg hopes to get around union opposition by basing the bonuses on each school's performance rather than the results in individual classrooms. Each school's teachers would divvy up the bonus.

The Partnership is an offshoot of the Washington Roundtable, a group that represents the state's larger businesses and has strongly backed the standards-based reforms, including the WASL, that the Legislature launched more than a decade ago.

This editorial will appear in Monday's print edition.

State needs rainy-day fund that can’t be raided
Writing an emergency reserve account into the state constitution would help enforce fiscal discipline.

Little fanfare greeted the state’s top economist last month when he delivered another dose of good news, predicting that revenues are on pace to exceed expectations.

Such rosy forecasts have become old hat for state budget writers, who have now received 16 consecutive better-than-expected quarterly revenue reports from Chang Mook Sohn. If the state’s economy has hit any bumps over the last four years, the Legislature has yet to feel them.

The good times can’t last forever, though. A constitutional amendment on November’s ballot would help ensure that when the economy does take a tumble, the state is better prepared to brace itself.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Monday's print edition.

For Lakewood council: Anderson, Thomas, Neary
The City of Lakewood is doing fine; that’s good reason to keep its incumbents on the job.

Lakewood is a well-governed city.

In recent years, its municipal government has built sidewalks and a new city hall, successfully launched its own police department and maintained healthy financial reserves. Its City Council has been doing a good job and hardly needs a radical course correction – which could take it in the wrong direction.

Two current members of the council are up for election this year. We think they’ve earned new terms. Our endorsements:

=> Read more!

Ted Coates retired 15 years ago as head of Tacoma Public Utilities, but he's still in the power game. He's a prominent defender of a proposed Cowlitz County power plant that's already attracting heavy fire from environmentalists and state oficials.

Coates talked to our ed board last week as part of a delegation from Energy Northwest, the Richland-based, publicly owned power-producing consortium previously known as WPPSS. They wanted to make a case for ENW's bid to construct a $1.5 billion, 680-megawatt "gas-fueled" power plant at the Port of Kalama. Coates sits on ENW's board.

I put "gas-fueled" in quotes because there's a bit of an issue about the plant's fuel source. The actual fuel source would be petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil refining. The coke would be converted into a gas, and the gas would be burned in high-tech Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle generators to produce electricity.

As far as environmental critics are concerned, it's as bad as a coal-burning power plant when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions - and they really want to kill this sucker. Unlike a similar, coal-fueled plant proposed near Walla Walla (see my Sept. 30 Insight article), captured CO2 would not be sequestered deep underground.

Energy Northwest contends that its proposal to buy offsetting carbon mitigation credits is specifically allowed under state energy legislation passed last session. That will be a threshold issue in permit hearings to be held this fall by the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council.

Stay tuned. We'll be writing more about this.

This editorial will appear in Sunday's print edition.

Roads and transit must go hand in hand
Proposition 1 recognizes that the Puget Sound region needs more transportation infrastructure, period.

Mass transit – or roads?

That is a false choice. In fact, the Puget Sound region must invest in both light rail and its overcrowded highways.

Proposition 1 – on the ballot in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties – would do just that. If approved in November, it would buy about $7 billion worth of road improvements and $11 billion worth of transit.

The South Sound has a big stake in the measure’s success.

The road portion includes, among other projects, an extension of Highway l67 from Puyallup to the Port of Tacoma as well as an expansion of 167 north of Puyallup – which would greatly improve northward commutes for East Pierce County drivers. Transit’s share would pay for 50 miles of new light rail service that would connect Tacoma to Sea-Tac Airport, Seattle and the region’s other major cities.

Much of the opposition to Proposition 1 is rooted in the region’s old, tiresome roads-vs.-transit dispute. Too many transit supporters don’t want to see a penny spent on new highway lanes; too many highway fans consider rail a big waste of money.

In reality, the region cannot get enough of either. With another million people expected to be living here by 2025, the demand for both kinds of transportation infrastructure will only get more intense as years go by.

Neither the anti-transit nor the anti-road camp is offering any realistic alternative to Proposition 1.

If the anti-transit folks had their way, they’d spend billions more on highways. They’d substitute “bus rapid transit” for light rail.

Take the latter first. The argument for BRT is that bus service, unlike rail, is flexible and can be rerouted according to need. But to replace rail as a means of bypassing traffic, rapid-transit buses would require exclusive use of new – and inflexible – highway lanes. New highway lanes don’t come cheap, especially when cut through the core of cities.

Free-flowing BRT service could wind up costing many billions itself without delivering the unique benefits of rail – such as concentrating population growth around train stations.

As far as paving our way out of congestion, there just aren’t enough billions in the region to make it happen – even if we were willing to endure the massive environmental costs.

Then there’s the anti-road crowd.
Their theory seems to be that if the highways become all-but-impassable, drivers will migrate in droves to mass transit. But it would take more than traffic jams to pry Puget Sounders out of their automobiles. In many cases, they just can’t get where they need to go on a bus or a train.

Cars won’t be going away anytime soon. It’s far more realistic to focus on making them cleaner – instead of using congestion to punish drivers and choke Western Washington’s economy in the bargain.

In any event, Proposition 1 does much more for transit than it does for highways, balancing the additional billions Washington is already investing in its roads with the gas tax increases of 2003 and 2005.

Neither a transit-only nor a roads-only package would work in the real world. That’s why Proposition 1 offers both – and deserves approval from Puget Sound voters.

This editorial will appear in Sunday's print edition.

Richardson for Sumner council

Sumner voters are fortunate to have two good candidates running for the only contested City Council seat on the Nov. 6 ballot.

But Position 4 is already occupied by a fine incumbent, teacher and coach Matthew H. Richardson.

Richardson, who has lived in Sumner for 10 years, served as vice-chairman of its planning commission before running for City Council. In his first term, he worked on the sidewalk program and getting big trucks off city streets.

Richardson’s opponent is retired businessman and planning commission member Jon Swanson, who has lived in Sumner for three years.

Swanson is an impressive candidate, and one who would be more pro-business than Richardson. But those interests are already well-represented on the council. Richardson offers a more neighborhood-oriented perspective. He deserves a second term.

This editorial will appear in Saturday's print edition.

Three good choices for Puyallup council
Incumbents Kathy Turner and Don Malloy, along with newcomer Glen Zevenberger, would help keep city initiatives on track.

One subtext in this fall’s Puyallup City Council elections was whether City Manager Jim Bacon would get to keep his job. That issue evaporated this week when council members learned that Bacon will likely be hired next week as town manager for Paradise Valley, Ariz.

Even with Bacon leaving – he’ll stick around for a while to get the annual budget done – the council races will still be a referendum of sorts on the city’s direction. During Bacon’s tenure, he and the council have focused on revitalizing Puyallup’s downtown core, encouraging new downtown housing and improving public amenities like Pioneer Park, the city library. A new city hall is under construction.

Although plenty of challenges remain – especially solving downtown parking problems – the city has undeniably made great strides in recent years. The council candidates most likely to keep the city moving in the right direction are incumbents Kathy Turner and Don Malloy and newcomer Glen Zevenbergen.

Turner has stirred some controversy because she is seeking an at-large seat when she’s only midway through her term in District 2, which she would retain even if she loses this race. Presumably she’d like to move to another residence outside District 2. If she wins, the council will appoint someone to serve until next fall’s election.

That’s unusual, but it doesn’t change the fact that Turner has served well on the council since 1993, four of those years as mayor. She does her homework, asks good questions and backs the city’s downtown initiatives. Her challenger, former councilman Rick Hansen, has a good record of public and community service and would serve capably. Turner, however, would be a stronger supporter of the city’s development strategies.

In the District 1, Position 1 race, an open seat, Zevenbergen rates the nod over retired police officer John Knutsen. General manager of a downtown auto dealership, Zevenbergen is president of the Puyallup Main Street Association and active in other business groups. In temperament and judgment, he’s the superior candidate.

In the District 3, Position 1 contest, 16-year incumbent Don Malloy faces Curt Gimmestad, a city planning commissioner. A former Air Force commander and Puyallup school principal, Malloy is the model of a intelligent and level-headed public servant.

Gimmestad faults the council on its city hall plans and for not doing enough to hold city officials accountable. But he wouldn’t be a trade up for Malloy.

Those candidate endorsements you keep reading on the editorial page? This year, I can honestly say I had nothing to do with them. While my colleagues, God bless 'em, were slogging through dozens of candidate endorsement interviews, I was on maternity leave. (If you surmise that I owe them big time, you would be right).

That means that this year, I'm the average voter. For the first time since I joined an Eastern Washington editorial board in 1999, I will be casting my ballot for candidates I have never met. The experience reminds me how rare a privilege journalists enjoy; there is no substitute for looking a candidate in the eye and asking him or her to explain their positions.

But this year, I am like many of you, relying on the paper's endorsements to help decide my ballot picks. I have one advantage: Having written many of those endorsements in the past, I usually know what goes unsaid.

— "Candidate lacks the temperament for public service": This guy acts like a spoiled child.

— "Doesn't make a good case for replacing the incumbent": Doesn't necessarily mean the challenger wouldn't do a good job, just that the current officeholder hasn't really screwed up. Incumbency is a high hurdle to overcome.

— "An independent thinker": This person might raise a little hell, if need be.

=> Read more!

NOTE: All endorsement editorials will be posted on this blog at 10 p.m. the night before they appear in the print edition.

Saturday:
Our endorsements in the Puyallup City Council election.

Sunday:
We reiterate our support for the Roads & Transit measure, emphasizing that the region needs to move beyond the roads vs. transit argument and recognize that both are necessary to keep the region from choking in traffic congestion.

Our endorsement in the Sumner City Council race.

Recap of our election endorsements to date.

Monday:

We endorse SJR 8206, the constitutional amendment that would establish a state rainy-day fund that could not be eviscerated with legislative maneuvers. Times are good right now, but that’s precisely when the state should be building a reserve for the bad times.

We present our endorsements in the Lakewood City Council elections.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Tacoma Port Commission candidate Bill Casper isn’t friends with “Friends” any more. That’s Friends of the Port, a new citizen group form to shed more light on port activities.

Casper sent the TNT an email saying he was bummed out after showing up as an invited guest at the group’s latest meeting Wednesday. “It got pretty ugly” when Casper iniially refused to leave after he, incumbent port commissioner Claire Petrich and her opponent, Bernardo Tuma, were done addressing the group.

Casper wanted to stay and hear a report by a woman speaking for opponents of joint distribution center proposed in north Thurston County by the ports of Tacoma and Olympia. Casper said Petrich and Tuma left, but he argued with Dick Dorsett, a Friends co-founder and former port employee.

Some where in the discussion I let them know that telling the press not to come is no way to show they are friends of the Port and it sure looks phony for a group that is pushing so hard for TV coverage of Port meetings to want to exclude anyone from their own meetings. Having made every point I could think of and getting some body language support from some of the others I gave it up and left.

My conclusion at the end is that Dick plans to run next election, Ronnie wants to be his campaign manager, and they hope to attract a political base of loyal followers. The group is totally a Dick and Ronnie show with Dick using Ronnie as his front.

I happen to agree with most of what they say they want the Port to do but I will not concede that they represent a valid citizen association.

"Ronnie" is Friends co-founder Ronnie Bush, a Tacoma campaign manager and consultant. Our fellow bloggers over at Biz Buzz also noted the irony of a group promoting “transparency” at the port closing its meeting to reporters. Casper, co-owner of a University Place engineering firm specializing in container handling, is running against Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co. president Don Johnson for Position 3 on the commission. (See TNT Voter Guide)

This editorial will appear in the print edition of Friday's The News Tribune.

School board needs
Winskill’s experience

Three-term incumbent is vulnerable after Tacoma district’s year of controversy, but her judgment and independence make her worth retaining.

As an 18-year incumbent on the Tacoma School Board, Debbie Winskill would ordinarily expect to have little trouble winning another term.

But the 2006-07 school year was the Year of Charlie Milligan – not at all an ordinary year. In fact, it was a very bad year for the Tacoma School District, as Milligan arrived in July of 2006 and proceeded to dig himself into a hole.

His abrasive management style generated one controversy after another – and the school board did not handle itself or Milligan well in many instances.
By the end of June, Milligan was gone, pushed out by the board but given a $418,000 settlement that didn’t sit well with the public. The district is stabilizing now under interim Superintendent Art Jarvis, but the board has crucial decisions to make this school year about finding and hiring a permanent chief executive.

A script like this means Winskill is vulnerable to a challenge, and that’s what she faces from former university math professor Elly Claus-McGahan. Although this is an election when voters might look to punish incumbents on the Tacoma board, we believe Winskill deserves another term.

For starters, Winskill has always been one of board’s most attentive and responsive members in terms of listening to parents and community members. She also has a strong independent streak, which she displayed when she and Kurt Miller became the first board members to privately and then publicly signal their disenchantment with Milligan.

Voters could blame Winskill for being part of a board that made a bad choice for superintendent. But if Winskill and Miller had not taken a stand, Milligan might still be in the superintendent’s office.

Claus-McGahan holds a Ph.D. in mathematics and has taught at the University of Puget Sound. She knows far more than the average school board member about math, which is one of the district’s top student-achievement concerns.

But that one area of expertise doesn’t outweigh Winskill’s long record of school board service, her strong sense of the community and knowledge of how school boards and districts are supposed to work. Voters would do well to keep Winskill on the board.

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

I-960: A good idea taken way too far

Tim Eyman’s latest ballot measure starts with a good premise but tries to do too much with cumbersome mandates.

Initiative 960 is neither as good nor as bad as its supporters and detractors would have you believe.

On its face, I-960 is a worthy ballot measure that aims to crack down on legislative end-runs around public process. But that goal gets lost among the initiative’s unwieldy mandates.

Opponents call I-960 a “half-baked solution in search of a problem.” That’s overdoing it. There is a problem — a couple, actually. Namely, the Legislature’s love affair with emergency clauses to prevent citizens from challenging their actions and its proclivity for skirting Initiative 601’s limits on state spending growth and tax increases.

Tim Eyman’s latest offering would strike a blow to legislators’ pre-emption of the referendum process, saying that if lawmakers use an emergency clause they must compensate by putting any tax measure up for an advisory vote. I-960 would also shore up I-601, reaffirming that it takes a two-thirds majority of state lawmakers to pass a tax increase.

If only the initiative stopped there. But in true Eyman style, he took the ball and ran right off the field with it. The result is a ballot measure with overly prescriptive mandates that could bog down the Legislature and the ballot.

I-960 would require legislative approval for any increase among thousands of state fees. A policy-setting body does not need to mess with the bureaucratic minutiae of deciding what it costs to park at a state park, get a copy of a birth certificate or renew a professional license. Plus any large increases — the ones most likely to cause concern — are already subject to the Legislature’s vote.

The initiative also would require public advisory votes — how many is uncertain. There is dispute over whether I-960 would expand the definition of taxes, thus creating bigger hurdles for lawmakers to take even routine accounting steps such as transferring money between funds.

Critics charge that the ballot would be packed with financial housekeeping items; I-960 supporters argue that the state would be required to hold advisory votes only on those tax increases not otherwise subject to voter approval.
On one thing, both sides agree: The initiative can be read both ways. The upshot is that voters really can’t know what exactly I-960 would do unless they pass it. That’s a bad way to make public policy.

The initiative also goes astray by being overly — and oddly — prescriptive. For advisory votes, it calls for doing away with the usual voters’ pamphlet explanation of the tax proposal and mandates that the ballot question describe the issue at hand in 13 words. That’s not a recipe for informed voting.

I-960 also requires that the state set up a new system to notify the public every time a tax measure approaches or clears another hurdle in Olympia; the measure even dictates the information that must be included in those releases.

I-960 might have been a winner if it had stuck to reining in abuses of legislative process. But on balance, its few attributes cannot outweigh its many faults.

Our endorsement in the only Tacoma School Board race and our stance on Inititive 960 will be posted here on the blog at 10 p.m.

Three-term incumbent Debbie Winskill is opposed by former college math professor Elly Claus-McGahan. Tacoma's school board terms run for six years.

Initiative 960 is a Tim Eyman-sponsored initiative designed to make it harder for lawmakers to pass tax increases.

You know how a "situation" inside an organization can arise a take a while to rise to the attention of the boss. That happened this week with TCC President Pam Transue.

Transue knew nothing about it when I advised her Wednesday that University Place School District Superintendent Patti Banks had a beef with TCC. Banks was upset because a TCC official told her the college couldn't stop two Curtis High School students from attending Running Start classes even though they will be expelled from the district. The action stems from a "sparkler bomb" incident at the high school Monday.

The district has to pay TCC for any of its students enrolled under Running Start. Banks doesn't think the district should have to pay for students who have been expelled.

Transue provideded this update today:

We have not had a situation like this arise before now, so we haven’t been sure how to proceed. We are trying to sort that out with our school district partner, OSPI, and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. Public safety is a primary consideration as is our partnership with our local schools, and we want to do everything within our power to come up with a solution that puts those two priorities first . . .

Having just found out about the situation yesterday, I can assure you that we are reviewing state laws and trying to determine an appropriate course of action.

Our newsroom is looking into it, too.

Even with the election swinging into full gear, the hottest topic by far for letter writers in recent days is the idea of controlling deer in the Lakewood’s Oakbrook neighborhood with a bow-and-arrow hunt. To read the original article, click here.

We’re running a good selection of the letters Friday, with a photo taken by one of the writers, but we’ve gotten many more than we can run. All but two letters favor letting the deer be. I suspect one of those – by a University Place writer who supports people being able to “harvest” deer on their own property – may itself generate a few more letters.

As the person who edits the letters, I have to say these are a lot more fun than the ones about Referendum 67 and HJR 4204.

Just before the mail ballots go out to voters this weekend, state Insurance Commssioner Mike Kreidler stepped up his efforts on behalf of Referendum 67.

The pro-67 campaign today sent out a statement from Kreidler calling the insurance industry's claims about the measure "baloney."

You've probably witnessed TV commercials, radio ads, and newspaper articles about Referendum 67 -- and most likely you have also received a letter from your insurance company threatening to raise your insurance rates.

I have one word for the insurance industry's campaign: Baloney. 

Insurance companies that are fair and that pay legitimate claims are not affected by R-67 -- they don't have anything to worry about. Insurers that regularly delay or deny the legitimate claims of their own customers will have trouble competing with companies that act responsibly.  That's how it should be.

Yes, Kreidler is up for re-election next year. But as our editorial today endorsing Referendum 67 notes, Kreidler is not known for insurance-industry bashing, as his predecessor, Deborah Senn was.

If you're keeping score, other newspapers endorsing R-67 include the Seattle P-I, the Daily Olympian, the Everett Herald, the Yakima Herald and the Vancouver Columbian.

Find the anti-67 arguments here.

Boggled by the herd of presidential candidates? Wonder which one aligns most closely with your own views?

A quiz developed by Minnesota Public Radio may help you figure out which candidate is right for you. It asks your opinion on 11 issues ranging from the war in Iraq to abortion and the death penalty, then shows you how your views compare to the various candidates’. It lists the candidates in order of how closely they line up with your opinions.

I took the quiz and was astounded to find out which candidate’s views are closest to mine. Let's just say he doesn't have a snowball's chance of winning.

Click here for the Web site.

R-67 evens playing field
for insurance customers

Big-bucks fight between insurers, lawyers boils down to a simple issue: Insurers don’t always play fair with claims

Put aside the avalanche of misleading advertisements from both sides in the Referendum 67 campaign and ask this simple question:
Who has the upper hand now when a customer in Washington believes he or she has been unfairly denied payment of an insurance claim?
The answer is that insurance companies, with deeper pockets and plenty of lawyers, have the advantage. Under Washington laws, the legal playing field tilts in favor of insurers.
Referendum 67 would uphold a new state law that aims to correct that imbalance. It would discourage insurers from deliberately making it difficult for policyholders to obtain full and timely payment of legitimate claims.
Simply put, Referendum 67 is about fairness, and voters should approve it.
Referendum 67 is on the ballot because the insurance industry wants to kill a measure, approved by the 2007 Legislature, that allows consumers to sue for triple damages when an insurer “unreasonably” denies a legitimate claim. Voting “yes” on R-67 is a vote to keep the new law.
As might be expected, the state’s trial lawyers are spending heavily to back the measure, and insurers, including big, out-of-state companies, are spending millions to defeat it. Business groups oppose the measure as well, fearing that a new flood of lawsuits will drive up insurance costs.
Referendum 67 should not be considered an indictment of the entire insurance industry. But some companies don’t always play fair. Because it is costly and time-consuming for an unhappy customer to go to court, less-honorable companies have an incentive to deny claims or pay less than full value.
The consumer’s ability to seek triple damages evens the odds under the new law. Triple damages can be awarded by a judge only when an insurer has been found to have acted unreasonably in denying a claim. Judges, not juries, decide whether to award triple damages. “Unreasonable conduct” is a well-defined standard in Washington law.
If voters uphold the new law, more lawsuits will undoubtedly be filed against insurers. But insurers who take pains to treat customers fairly will see little damage to their bottom lines.
State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, a low-key regulator who avoids grandstanding on insurance issues, endorses Referendum 67. Although his office can take complaints, he cannot represent consumers in claims disputes. And the complaints his office sees each year are only “the tip of the iceberg,” he believes.
The triple damages allowed by Referendum 67 are far cry from the runaway punitive damages that insurers and businesses fear so much; punitive damages remain forbidden by Washington law.
Let the insurers and trial lawyers demonize each other. All Washington insurance policyholders want is fairness in handling their claims. Referendum 67 is a reasonable way to promote it.

This endorsement editorial will appear Thursday in the print edition of The News Tribune.

Jack Dovey and Hope Elder
for Federal Way City Council

An incumbent and former deputy mayor are the best in a strong field of candidates.

Things must be going pretty well in Federal Way these days.

Three incumbents on the Federal Way City Council are up for re-election this year, but only one of them drew a challenger. When two incumbents (Jim Ferrell and Mike Park) get a free ride back into office, it’s generally a sign that citizens are reasonably content with the direction their city is going.

The incumbent who did draw a challenger is Jack Dovey. His Position 5 opponent is Roger Freeman, an attorney who has served four years on the city’s Human Services Commission.

Freeman is a fine candidate who has worked hard to forge links to the Federal Way community, where he has lived for six years. But he doesn’t make a good case for replacing Dovey, who has lived in Federal Way since 1968.

Dovey’s roots run deep. As a young man, he worked as a surveyor on what is now the Commons at Federal Way mall. As the owner of a cellular telephone company, he brings a valuable small-business sensibility to the council, which is trying to do more to develop and retain that important sector.

Dovey, who originally sought office to get Celebration Park built, seeks only to serve Federal Way. Freeman acknowledges that he sees serving on the council as the first step in a political career. Voters would do well to give the experienced Dovey a third term.

An open seat on the City Council attracted a field of four in the August primary. The two survivors are Hope Elder, who served on the council from 1994 to 1997, and Dini Duclos, CEO of the Federal Way Multi-Service Center. Either woman would do a fine job on the council.

Duclos has strong ties to the city’s business community and is vice-chair of the Planning Commission. Elder currently chairs that commission and has been active in civic and regional issues for many years.

This is a close call, and voters won’t go wrong either way. But Elder has the edge given her earlier experience on the council and 25 years of involvement with Federal Way. She lost a bid for re-election in 1997 while she was serving as deputy mayor, due in large part to her willingness to vote for an unpopular utility tax to build Celebration Park.

That turned out to be a gutsy, visionary move. Elder deserves another chance.

Crews are at work this week removing the old wharf at the Foss Waterway's historic Balfour Dock – soon to be known as the Foss Waterway Seaport, a museum and waterfont activity center celebrating Tacoma's maritime heritage.

The project is no longer called the Working Waterfront Museum, but the museum's focus will still remain the industrial and commercial history of Tacoma's waterfront.

Seaport backers told the ed board today their first-phase fund drive will hit $3.8 million by year's end; the goal was $3.7 million. Public funding obtained by the Foss Waterway Development Authority, owner of the dock, adds another $7.8 million. "The project has great momentum," FWDA director Don Meyer said.

A second-phase campaign headed by board member Luke Curtis aims to raise $14.2 million in hopes of opening a completed Balfour museum building by April 2010. Seaport Director Tom Cashman says some exhibits may open in the north part of the 1900-vintage building sooner than that.

Meyer was particularly happy to report that temporary moorage will be installed in front of the buillding in time for the Tall Ships Festival next summer. By 2010, however, 1,200 feet of permanent and publicly accessible moorage should run from the Seaport to Thea's Park at the mouth of the waterway.

The grand dream: By 2015, the public will be able to stroll on the waterway's edge from Thea's Park all the way to the head of the waterway.

The work now underway involves stabilizing the building, making seismic and fie-code improvements and installing a new roof. But structurally, the old, heavy-timbered building is in great shape, Meyer said.

Note: These editorials will be posted on this blog at 10 p.m. tonight.

We publish our editorial stand on Referendum 67, which proponents claim will create a more level playing field in disputes over claims between insurance companies and consumers. Foes warn it will result in a flood of lawsuits and raise insurance rates.

We publish our endorsement in the Federal Way City Council races.

Two students involved in an unsettling “sparkler bomb” incident Monday (news story) at Curtis High School will be expelled, an angry University Place Superintendent Patti Banks told me today.

But she’s even more steamed about the fact that the expelled students apparently can continue Running Start classes at Tacoma Community College – at the district’s expense. TCC officials have told Banks they have no grounds to bar the students from Running Start.

Banks says the district will refuse to pay Running Start tuition for the expelled students. State officials “can come and get it” if they don’t like it, she declared. She added:

Can you imagine what runs through your mind/heart/gizzard when you hear a very loud bang and see smoke coming from the vicinity of your high school? I
grabbed a radio and went running up there doing Hail Marys (not the
football kind) out loud

.

My instant and unofficial editorial opinion: Banks is in the right on this. If TCC doesn’t change its stance, the state board that governs community and technical colleges should amend its policies to fit situations like this.

I'm a big fan of the Green Tacoma Partnership, an alliance of local groups concerned with protecting and improving the city's parks and open spaces. On Earth Day and throughout the year, the groups sponsor volunteer work parties and other projects.

The Tatoosh Chapter of the Sierra Club, for instance, conducts monthly "ivy pulls" at Point Defiance and other locations where rampant English ivy threatens to kill trees. Tacoma Rotary 8, another partnership member, has a special interest in cleaning up Oak Tree Park in South Tacoma.

A good way to find out what the partnership is up to and check on volunteer opportunities is to look up GTP's regular newsletter at www.greentacoma.org. The latest edition has just been posted.

The partnership is focusing now on a draft habitat-protection in the works for the City of Tacoma.

How is it that Tacoma School Board President Connie Rickman felt entitled to shut down Kurt Miller quite brusquely last week when he tried to bring up an idea without her prior approval?

My theories:
1. Rickman and Miller don't seem to be bosom buddies.
2. Rickman is a former school principal. She may have taken Miller for a naughty, misbehaving boy.
3. There's a problem with the board's internal rules.

Try Number Three. Here's the self-imposed restriction Rickman was invoking:

Surprises to the board or the superintendent will be the exception, not the rule. We agree to ask the board chair or the superintendent to place an item on the agenda instead of bringing it up unexpectedly at the meeting.

Then again, there's another board rule that would seem to apply to Rickman's curt treatment of Miller:

The board will lead by example. We agree to avoid words and actions that create a negative impression on an individual, the board, or the district. While we encourage debate and differing points of view, we will do it with care and respect.

Here is what we had to say about it.

I guess state Sen. Mike Carrell has solved the pesky sex offender problem. Now he’s going after Bambi.

OK, that’s oversimplifying things a little. But he was quoted in a Tuesday article that Lakewood “can do something” about the many deer wandering around Oakbrook (or, as my dad likes to put it, “posh Oakbrook”).

That “something”? Shoot ‘em. With arrows. From trees. Now that’s a sight sure to delight the children on my block. If the letters to the editor are any indication, plenty of Oakbrook residents will be blocking those arrows with their own bodies if anyone tries to shoot the deer.

I’m not thrilled either with the idea of killing the lovely creatures that wander through my neighborhood. For a while, I had a doe and two fawns practically living in my back yard until I patched a hole in my fence. Yes, they ate my roses and left piles of poop in the grass. But they were an amazing sight, just a few feet from my windows.

Leave ‘em alone. They were here before us. With luck, they’ll be here after us.

The ed board was talking today about elected bodies that seem to have a hard time tolerating dissent in their ranks (see tomorrow morning's editorial). Executive Editor Dave Zeeck said, "You've got to have a devil's advocate."

Which got us talking about the Vatican's past practice (it began in the 16th century, ended in 1983) of appointing someone to argue against elevating a seeming paragon of goodness (like Mother Teresa) to sainthood. This cleric's official title was promotor fidei ("promoter of the faith"), but it was just a heck of a lot more fun to call him advocatus diaboli.

A seemingly quaint office. But the Vatican recognized five centuries ago that you can't make a good decision without dealing with the contrary arguments. The besetting sin of too many governing boards is groupthink; they need more, not fewer, devil's advocates.

Our earlier post today about the state medical association jumping into the fray over Referendum 67 prompted a helpful explanation from Kris Tefft over at the Association of Washington Business. Tefft is the AWB's general counsel.

The gist is that the dispute cited in the pro-67 TV ad is not the kind of legal issue that would be affected by Referendum 67. I don't think there's any doubt about that, so to portray the firefighter and his family as victims in the context of the R-67 debate does seem misleading to me.

The bottom line, according Tefft:

So what do you make of all of this? This is a workers comp (not disability insurance) claim and R-67 does not apply to workers’ comp claims. Plaintiffs are trying to get outside the employers’ immunity protection of workers compensation by alleging a tort on par with “deliberate injury”; but alleging it in the opening document of a lawsuit does not even come close to making it so. And finally, the plaintiffs in this posture are the third party to the insurance contact. The insurance is between Puyallup and the company. R-67 does not apply to third party claims.

Although the AWB is opposed to Referendum 67, Tefft says both sides are guilty of running misleading ads. Go here and here to see his blog postings on the subject.

Great news:
First Night booster Alicia Lawver sends official word that the formerly annual New Year's Eve celebration in downtown Tacoma will return to life this winter.

Directors of the reorganized group, First Night Tacoma-Pierce County, agreed Monday to proceed with plans for a revived celebration Dec. 31. Check the event website for details, or email Kala Dralle, president, at firstnighttacoma@gmail.com.

Credit goes to new and old volunteers who wouldn't let First Night die. Community donations large and small helped pay off most the the debt that forced the event to go dark the past two years.

According to Alicia:

Major sponsors ($5,000 or more) who have stepped forward so far include Metro Parks Tacoma, the Metro Parks Foundation, MultiCare, Jade Mountain Bamboo Nursery, LeRoy Jewelers and others that will be announed in the near future.

Also, the Museum of Glass has already welcomed First Night back, declaring that First Night button wearers will once again get into the museum for free on New Year's Eve. The museum will also be hosting a family friendly activity that afternoon.

It's the beginning of a new era for First Night.

If there's any group that despises trial attorneys more than insurance companies, it's doctors. And that's probably why Washington State Medical Association reason today jumped into the fray over Referendum 67.

The WSMA issued a statement accusing the pro-referendum campaign, largely backed by trial lawyers, of using intentionally misleading TV ads. The Approve67 campaign promptly denied the charge and rounded up Puyallup firefighters to issue a response.

Here's a transcript of the TV ad. And here's the WSMA attack.

The Washington State Medical Association (WSMA) today said that a new TV ad in favor of Referendum 67 is intentionally misleading. The ad says that some people support Referendum 67 because they’ve seen “medical claims” denied. The Approve 67 campaign, however, knows very well that health insurance plans are specifically excluded from the law.

“This ad is intentionally deceptive,” said Brian P. Wicks, MD, president of the WSMA. “Everyone who sees this ad will understand medical claims to mean health insurance. The trial lawyers know that isn’t correct but they will say anything to pass R-67 and its guaranteed lawyers’ fees.”

The legislature specifically excluded health coverage because it is covered elsewhere and legislators feared that health care costs would rise. Recent studies from the state and a nationally recognized research firm indicate that the number of lawsuits will increase if R-67 is passed, driving up insurance premiums for Washington families. One study estimated that it would cost Washingtonians as much as $650 million annually, or $205 more a year per household.

“The trial lawyers backing R-67 continue to deceive voters about the impacts of the law,” said Dr. Wicks. “When it comes to R-67, the more voters know, the more they vote no.”

I asked Sue Evans, a spokesman for the Approve67 campaign, about the allegation: Her reply:

No. It’s not (misleading). At issue is his disability claim and the down payment he needed to complete his treatment. Firefighters have a unique insurance policy because they are put in harms way everyday. Leukemia for firefighters is an occupational disease under Washington law.

The Pierce County Court said on Friday last week that the Potter family has a right to pursue the claim outside of L&I because of the outrageous conduct. Once more, the City of Puyallup brought in a private insurance company to manage their claims over $300,000-plus. This insurance company intentionally delayed and denied the claim.

I’m linking to the release (find it here) we sent out on this on Friday with supporting court documents. I’ve also attached the complaint that the judge honored. There’s a link in the press release to the court documents. Puyallup firefighters have an event today blasting them for the attack on Tiffany.

The court filing Evans cites is here.

In 2005 the trial lawyers and the medical association fought a costly, bitter war over Initiative 330, which would have capped damages for medical malpractice verdicts in Washington. Voters handily rejected the measure. Insurers sided with the doctors in that battle; they could well be on the losing end this time, too.

My take on the TV ad: Because it mentions a claim for medical treatment being denied, it's easy for viewers to think R-67 is associated with ordinary medical claims – which is not the case. The case in Puyallup is a different legal issue involving disability claims, but the ad doesn't explain that.

A reader asks:

I would like to inquire what the policy is at The News Tribute regarding "astroturfing" campaigns and ferreting out those aimed to exploit the letters to the editor section (a comprehensive definition of "astroturfing" can be found in Wikipedia.)

In the past year I have noted several examples that have been published by the TNT. As you would expect, they generally occur as an election nears. The most recent example was published today with the title "School levies too vital to require supermajority" by Laura Gardner . . . What does the TNT actively do to ensure that it remains a conduit of objectivity and not a dupe to agenda pushing organizations?

The reader explained how he used Google to trace the letter to a campaign Web site for EHJR 4204, which would allow a simple-majority vote to approve school levies. Here's my response:

=> Read more!

Al Rose, the deputy prosecutor who prepares the ballot titles for referendum proposals filed with the Pierce County auditor, confirms that he prepared one for each of the 14 referenda filed last spring by Robert (The Traveller) Hill.

Rose says it takes about two hours of taxpayer-funded time to prepare a ballot title. he has to review the proposed ordinance and check to make sure it is subject to referendum. Then he has to draft the language of the ballot title, making sure it fits within the legal word limit.

There’s no sign Hill has pursued any signature gathering. He would have to obtain more than 25,000 signatures to qualify one for the ballot in 2008.

Proposed Charter Amendment No. 8 on the Pierce County ballot Nov. 6 is designed to discourage frivolous filings. It would set a $5 fee for filing any county referendum,

King County Executive Ron Sims pulled a shocker last month when he decided to knife Proposition 1, the rail-and-transit package he helped put on the November ballot.

Et tu, Sims?

Now another pillar of the Seattle establishment, The Seattle Times, has done the same – savaging Prop 1 in a full-column editorial Sunday. (Inside dope: An editorial board believes it's communicating a Major Statement when it runs an opinion piece this long, however drearily logorrheic it might be.)

Ouch. Some of us in Pierce County have been waiting since the Seattle line was approved in 1996 for a second phase of light rail construction to connect us to Sea-Tac Airport, the UW and other points north. That's what Prop 1 would chiefly do. The plan was to build Seattle's line first, then push it out to the provinces. But Sims and other Seattleites are having second thoughts about the provinces now that their own rails are getting laid.

Prop 1 (and light rail to the South Sound) won't succeed without a strong majority vote in Seattle. The slam from the city's major newspaper is another stab from the north.

At least it's not – like Sims' switch – a stab in the back. To their misguided credit, the Times' editorialistas were principled enough to oppose light rail before Sound Transit started building the Seattle line.

If you just wanna diss Al Gore, better skip Tacoma’s “Day of Conversation about Climate Change” on Oct. 25.

Climate scientists Gary Lagerloef and Jonathan Lilly from the Earth and Space Research Institute will present “An Inconvenient Talk” at 7 p.m. in the City Council’s first-floor chambers at city hall, 747 St. Helens Ave.

Mayor Bill Baarsma will speak about the work of a Green Ribbon Task Force he appointed earlier this year as a result of a national mayors’ initiative on climate change.

Organizers hope to place a full-page ad in The News Tribune on Oct. 24 publishing the names of citizens urging united action to reduce the threat of global warming. (I’m all in favor of that!)

It’s $50 to get your name in the ad, and send it to Citizens for a Healthy Bay by Oct. 19. The address is 917 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma 98402.

“If you can’t say anything good about someone, don’t say anything at all” is supposed to be good advice. That’s what the Wall Street Journal did in its editorial about Al Gore sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize – but it wasn't because the Journal wanted to be nice.

The Journal’s editorial on the subject pointedly failed to mention Gore at all; it merely named a host of others the Journal considered more deserving. The intended insult was clear.

Compare the Journal’s editorial with the start of this one from the other end of the political spectrum in The New York Times.

One can generate a lot of heartburn thinking about all of the things that would be better about this country and the world if the Supreme Court had done the right thing and ruled for Al Gore instead of George W. Bush in 2000. Mr. Gore certainly hasn’t let his disappointment stop him from putting the time since to very good use.

Bloggers on both sides of the conservative-liberal divide had a field day with the award to Gore. Check out this liberal site and a conservative site here.

The Righties said giving Gore the Peace Prize was all politics. The NYTimes, in this Sunday piece, noted that the Nobel Committee has always considered the Peace Prize a political instrument.

The University Place School District has the answer: Just keep the kids at home!

Getting all the way from Seattle to The News Tribune by bus – and foot – isn't easy. But Sierra Club member Tim Gould wanted to practice what he preaches when he came down last week for The News Tribune's public forum on the Roads & Transit ballot measure.

In a follow-up email, he described the rather monumental effort it took:

Thanks for posting the story of a lighter moment from Wednesday's News Tribune forum. For the record (in case anyone asks), my travel itinerary consisted of:

Sound Transit express #586 from Seattle's University District to Pacific Ave.
& S. 19th St. in downtown Tacoma. Walked west through UW Tacoma campus to reach S. 19th & Market. A glance at my watch indicated I'd probably missed the local connection, so I continued up the hill on S. 19th. But-- my lucky day!-- the bus was running late, so I was able to hop... Pierce Transit #57 westbound on S. 19th St. to stop nearest News Tribune building. Walked the long block to your building.

Glad the News Tribune sponsored the event. Hope everyone went home with more answers than when they arrived (maybe more questions, too!).
cheers,

Tim Gould
Volunteer Chair, Transportation Committee
Sierra Club Cascade Chapter

Last week one of my blog items got progressive Democrats accused of bribing young folks with beer to doorbell for Tacoma City Council candidate Marilyn Strickland.

That brought assurances that only responsible, post-doorbelling beer-drinking would be allowed and IDs would be scrupulously checked to protect the innocence of minors. But here's more evidence that Democrats – some, anyway – like to mix politics and beer.

Turns out Drinking Liberally, a national organization "promoting democracy one pint at a time," has a Tacoma chapter. The group's next meeting is Oct. 17 at Meconi's Pub, 709 Pacific Ave. Contact info here.

I doubt you'd want to show up wearing your "Mitt in '08" button. If there's a Drinking Conservatively group around, let me know.

This editorial will appear in the Monday print edition.

UPlace needs fresh faces, but not quite yet
Three incumbents – Debbie Klosowski, Gerald Gehring and Jean Brooks – deserve re-election to City Council.

It would be hard to find another city whose elected officials have been in office as long as University Place’s.

Six of seven City Council members have served continuously since incorporation in 1995; the seventh, Gerald Gehring, has been on the council for 10 years. Compare that to the City of Lakewood, where only two current council members have served since incorporation in 1996.

Such longevity reflects a general, if not universal, satisfaction with the way University Place has been run. But the lack of council turnover is troubling. Fresh blood is good for governing bodies, and more must be done to encourage the next generation of leadership in University Place. An open seat every now and then would be a welcome first step.

But turnover for its own sake isn’t a good idea when the incumbents are as solid as the three seeking re-election Nov. 6. All three deserve voters’ support.

In Position 2, Debbie Klosowski is an easy call over Carl Mollnow, a retired Air Force pilot who appears to have personal grievances with city staff. Among his priorities are getting rid of the city’s roundabouts and medians and stopping work on the Town Center – neither of which is realistic or desirable.

Klosowski studies issues carefully, listens to all sides and is open-minded. Her goals in a fourth full term would be to focus on economic development outside of the Town Center; more sidewalks and walking and biking paths; a citywide fitness campaign; and, most importantly, sewers for unserved neighborhoods.

In Position 6, Gerald Gehring has an energetic challenger in Rose Ehart, the executive director of a food bank with strong backing from the local Democratic Party. Ehart makes good points about how the council needs to be more respectful of citizens and provide more opportunities for public input.

But Gehring, who have lived in University Place since 1955, makes a strong case for giving him a fourth term. As a contractor who understands construction and budget issues, he’s a valuable resource on the council while the city is building the Town Center.

Position 7 incumbent Jean Brooks is facing the most formidable of the three challengers in her bid for a fourth full term.

Denise McCluskey, a human resources manager and 18-year city resident, served six years on the Parks & Recreation Commission and now is on the Planning Commission. She chaired the city’s Capital Strategy Task Force and is a leader in efforts to improve the Kobayashi Preserve park. She is a strong advocate for greater transparency in government and public involvement.

Of the three races, this was the toughest call. Brooks, a program manager at a state facility for juvenile offenders, has the advantage of experience and a deep knowledge of city affairs. She’s been an integral part of the city’s success since before Day 1. Although she’s been criticized for sometimes having an abrupt manner with the public, she deserves the opportunity to see projects she helped start through to completion.

For an early look at our endorsements tomorrow in University Place City Council races, check this blog after 10 p.m. tonight.

When Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for battling global warming, my reaction was, "What does that have to do with peace?"

Maybe not much. But when I did my homework, I realized that the Nobel has long been going to people who didn't try to end or prevent specific wars. Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. both won one.

To be nominated, you don't even have to be a humanitarian. Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Benito MussolinI were all proposed as laureates at one point or another. I figure the luminaries who sent their names in had guns to their heads.

We can now reveal the identity of Pierce County’s Mad Referendum Filer. He is Robert (The Traveller) Hill, who is known to local officials as “a character.”

He’s the reason the County Council put Proposed Charter Amendment 8 on the Nov. 6 ballot (see our editorial about that here.) I indulged in a bit of hyperbole when I wrote that an unnamed citizen – Mr. Hill – filed a referendum “on nearly every ordinance” the council passed during a period of several weeks last spring.

A check of the records at the auditor’s office shows Hill has filed 14 referendum requests this year. The auditor has to officially process each one and send it to the prosecutor’s office to obtain a legal ballot title. When the filer is notified of the ballot title, he or she has 120 days to gather more than 25,000 signatures.

To discourage frivolous referendum filing, Councilman Dick Muri proposed the charter amendment setting a $5 fee. At that rate, the cost of filing serial referenda would start to add up after a while.

Hill is also known for bringing up wildly inappropriate subjects at Tacoma City Council meetings and getting gaveled down by the mayor. He ran against incumbent Councilwoman Julie Anderson in the August primary and won a little over 4 percent of the vote, finishing third behind the estimable Will Baker.

To see candidate Hill in three-day beard, granny shades and porkpie hat, see the primary voters pamphlet and go to page 35.

We've all got our fingers crossed, hoping the Puget Sound region escapes the subprime mortgage lending woes afflicting other parts of the country.

But a Wall Street Journal story this week lists Tacoma as having one of the nation's highest rates of risky, high-rate mortgages – the so-called subprime loans that have been going sour in many regions.

The Journal's study ranked Tacoma 10th among 68 metropolitan areas in percentage of high-rate loans made in 2004-2006. High-rate loans made up 21.7 percent, for a total of $6.07 billion.

The Journal's description of the Fort Myers area in Florida is scary. The rate of mortgage defaults and foreclosures is the second highest in the country, 15,000 homes are unsold, and speculators are just walking away from home purchase contracts. The percentage of high-rate loans in Cape Coral-Fort Meyers: 25.6 percent.

Here's our most recent editorial on the subject.

The Department of Social and Health Services – a monster agency with 19,000 employees – isn't famous for its lightning response time.

But when The News Tribune reported in late July that Child Protective Services had returned a much-abused South Hill boy to the home of his accused abusers – without telling the deputies on the case – the reaction was dazzling.

DSHS Secretary Robin Arnold-Williams quickly ordered an investigation; a report on that investigation was released two weeks later, and a plan for closer cooperation between police and social workers was in place by the end of September.

When Arnold-Williams paid a visit this week, we asked her why – with all the thousands of child abuse cases across the state – she personally intervened in this one.

It seems Ed Troyer, spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, got her attention with a scathing public remark: "I just don't understand why people have been brainwashed into calling CPS. It's a crime. It should be investigated by police."

Arnold-Williams said, "It was a valued partner agency saying, 'We've got a problem out here.'"

=> Read more!

From today's email inbox:

What do you say about getting some more columnists other than right wing traitors? Don’t you think its about time that over 70% of the nation’s views be represented more fairly by getting progressives in the Op Ed section? Over 70% of Americans disapprove of this criminal administration, the war based on lies, and continuing it against the vast majority of all American’s better judgment.

Do the right thing and get these right wing wack jobs off your pages!

Naturally, local climate-change activists were delighted that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore. K.C. Golden, one of the state's leading environmentalists and head of Seattle-based Climate Solutions, was quick to praise the selection.

Mr. Gore's focus and passion are a terrific example of what we all need to bring to the global campaign for climate solutions . . .

Every action counts. But with a problem this big, we need to act together, by setting clear, responsible limits on global warming pollution. These limits will attract new investment in the green economy, creating new jobs and economic opportunity. They will reduce our crippling dependence on fossil fuels -- the gravest threat to our national and economic security. And responsible limits will tell our children that we are serious about leaving them a healthy future. It's the right thing to do, and the right time to do it is right now.”

Golden is also a member of the advisory committee for Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, to which Gore is donating his share of the prize money.

Both Gore and former president Bill Clinton will participate in national Mayors' Climate Summit in Seattle Nov. 1 and 2. Clinton will be the headline speaker; Gore will speak by satellite hookup. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will give the keynote address.

The cartoon above is by one of our regular syndicated cartoonists, the very talented John Sherffius of the Boulder (Colo.) Daily Camera. A black-and-white version will run in the print edition Sunday.

Saturday:
A plan by Lakewood city officials to shift police resources around the city has caused consternation in some neighborhoods. But it’s largely a matter of putting cops to work where they’re most needed.

Sunday:
The most important thing to remember about Proposition 1 is that it would build a regional rail-transit system for the future. The biggest payoff will come decades hence when the region will be far more crowded and roads even more congested.

Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize is no doubt a shot at the Bush administration for its grudging stance on global warming, but Gore and the U.N. scientific panel have done much to make the world realize climate change must be taken seriously.

Monday:

Our endorsements in the University Place City Council races. The endorsement editorial will be posted on our blog at 10 p.m. Sunday.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

"My, we've been popular there lately," Dean Nielsen emailed me today. He's state director for Progessive Majority, which has been getting kicked around a bit in blog comments today. See the earlier posting about Marilyn Strickland's doorbellers.

Wear flannel shirts and leave the Birkenstocks at home if you're coming to Tacoma, I advised Nielsen.

I asked him if PM's similar doorbelling effort for a candidate in Bellingham drew this much reaction. I also wondered what defines a "progressive." Do you have to be a card-carrying Deaniac?

Mr. Neilsen responds (and names others Progressive Majority has backed in Pierce County).

In Bellingham, there were about 60 people, with about half “on the bus” and half local Bellingham/Whatcom County folk. To clear up a misconception, not all of the people from the bus are from the “evil” Seattle! We picked up some people in Lynwood last time, two people even drove over from Spokane to join the trip, etc. I didn’t really poll people, so I don’t have exact numbers.

=> Read more!

We publish our election endorsements for four Tacoma City Council races. The editorial will be posted on this blog at 10 tonight.

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is making a big mistake by pandering to Armenian constituents with a genocide resolution that will only serve to muck up diplomatic relations with Turkey, a crucial U.S. ally in the Middle East.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

A light note at last night's TNT roads and transit forum:

At one point a citizen in the audience accused the Sierra Club and other environmental groups of holding Pierce County's Cross Base Highway project "hostage." Others shouted agreement. Panel member Tim Gould of the Sierra Club was on the spot.

Melody Fleckstein, a member of the Lakewood equestrian community opposed to the project, tried to come to Gould's rescue. She stood and told the audience she wanted to make sure Gould could get safely out of the room and into his car, so she pointed out that the Sierra Club is not one of the groups holding the project "hostage."

Gould, who had argued all night against building new roads because of climate change, hastily declared, "I didn't drive. I took the bus!"

I sat in on the TNT’s public forum on the Roads and Transit package last night. Heard a couple citizens complain that too much of the $18 billion package – about $10.8 billion – would go to Sound Transit.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg and County Council Shawn Bunney both countered with the same point. Much more is being spent on roads when other state transportation funding is considered.

Ladenburg's office ran down the numbers today. The 2003 “nickel package,” which included a 5-cent increase in the gas tax, funds 158 roads projects over 10 years for a total of $3.9 billion. The 2005 Transportation Partnership package, which included a 9-cent increase in the gas tax, raises $7.4 billion for 274 road projects around the state.

No new funds have been provided for Sound Transit since 1996. So adding the 2003 and 2005 provision for roads to the $7 billion for road projects in the R&T packages totals $12 billion for roads.

I would say the comparison is not perfect because not all of the 2003 and 2005 road funds will be spent in the Puget Sound region. But the bulk of it will be, so generally speaking, the point Ladenburg and Bunney sought to make is valid. We're not spending more on transit than roads.

This editorial will appear in the print version of The News Tribune Friday.

Strickland, Manthou
for Tacoma council

Julie Anderson and Lauren Walker are easy City Council choices, but the decisions are harder in two other races featuring well-matched candidates.

The Tacoma City Council races on the Nov. 6 ballot feature two tough-to-choose contests and two others in which the choices are obvious. Let’s start with the hard ones.

At-large Position 8
The most difficult decision is the match between two political newcomers, Marilyn Strickland and David Curry. They seek the seat now held by Bill Evans, who is stepping down due to term limits.
Both candidates are intelligent, community-minded and knowledgable about city issues. They are equally capable of serving well on the council.
Strickland, we believe, would be the better choice because of the particular combination of interests and experience she would bring to the council. She is well-spoken, thoughtful and feels strongly that the city should more to partner with schools and reduce the dropout rate.
Now development director for the Tacoma Public Library, Strickland holds an MBA degree and has business experience working for Starbucks corporate management and for a Tacoma advertising firm. With small-business owner Evans departing, she would be the only council member with significant private-sector work experience.
Curry is executive director of the Tacoma Rescue Mission and a member of the board of Tacoma Public Utilities. Like Strickland, he is a Tacoma native and a product of city schools.
Curry’s experience managing the mission is an asset, but it would be matched on the council by Mike Lonergan, who is a former director of the mission. Similarly, Councilman Jake Fey is a former member of the Utility Board. Strickland would do more to fill gaps in experience and diversity on the council.
District 1
The worst criticism of Spiro Manthou seems to be that he is too quiet. That is hardly sufficient reason to turn out an incumbent who has served capably. Manthou, a manager at Bates Technical College, may not hog the mike, but he pays close attention, makes well-reasoned decisions and displays a good grasp of the city’s budget issues.
Challenger Harold Moss retired from public life last year after two different stints on the City Council and eight years on the Pierce County Council. But he decided last summer that he still has the itch for public service.
Moss is a wonderful person, deservedly admired for his warm personality and ability to get people to work together. But he’s had his turn in public life, and he makes no substantive case for taking Manthou’s place.
Now for the easy picks:

District 3
Lauren Walker, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Washington, is an excellent candidate for the District 3 seat being vacated by one-term Councilman Tom Stenger. The district includes the Hilltop and Central Tacoma.
Walker has lived with her family in the Hilltop for more than 14 years. She is active in neighborhood organizations and understands the district's needs as well as anyone. As an advocate for affordable housing, she would help raise the profile of an issue that is a citywide concern.
Walker’s opponent, Ronnie Allen Warren, is well-meaning but unqualified. A former amateur boxer, he now serves as a street minister. It’s no contest.

At-large Position 7
Incumbent Julie Anderson may be the council’s most effective and hard-driving member. She represents the council on Sound Transit’s board of directors – a challenging assignment that requires considerable political and analytical skill. Earlier this year she was hired as a policy analyst by the state Department of Trade and Economic Development.
Anderson is a fiscal realist who recognizes the city will have to make tough budget choices in coming years because city costs are growing faster than the city’s tax revenues.
Anderson’s opponent, Will Baker, is not a serious candidate.

The folks who try to rescue old landmark buildings, barns and the like have been chronically short of change, at least around here.

They had few alternatives to offer, for example, when MultiCare bought Tacoma's First United Methodist church last year and tore it down.

One of those folks, Michael Sullivan, laments that in Pierce County government, "We've only got a half-time person dealing with all the preservation issues."

Some help may be on the way. With little fanfare, the 2005 Legislature imposed a $5 surcharge on all real estate filings in the state. Four dollars of that pays for historic records; the fifth can be used for general preservation efforts.

In Pierce County, the $1 per filing adds up to about $300,000 a year. By the end of 2007, roughly $600,000 will be available for historic preservation and related effortrs.

Finally, says Sullivan, "We have enough money to do something important."

It's also enough money to fight over. There are many potentially conflicting preservation priorities in Pierce County. County Councilman Tim Farrell is heading a committee trying to find a way to pass out the dollars. Stay tuned.

With some local Democratic political heavyweights in her corner, Tacoma City Council candidate Marilyn Strickland is mounting a formidable campaign. Now she’s got a new weapon: out-of-town doorbellers.

Something called “The Washington Bus” will bring volunteers down from Seattle and environs to join local supporters in doorbelling Tacoma neighbhoods for Strickland.

The bus is the brainchild of an outfit called Progressive Majority, working this year to elect local-government candidates deemed “progressive.” I think it goes without saying that these are all Democrats.

Plans call for volunteers to assemble at a local coffeeshop, fan out around the city and reassemble for a party featuring a Tacoma band called Ghost Runner at Third. Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg and Deputy County Executive Lyle Quasim will give pep talks.

An announcement said food and beer will be “available all day.” Washington Bus organizers say they're "working to get young folks excited about, and involved in, politics."

Update: Let me clarify here. This item resulted from two different email announcements I received about the doorbelling effort this weekend – neither of them from the Strickland campaign. Neither of the messages emphasized beer and drinking. The line about food and beer being available "all day" did appear in one of the announcements, but I don't think the implication was that beer-drinking and doorbelling would be occurring at the same time. For that reason, I've toned down the headline that originally appeared on this posting.
David Seago
Editorial page editor

The state auditor's first performance audit of the state Department of Transporation has just been released. Read it here.

A few highlights at first glance:

--Reducing highway congestion should be DOT's overriding priority.
--Highway planning should be controlled by DOT or a new regional transportation body to better integrate efforts to reduce trafffic congestion.
--Aggressively pursue other HOT lane projects if a pilot congestion-pricing project on SR 167 is successful.
--Reexamine current HOV policy (presumably whether at least three occupants should be required for a vehicle to use an HOV lane.
--Complete HOV lane construction in Puget Sound core, especially in the Tacoma Interstate 5 corridor.

Here's the first AP lead on the report:

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — A new state audit urges the Gregoire administration and the Legislature to aggressively combat traffic congestion in the heavily traveled Puget Sound region.
The performance audit says rush-hour delays are costing motorists time and money. The report suggests steps that could save the economy up to $400 million a year.
The report said the state should explicitly adopt a goal of reducing congestion and set benchmarks for measuring progress. The audit calls for more use of carpools, transit and telecommuting, and suggests coordinating traffic lights on major arterials. The report says existing intrastructure can be improved to help with congestion, but also says new projects will be needed.

We publish our recommendations on the eight Pierce County charter amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot. This editorial will be posted on the Inside the Editorial Page blog at 10 p.m.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is blundering into a diplomatic mess by pushing a House resolution condeming Armenian genocide. We try to keep Taiwan from provoking China; this resolution would needlessly provoke Turkey. Our state delegate does its best to derail the vote.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

We got an interesting letter to the editor from “bikini barista” Jessi Favors, who works at the Hot Chick-a-Latte stand in Spanaway. We turned it into a Your Voice that will run Thursday.

When we first sent photographer Karie Hamilton out last week to get a picture of Jessi, the drive-thru was closed due to the Spanaway water-contamination problem. However, she still got a shot of her, though wearing jeans instead of the bikini bottoms she usually wears. But we wanted a picture of Jessi on the job, so Karie went back out earlier this week.

We thought the original photo was a little racy for our family-friendly print product, so we’re running it here for purely educational reasons: Now you can see what kind of judgment calls we have to make every day. Trying to juice up our page views has absolutely nothing to do with it. Honest.

Read Jessi’s defense of “hot baristas” on Thursday, running with a less revealing photo taken on "apron only" day.

Last week's federal indictment of the five Makahs who poached a grey whale in September reminded me of a recent conversation with Storm Reyes.

Storm – who has periodically written for our opinion pages – is of Puyallup ancestry. But like many Indians, she closely follows other tribes' treaty-right disputes.

Though September's kill was illegal under the tribe's own laws, the Makahs' treaty with the U.S. government explicitly gives them the right to whale. Storm worries that if non-Indians succeed in killing this right – aided by a public backlash against the poaching – the rights of other tribes will be less secure.

Some of Storm's observations:

"These five whalers committed treason. What they did was not just break a law; they put their nation in jeopardy. ... It has little to do with taking a whale and everything to do with treaty rights."

"If the Makah were at anytime to back off and say, 'We're going to give up on this right,' it would be a domino effect. It's not just going to impact them; it's going to impact all of us down the line."

Traditionally, the Makahs went through long purification ceremonies "before anyone ever touched a harpoon." They respected the whales.

"The whole whaling society had to be in on it. What was shocking was the fact that these five whalers put themselves above the nation and put themselves above the whale."

Russell Investment Group CEO Craig Ueland started something last year when he came up with the idea of spurring United Way donations by challenging the community to match outsize private donations – including his own.

United Way of Pierce County will try a similar tactic in this year's campaign – only the matching part will be targeted for a countywide early learning initiative.

Steve and Donna Albers, this year's campaign co-chairs, outlined the plan to our ed board this week. The Albers own Albers & Co., a Tacoma insurance and financial services firm.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has put up a $250,000 matching grant. So have Ueland and his wife. The usual annual gifts faithful donors give to United Way do not count toward the $500,000 match. Only those from companies new to United Way (joined in 2006 or later), from companies whose workplace campaigns have been dormant, and from companies with low participation rates will count toward the match.

Early learning – the goal of having all children "ready to learn" by kindergarten, is one of of three "impact" priorities set by the local United Way board. United Way CEO Rick Allen says the organization hopes to create a countywide "early learning system" that would serve as a national model in preparing children for school.

Pierce County's effort has attracted encouragement from the Gates Foundation, which has signaled that it might provide a large, multi-year grant if United Way comes up with a good business plan and demonstrates strong community support.

The effort is based on growing recognition that focusing on children from birth to three pays the greatest dividends in heading off future problems in school and later life. This belief is the reason Gov. Chris Gregoire created a new state Department of Early Learning. The state also partners with a nonprofit "Thrive by Five" pilot program.

See Allen's recent oped on the subject here. And a TNT editorial here.

Ducked into a Tacoma City Council committee meeting today to catch the results of a feasibility study for the long-hoped-for Train to the Mountain.

The word from consultants: It's feasible. But . . .

The biggest "but" is that it would cost $11 million to upgrade Tacoma Rail's track from Freighthouse Square to Elbe, and $24.3 million if route is extended to Ashford – the National Park Service's preferred terminus. And Tacoma Rail has nowhere near that amount of money available.

But Tacoma Rail Director Paula Henry wants to start seeking state and federal grants for track upgrades; the improvements would also serve Tacoma Rail's efforts to do more freight hauling on the Mountain Division line. The consultants recommended Tacoma Rail seek a private company to operate the tourist train.

The tourist train won't succeed unless the trip each way – the train ride plus a shuttle bus ride to Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park – can be done in less than three hours, the consultants said. Presently the tracks are in such poor condition that the tourist train would be much too slow.

The consultants also said ticket prices would run $80 to $120 for adults and for $60 to $100 for children. An on-board entertainment program would be essential. Not hard to see why.

I've long been skeptical of the Train to the Mountain vision. I don't think the route is very thrilling. But if Tacoma Rail can scare up grants for the upgrades and a private company is willing to assume the financial risks of operating the service, it might be worth a try. The best argument for it might be the boost upgraded tracks would give Tacoma Rail's freight business. (Not speaking for the ed board here, I might add).

Side note: The Spirit of the Mountain Dinner Train, which switched to a Tacoma-to-Kapowsin route on Tacoma Rail tracks last summer, ran at 80 percent occupancy.

Ran into Metro Parks Tacoma Commissioner Victoria Woodards this morning, obtained an update on the touchy Titlow Pool replacement issue.

Much of the public debate has been whether to build a family-oriented play pool or a 50-meter pool, like the one near Titlow Beach in West Tacoma, that competitive and lap swimmers could use. The $6 million the district allocated in a 2005 bond issue to replace the old Titlow pool won't pay for both.

But the district might be able to build both facilities at one location for about $8 million, Woodards said. Staff has been asked to "get some numbers" on that option. No answers yet on where the extra $2 million would come from.

And where might a dual-use facility be built? "That's the question," Woodards acknowledged. The current Titlow location may be too small for both pools, and neighborhood opposition to locating any new pool at Kandle Park playfield is intense.

Woodards didn't say this, but I've heard talk of locating the new pool – or pools – on property just west of the Foss High School parking lot and behind the park headquarters building on South 19th Street. It might be a safe choice politically, but it's an isolated place that can't be easily reached without a car.

Tacoma School Board member Debbie Winskill might be the city's most endangered incumbent in November's election. Despite earlier appearances to the contrary, she's not giving up without a fight.

At least a few Winskill campaign yard signs have emerged in recent days, ending speculation that the 18-year incumbent might not mount much effort to save her seat. But her challenger, former math professor Elly Claus-McGahan, still holds the edge in the yard-sign category, both in quantity and the length of time her signs have been up.

Winskill is battling public discontent over the short, unhappy tenure of former Superintendent Charlie Milligan, who was fired last spring after less that a full year in the job. Milligan departed with a controversial $418,500 settlement (story).

Ironically, Winskill was one of the first board members to sour on Milligan; she and fellow board member Kurt Miller were unwilling to sign off on a "satisfactory" mid-year job evaluation for Milligan – a stand that ultimately resulted in Milligan's termination later in the spring. (story).

Winskill got only 46 percent of the vote in a three-way primary contest.

If there's any industry less popular than the insurance industry, it's Big Tobacco. And both are spending big bucks to defeat ballot measures in the Northwest next month.

Insurers have spent $8.7 million to defeat Washington's Referendum 67, which would uphold a a new law making it easier to sue insurance companies that "unreasonably" deny claims. Trial lawyers have ponied up most of the $1.4 million being spent to pass the measure. (Case for R-67;here case against here.) here

In Oregon, tobacco companies are spending at least $6.6 million – a record for a ballot measure – to defeat a proposed 84.5-cent-per-pack increase on cigarettes. Measure 50, dubbed the Healthy Kids Oregon intiative, would expand health coverage for children.

A national anti-tobacco group called TobaccoFreeKids issued a list of alleged "dirty tricks" that the tobacco companies have pulled in Oregon.

· R.J. Reynolds paid for, wrote and distributed a mass-mailed letter that looked to have been sent by a first grade teacher in Salem, but in fact was mailed from the office of a Reynolds lobbyist.

· R.J. Reynolds and parent company Reynolds American have tried to hide their role in opposing the initiative by creating a front group called Oregonians Against the Blank Check. At least six Oregon TV stations refused to run one of Reynolds’ ads until the company revised them to include a tag line stating it was the sole funder of the ads.

· Oregonian media have repeatedly exposed false claims in R.J. Reynolds’ ads against the initiative, including a false claim that most of the money would not be used for children’s health care.

· Philip Morris funded an unsuccessful lawsuit to block Oregon voters from voting on the initiative.

The Seattle media got it wrong...again.

Whenever something positive happens in Lakewood, the folks to the north can’t be bothered to look farther south than Tacoma. So when star Clover Park High School quarterback Tavita Pritchard of Lakewood led the Stanford Cardinal to a shocking upset over USC Saturday, Seattle TV and newspapers referred to him as a Tacoman. For instance, a posting on Lori Matsukawa’s KING 5 blog is headlined: “Tacoma’s Tavita Pritchard Steps Up.”

Now, it’s possible Pritchard (pictured here in his CPark days) was born in Tacoma, but he grew up and went to school in Lakewood. He has a lot of family in Lakewood. And Clover Park High School is definitely NOT in Tacoma. A lot of the media reports – ones written by Northwest sports writers who should know better – are putting it there. Both the Seattle Times and P-I refer to “Tacoma’s Clover Park.”

To say Clover Park is in Tacoma is like saying Interlake High is in Seattle. It’s in Bellevue, and I suspect folks there wouldn’t appreciate it being moved to Seattle.

The candidate accused of lying about her opponent in a case that reached the state Supreme Court was the victim of an ally’s mistake, Olympia lobbyist Dave Wood insists.

Wood said he, not the candidate, was responsible for the erroneous statement that was branded a willful lie by the state Public Disclosure Commission.

Dave Wood responded after seeing our editorial and Peter Callaghan’s column – both appeared on Sunday – about a state Supreme Court ruling regarding lying in political campaigns (News story). In a 5-4 decision, the court struck down a state law that makes lying in campaign materials illegal and empowers the PDC to enforce it.

The PDC fined Green Party candidate Marilou Rickert $1,000 for falsely saying in a campaign mailing that state Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-Potlatch) had voted to close the Mission Creek youth camp. Here’s what Wood told us:

I was the lobbyist who provided Marilou Rickert with the information she used in her "false" campaign flyer. I testified to the PDC and all along the way that it was a misunderstanding of the facts, not at all intentional.

=> Read more!

We want the world to know that Tacoma City Councilman Mike Lonergan is certainly known to us and not only that, we know him as a righteous, upstanding fellow. He is certainly not an "unknown ho."

That unfortunate caption appeared under Lonergan's photo in the online version of his Sunday oped piece about leadership. It resulted from a glitch in the automated computer upload of the newspaper's daily content to our web site.

Sorry about that, Mike.

Non-lawyers would need a lot of chutzpah to second-guess state supreme court justices on matters of law.

Our editorial today on last week's decision on campaign speech regulation doesn't attempt any lawyering. We stick to what we think makes sense in a layman kind of way rather than trying to construe constitutional questions that divided some very bright justices 5-4.

The majority opinion (which we agreed with) got all the ink, so here are some excerpts from Barbara Madsen's well-argued dissent:

... the majority's decision is an invitation to lie with impunity. The majority opinion advances the efforts of those who would turn political campaigns into contests of the best stratagems of lies and deceit ...

Calculated falsehood falls into that class of utterances which "are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality ..." Hence the knowingly false statement and the false statement made with reckless disregard of the truths do not enjoy constitutional protection. (excerpt from a U.S. Supreme Court precedent)

False campaign statements made with knowledge of falsity ... undercut the trustworthiness of the election process, which can be twisted by untrue speech that deceives the voters ... False campaign statement can cause public suspicion of candidates and their campaigns and engender indifference; it can lead to or increase voter alienation and mistrust of the political process.

To Northeast Tacoma residents convinced our editorial board unfairly "tilts" in favor of developing the North Shore golf course: Hold on!

We met Wednesday with representatives of Save NE Tacoma, a group fighting the golf-course conversion plan. They persuaded us we made a mistake in our Sept. 6 editorial about the issue. We'll be doing a follow-up editorial or column in print.

Our error was saying that the developer, SoundBuilt Homes, has the right to develop the 860-unit project now that the City of Tacoma has been forced, due to a legal blunder, to drop its appeal of a hearing examiner decision.(News story). That was incorrect. It was a mistake, not a manifestation of bias, but I can see why Northeast Tacoma residents were peeved.

In fact, whether the developer has a legal right to develop the property is still very much in dispute and is likely to be decided in court. Gary Huff, attorney for Save NE Tacoma, contends the owner of the golf course is bound by the terms of a 1981 city approval to leave it as open space. Huff points to documents showing that city officials counted the golf course as open space when they determined that the original development qualified as a "planned residential development."

The current developers, who only hold an option on the golf course, maintain they can satisfy the open space requirement without the golf course; they do so by counting private yards and driveways as open space, Huff says.

Huff says city planners have over the years adopted an informal standard that allows this loose interpetation. But it has never been made an official rule and is inconsistent with the rule on the books, which says open space should be "usable landscaped recreation areas."

In short, if the proper standard for open space is applied, the proposed North Shore development cannot meet the requirement and the application should be denied, Huff maintains. He has other arguments as well, which I won't go into here.

When the city recently dropped its appeal, that ended the dispute over whether the developer's application was "substantially complete." That only means that the city now must proceed with review of the project application, including review by a hearing examiner. Save NE Tacoma will contest the application at various points in this process. The parties may go directly to court and ask for judicial interpretation of the open space rule.

Bottom line: We shouldn't have said the developer "has a right to develop." Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. The opponents raise serious legal questions that will have to be resolved before the project can proceed.

We just finished up the candidate interviews we conduct to help us make our endorsements in the Nov. 6 general election. Wouldn’t you know it, the best quote came from the very last candidate.

Rose Ehart, a candidate for University Place City Council, said that although she’s a Democrat, she votes for the person, not the party:

“I’ll vote for Sam Reed (Republican secretary of state) ’til he hurts a puppy.”

Yesterday's post about the RCV charter amendments on the Pierce County ballot prompted some discussion here about whether RCV reduces the ability of "party bosses" to pick candidates. Let me add another point about that.

The RCV charter amendment county voters approved last year specifically recognizes the right of party organizations to decide which candidates can use their party labels – the "right of association" that the U.S. Supreme Court will almost certainly uphold in the current case involving Washington's top two primary.

In other words, the county's Democratic and Republican parties will be able to decide whether one or more particular candidates will be allowed to use R or D after their names on the RCV ballot. And they can make that determination in any matter they wish.

BUT . . . The local parties have voluntarily agreed to make their party-label decisions BEFORE the election filing period so that candidates denied the privilege can still run as independents or minor-party candidates. Proposed Charter Amendment 7 on the Nov. 6 ballots is designed to make it easier for such candidates to get on the ballot; they can collect a nominal amount of signatures rather than holding nominating conventions.

Saturday:

Slice of life edit: Colonoscopies are dreaded but inescapable facts of life for those of us approaching or already in middle age, so this week’s news that the task can now be done with an external scan was greeted with cheers. Unfortunately, you still have to drink a gallon of that awful stuff that’s associated with the procedure. There are some things science just can’t get around.

Sunday:

It’s easy to understand why the state Supreme Court split 5-4 in striking down a state law that bars political candidates from telling lies in campaign materials; it’s a difficult issue. We agree that political speech should have the highest degree of constitutional protection and the government shouldn’t be in the business of policing. But there are limits. In Justice Alexander’s overlooked concurring opinion, which points to a way the Legislature could revisit the issue with a more narrowly tailored law;

The new national report that made Washington look stingy in its foster care payments was misleading because it didn’t health coverage and other benefits the state also provides for foster children. But the state does face serious systemic problems that need to be addressed.

Monday:

We urge Pierce County approval of a plan to use transfer of development rights (TDRs) as a method of preserving endangered farmland. Pierce County is the last in the region to adopt one.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Hey, Michael in Tacoma, George in Olympia, Damon in Burien and several others:
Wonder why we're not running your letters to the editor?

Because they're all identical. Thanks for clogging our letters e-mail with your plagiarized, spoon-fed missives.

The latest letter-writing campaign by folks who can't be troubled to write their own, original letters has something to do with football fans not being able to watch their favorite teams' games on television because of the cable companies' supposedly predatory practices.

Anyway, here's the letter that Michael, George, Damon et al cribbed from the www.IWantMyNFLNetwork.com Web site.

The NFL is far and away America's most popular sport and the NFL Network
covers football 24/7. But too many football fans like me have Comcast,
Time Warner, Charter or Cablevision. We are facing another season when we
won't be able to see the great programming on NFL Network, including eight
NFL games, or we will have to pay more for it compared to those fans lucky
enough to have DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-Verse.

=> Read more!

The prospect of a $1.5 billion shortfall in road funding due to less-than-expected revenue from gas taxes is giving state officials the heebie-jeebies.
Among other things, it could make wider use of tolls more likely.

The Seattle Times broke the news today (story here), reporting that higher gas prices are the main culprit. That prompted a blog commentary by Cascadia Center Director Bruce Agnew, about the extensive range of strategies the region will need to solve its transporation problems.

System-wide tolling may be needed to fund the transporation mega-projects the region needs, Agnew contends. Check out his recent Puget Sound Business Journal article and another blog posting about a federal mandate for tolling on a new SR 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington.

Had an ed board meeting this morning to hear proponents of ranked choice voting make their pitch on the four RCV-related Pierce County charter amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot.

One piece of news emerged: Clallam County will vote next month on enacting an RCV system. If the charter amendment passes, it will join Pierce County as the only two in Washington offering RCV for all countywide races except judge and prosecutor.

What makes this interesting, I think, is that the RCV movement emerged in Clallam completely independent of the the movement in Pierce County. Some Pierce County pols who don't like RCV attribute its ballot success here to the efforts of a small band of RCV "zealots" and their ability to bankroll an effective campaign for the charter amendment.

The RCV effort in Clallam County shows interest in RCV extends beyond any special circumstances in Pierce County. RCV proponents in King County are working to get a charter amendment on the ballot there in 2008.

Another wrinkle: It seems all but certain that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down Washington's "top two" primary system. That means the 2008 primary for state offices would be a "pick-a-party" affair unless lawmakers come up with some workable alternative. That could further fuel interest in RCV voting, perhaps even as a statewide system.

The RCV backers we met with today were Kelly Haughton and Richard Anderson-Connolly, who led the drive for the Pierce County RCV charter amendment last fall. They urge a "no" vote on Proposed Charter Amendment No. 4, which would delay RCV implemention until 2010, and a "no" vote on Amendment 5, which would permanently limit voters to ranking only their top three choices.

They favor Amendment 6, will allows top-three ranking until the county has voting equipment that permits ranking of all choices in each race. They also favor Amendment 7, which provides independent and minor-party candidates equal access to the ballot.

The physical abuse of Rainier School residents by employees, shown on undercover videos taken by KIRO-TV, is outrageous. Our compliments to KIRO for uncovering the mistreatment of vulnerable people. We hope the justice system deals harshly with the defendants. Authorities at the school should be reviewing ways to improve monitoring to prevent this sort of thing.

The governor’s decision to locate the Partnership for Puget Sound headquarters at the Urban Waters facility on the Foss in Tacoma is a big lift for the Urban Waters project.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Who knew that Metro Parks Tacoma Commissioner Victoria Woodards would rather be a full-time church choir director than anything else in the world?

I heard that Woodards was one of the local singers who linked up with visitors from Alabama to rock the Tacoma Art Museum with gospel music on Sunday. The Alabama ladies were quilters whose work is on display in a knockout exhibiition – "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt." My informant said Woodards can really sing.

Woodards, whose day job is aide to Pierce County Councilman Tim Farrell, confesses:

Rumors of vocal talent are highly over rated. I tell people I'm a choir director, not necessarily a singer. I've been directing at Allen AME for over 25 years and a member of the choir for almost 30. I currently direct an all-women's choir and if I could do it full time I would. We're planning a concert sometime right after the first of the year. I'll be sure to send you an invite.

That's Allen African Methodist Church up on Tacoma's Hilltop. If you dig gospel music, singers from neighboring St. John Baptist Church will perfrom at TAM at 2 p.m. Nov. 10. Right after that UWT prof Michael Honey, a scholar of the civil-rights movement, will discuss how groups like the Freedom Quilting Bee rose from the movement. The St. John choir will sing gospel songs from that era. Details here.

Transportation Choices, one of the environmental groups criticized by Roads & Transit opponents this week for accepting "membership dues" from Sound Transit, responds to yesterday's posting about that:

While I appreciate your coverage of the issue, it is deeply concerning that you used a quote from Mark Baerwaldt that casts aspersions on Transportation Choices Coalition’s motivations to support this transportation ballot measure.

The figure quoted by Mr. Baerwaldt is not only inaccurate but misleading. Sound Transit was a dues paying organizational member of Transportation Choices Coalition. Their past dues totaled $17,000 per year not $25,000 as stated by Mr. Baerwaldt.

Further their dues were used to fund our education programs, not advocacy issues. It is our standard policy to use organizational member dues for education and outreach only. I would like to emphasize that our funding comes from a variety of sources including foundations, individual members and organizations.

We have a policy to restrict organizational memberships to no more than 5 percent of our total operating budget. We have variety of organizational members and they do not influence the issues we advocate for. Mr. Baerwaldt’s accusations are unfounded and we would appreciate a clarification in your column. Thanks

Jessyn Farrell
Director
Shefali Ranganathan
Director of Education and Outreach
Transportation Choices Coalition
Seattle

Tacoma Port Commission candidate Bill Casper recently had the pleasure of entertaining four FBI agents with an extended disquistion about a pumpkin and a squash.

I kid you not. Turned out Port Director Tim Farrell "sicced" the feebs on Casper, but Casper apparently holds no hard feelings about it. Here's Casper's tale:

Last week I had a visit from 4 FBI agents. I have been expecting FBI contact for several months after nearly 6 years with several hundred e-mails and phone calls about atomic bombs plus ordering 20 or so books from Amazon describing the details of making improvised atomic bombs.

It turned out the visit was not triggered by any of the above actions. Here is what happened. I wanted to have a full scale physical example of the fissile components that need to be smuggled into America for a small cell of terrorists to make an improvised bomb in their garage or backyard shop.

I also wanted this to explain why the fissile components pose no radiation danger and also no explosive danger until they have been assembled. Point being that it is just wrong to say that it is too late to inspect containers if they are already inside our ports. To the contrary, that is the only place they can be effectively and reliably inspected before they disappear into our hinterland.

With that in mind I called Tim Farrell and left a voice mail about wanting to show him my replicas of full scale atomic bomb components. That is why the FBI was alerted.

My demonstration that alerted the FBI was a medium size hollow pumpkin and a cylindrical squash to represent, full scale, the Hiroshima U-235 Target and Bullet. Also a very small decorated pumpkin to represent the Nagasaki weapons grade Plutonium core. The agents listened attentively for about an hour about my experiences since 9/11.

Casper, who faces Simpson Tacoma Kraft executive Don Johnson on the Nov. 6 ballot, has made his main campaign issue the threat of nuclear explosives entering the country in shipping containers. He maintains there is available technology to effectively screen all inbound containers at American ports.

Imagine a community fair for the homeless. I had a little trouble envisioning that, too, but that is more or less what’s planned at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall on Oct. 10.

Organizers for Pierce County Project Homeless Connect are hoping to attract more than 800 homeless individuals to the event with the offer of a hot breakfast, a hot lunch and a variety of free services, including medical and dental care and help with obtaining other social services and benefits.

Even veterinarians will be on hand to tend to pets.

Philip Mangano, a federal official who bills himself as the nation’s “homeless czar,” will also attend. Mangano heads the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. He’ll be meeting with Tacoma city officials as well to discuss the city’s current initiatives for the homeless. He’ll be meeting with the TNT ed board, too.

Mangano oversees the federal government’s $4 billion-a-year effort to aid the homeless. He champions solutions that emphasize providing longterm housing for homeless individuals rather than cycling them through temporary shelters, jails and hospitals.

The City of Tacoma began just such an effort last year. The city’s homeless encampments have largely disappeared due to aggressive police enforcement, but fewer people than expected took advantage of apartment units that were rented to house them. (Story here).

I spent part of the day visiting the bosses of two terrific outfits, the Emergency Food Network and the FISH Food Banks of Pierce County.

I've been seeing news stories about sharp rises in food prices caused, in part, by the booming demand for corn to produce ethanol. Both EFN's David Ottey and FISH's Beth Elliott told me their organizations have felt the impact.

Elliott said she did a comparison of food prices in January for the same goods and quantities in September showed a total increase of $19,371. The cost of milk for FISH increased by $15,000. The price of powdered milk, usually a food bank staple, is so high FISH has stopped buying it. A case that cost $57 earlier this year now costs $100.

Ottey said the costs of EFN's direct purchases of food, necessary to supplement the donated food the agency distributes to local food banks, have risen sharply, from $320,000 last year to $415,000 this year.

The agencies are trying to stretch dollars by making more boxcar-load purchases of shelf-stable foods. EFN is holding a fundraising dinner and auction Oct. 27 at the Bicentennial Pavilion in Tacoma. It's EFN's 25th anniversary. Tickets $50 a pop. Call 584-1040 for details.

The Tacoma City Council won't decide tonight whether to endorse or oppose – or take no stand at all – on the $18 billion Roads & Transit package on the Nov. 6 ballot. (See yesterday's posting.)

Mayor Bill Baarsma says the resolutions were pulled off tonight's agenda to allow council members time to study information to be provided by Sound Transit Director Joni Earl.

Meanwhile, Mark Baerwaldt, leader of the opposition campaign, took a hard shot at the environmental groups that are backing the measure, calling them "hired-gun environmental groups."

He noted that Transportation Choices, one of the groups, gets $25,000 a year in membership dues from Sound Transit, "clearly tainting" its support for the ballot measure. He also claimed that the Washington Environmental Council and the Washington Conservation Voters share a contract lobbyist with Sound Transit.

The Washington chapter of the Sierra Club, Baerwaldt noted, has no ties to Sound Transit and vocally opposes the measure.

Personally, I think the enviro groups backing the proposition are taking a pragmatic position: They much prefer expanding mass transit to building more highways, but regional politics are such that only a combined roads-and-transit package will move forward.

The Sierra Club's view is that because of global warming, we shouldn't build any more highways at all. This is a group that also doesn't want any more logging at all in our national forests. It's nice to be a purist, but getting things done requires compromises.

Go here to see Environment Washington's case for the Roads & Transit package. Former Tacoma Utility Board member Bill LaBorde heads that group.

Was the King County Sheriff’s Office negligent in not rescuing Tanya Rider more quickly from her crushed SUV? It seemed so at first, but the story has turned out to be considerably more complex.

Federal Way is right to take it slow in extending take-home cars to its police officers.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Stuart Grover sends along this follow-up to our editorial today about the Tacoma Art Museum. Grover was a consultant for the museum during the successful capital fund drive for its new building in downtown Tacoma.

Over the past 25 years, I've been part of 150 capital campaigns, raising $1+ billion. TAM is the highlight.

The actual cost of the project was $27 million, since the $22 million (the number cited in the editorial) doesn't count the City's exceedingly generous donation of property. TAM also raised an additional $6 million in endowment funds, that have helped ensure that's it's run in the black since it opened.

Washington apparently is no slacker in connecting poor kids up to health insurance.

The subject comes up in the context of SCHIP, the federal-state program originally designed to cover low-income kids. We expressed concern about the move in Congress to expand SCHIP subsidies into the middle class, which will inevitably draw lots of children out of their parents' employer-sponsored plans.

In response to the editorial, I got a call from Doug Porter, the assistant secretary for medical assistance in the Department of Social and Health Services.

Porter told me two interesting things.

One, Washington is already covering 94.5 percent of all children below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That's really impressive.

Two, DSHS also wants to avoid pulling kids out of private policies. "We, too, are big fans of employer-sponsored insurance," Porter said.

The plan: Instead of putting privately insured children on SCHIP, subsidize the premiums their families are already paying for employer coverage. "This is always cheaper," Porter said.

Question: As the Democrats in Congress and President Bush are doing battle over the SCHIP expansion, why don't I hear anyone talking about spending less and helping families keep kids in private plans?

When Pierce County holds its first ranked choice voting election, will The News Tribune also rank candidates in its endorsements?

That's going to be something new for our editorial board. We haven't formally discussed it yet. A lot depends on the fate of three RCV-related county charter amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Let's assume Proposed Charter Amendment No. 4 fails. That's the one that would delay RCV until November 2010. If RCV is used in the 2008 general election, as voters decreed last year, voters will probably get to rank only their top three choices.

OK, I can live with that. No matter how large the field of candidates for any office – county executive, county council, assessor-treasurer, sheriff and auditor – we would rank only our top three choices, just as the voters would.

Proposed Charter Amendment No. 5 would limit ranking to the top three choices for each office, both in 2008 and in the future. Proposed Charter Amendment No. 6, however, would require that voters be allowed to rank all the candidates in each race – WHEN suitable tabulation software is available. Right now it's considered unlikely the software would be available for the 2008 general election.

So let's assume that voters won't get to rank all candidates until 2010. Now what?
Say four, five, six or more candidates seek the same office. If the voters are expected to rank them all, shouldn't the editorial board do the same?

Seems right. But personally, I don't look forward to having to render an opinion on which poor candidate in a field of, say, six candidates is the worst of the bunch. That's a pretty hard knock.

That might be one point in favor of just ranking three in each race. Simpler for the voters, too. We'll be looking at the pros and cons of that when the ed board decides its stance on Amendments 5 and 6.

All this sounds a bit like "who's on first?" doesn't it?

With a month to go until the election, some polling shows a majority of voters supporting the $18 billion roads-and-transit package on the Nov. 6 ballot.

The R&T campaign says its latest survey, taken Sept. 22-23, shows 57 percent favoring and 3 percent leaning toward favoring it; 34 percent opposed and 3 percent leaning that way.

But that was before King County Executive Ron Sims, former chairman of Sound Transit, stunned R&T backers by speaking out against the measure last week. It’s hard to say how much that might affect the outcome, but it certainly doesn’t help its chances.

Campaign leaders were heartened by their polling results, however. Pollster Tim Hibbitts noted that eight polls conducting by four different polling firms since April have shown the measure winning between 54 and 61 percent approval. Hibbitts told campaigners the measure is in better shape than he would have expected six months ago. “Voters are looking for solutions,” he said.

Meanwhile, Gov. Chris Gregoire today reiterated her support for the measure. In her weekly press conference (listen here), she told reporters she felt blindsided by Sim’s open opposition because he had told her he would remain neutral.

To see what dueling county executives had to say about R&T, see Sim’s oped piece here and Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg’s rebuttal here.

Tacoma City Council members Julie Anderson and Tom Stenger will square off Tuesday night with dueling resolutions on the big "Roads and Transit" measure on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Anderson has sponsored a resolution endorsing Proposition 1, which would, among other things, extend light rail from Sea-Tac to Tacoma. Stenger's resolution would put the council on record as opposing it.

Anderson is the city's representative on the board of Sound Transit. It's no secret that Stenger felt slighted when the council named Anderson instead. (Correction: it was the county executive, not the council, that named Anderson. See note below). The vacancy was created when Kevin Phelps left the council before his term expired in the summer of 2006.

At any rate, Stenger's resolution contends that Sound Transit failed to keep its Phase I promises from its successful 1996 ballot measure and that its plans for a "dangerous" at-grade Sounder rail crossing of Pacific Avenue would create as "serious disadvantage" for Tacoma residents." He also argues, among other things, that Tacoma was "excluded" from the planning for the roads part of the package and that Tacoma's needs, "which are as great as anybody's, were not fairly considered."

Anderson's resolution lists a number of benefits to Tacoma, including the extension of SR 167 to Tacoma, extension of SR 509 from Sea-Tac Airport to Interstate 5, and a new I-5 access ramp to the Tacoma Mall, bypassing the congested South 38th and Steele streets intersection.

The text of the resolutions are available online as part of the council's Oct. 2 agenda packet on the city's website.

Correction: From Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma:

A correction on your blog about Stenger versus Anderson. The council did not appoint Julie to the Sound Transit Board. This was a decision of the county executive John Ladenburg. John apparently interviewed the two candidates and selected Anderson. Tom was nominated by me (the mayor’s role) for appointment to the Pierce Transit Board with council confirmation. Tom was also appointed to the PSRC Transportation Committee.

A reader writes, we respond:

I'm a long time Tacoma resident and TNT customer, also
an avid reader of the editorial pages and have been
happy with the overall content in the past. But
there's something I'm not happy with, and that is the
dominance of Jonah Goldberg on the TNT's Op-Ed page.
I'm a centrist-liberal, admittedly, and while I tend
to frequently agree with liberal columnists, I do have
an interest in what intelligent conservatives have to
say. I won't go into examples of Goldberg's flaws, but
suffice to say he has an unusually fierce and stubborn
partisan agenda. Rather than comment on the state of
the political culture, his focus tends to be on
propping up the party he likes and attacking the one
he doesn't, often in silly, reality-bending ways.

That would be tolerable if his column were run once
every few weeks, but the TNT seems to be featuring
Goldberg several times a week now. It's getting to the
point where the editorial section is turning me off. I
feel there's a bias creeping in, a favoritism for one
side of the spectrum, especially considering that you
don't balance Goldberg. Why not run Paul Krugman a few
times a week?

Hi, Mike,
I didn't forget you. After you wrote, I went back and surveyed our pages from Aug. 21 to Sept. 21. Here's the count:

Goldberg, 8
Krugman, 3
Krauthammer, 3
Goodman, 4
Dowd, 2
Pitts, 7
Parker, 3
Broder, 7
Friedman, 6
Brooks, 3
Robinson, 3
Kristoff, 1

So you are right, Goldberg got an unusual amount of play in that period. I don't think it was intentional; sometimes the columnists' vacations affect the availability of columns, and the East Coasters often bail out during August. But Goldberg's frequency is something we should watch. Across the year, however, I suspect some columnists will be up in one month and down in another, in terms of their appearance count in the TNT.

Another way of looking at it: If you count Broder and Friedman as centrists and everybody else as either liberal or conservative, we had 17 conservative columns and 20 liberal columns for the month, and 13 centrist columns.

I know Goldberg really sets teeth on edge for our liberal readers, but Dowd and Krugman often have the same effect on conservative readers.

Thanks for your comments. It's always good to step back and take another look every so often.

Dave Seago
Editorial page editor
The News Tribune