Our lead editorial today chiding the Cascade Water Alliance for snubbing the leaders of two Pierce County cities concerned about Lake Tapps got noticed by the alliance.

By noon we heard from the alliance's public-relations firm, which asked for an editorial board meeting with alliance leaders. We'll probably meet next week.

See our news story about the snub here.

Water availability is likely to be the most contentious natural-resource issue for the growing Puget Sound metro region. The cities east of Seattle want to develop a future water supply independent of Seattle. To do it, they need water from LakeTapps.

But the cities of Bonney Lake, Sumner and Auburn have as stake in Lake Tapps, too, and we think they should have a seat at the table, so to speak.

Tacoma gets water from King County's Green River, but the city shares the supply with with Federal Way and several other South King County cities with its Second Supply pipeline. Seattle was originally supposed to connect to the new pipeline, thus creating a regional water network, but backed out. That was a setback for the region, in our view.

Congressman Adam Smith came calling yesterday to give us an update on his work in the other Washington. His job has changed dramatically since the Democrats won the House last year.

Smith spoke with surprising candor about his years in the minority as "a constant battle for relevance." He described taking meeting after meeting, knowing he couldn't help the people seeking his support but having to act like he could because to admit his irrelevance would have made him even more irrelevant.

Life is a lot different these days. Smith is chairing the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, a post that has afforded him a bigger voice on Iraq and the war on terrorism.

Speaking of relevance, Smith thinks Washington state could end up having some in the Democratic presidential race.

Smith, who is chairing Barack Obama's state campaign, predicted that Obama and Hillary Clinton will both emerge from the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries as contenders with enough campaign cash to continue the fight into March. Which means the Democratic caucus Feb. 9 and the presidential primary Feb. 19 could actually help decide the Democratic nominee.

Saturday:

Habitat for Humanity’s approach to cleaning up a distressed neighborhood in Federal Way is not its usual one-house-at-a-time approach, but it will truly make a difference.

Sunday:

Sound Transit’s Sounder commuter rail service must be extended from Tacoma to South Tacoma and Lakewood. But Sound Transit must do it right, paying close attention to the best principles of urban design to minimize the impact of a heavy-rail line cutting through the Dome District west of Freighthouse Square.

Pierce County, long a laggard in growth management, moved to the forefront last week when the County Council approved an innovative transfer-of-development rights program. It may be the most significant land-use action the county has taken since the adoption of its first comprehensive land-use plan.

Monday:

We take note of the way the Boys & Girls Club is partnering with the community in developing new facilities in Gig Harbor and Puyallup.

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.

No one who follows presidential politics (or watched Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate among the GOP candidates) can miss the fact that illegal immigration has become the hottest of hot-button issues in this country.

Sizzling the keypad is a new "Profile of America's Foreign-Born Population" released this week by the Center for Immigration Studies. Click this link to see it. The CIS thinks the U.S. is letting in too many immigrants, especially illegal immigrants. Regardless of bias, it's a serious outfit, and its numbers – crunched from Census data – are generally solid.

Some of the report's more incendiary findings:

One in three of America's 37.9 million immigrants is here illegally.

Of adults, 31 percent of immigrants have not completed high school, compared to 8 percent of native-born Americans.

A third of immigrant households are on some form of welfare, compared to 19 percent of natives.

On the plus side:

82 percent of immigrant households have at least one worker, compared to 73 percent of native households.

The main reason many immigrants are poor and welfare-dependent is lack of education, not lack of work ethic.

Fred Kiga is regarded as a heavy hitter in political circles. For the past four years, he’s been the Tacoma-based Russell Group’s go-to guy in

government and community matters. Before that, he was chief of staff for Gov. Gary Locke. He’s also a member of the University of Washington Board of Regents.

Now he’s picked up even heavier clout – as a newly-hired top political operative for the Boeing Co. (The old saying in Olympia is that if a bill dies for no discernible reason, Boeing is against it.)

Kiga’s commute from Seattle to his Russell post in Tacoma ended earlier this month when he became director of state and local government relations for Boeing. He’ll work for Bob Watt, Boeing’s vice president for government relations and global citizenship. Acquaintances say he’s probably being groomed to succeed Watt.

I got to know Kiga during a stint as a fellow board member of the Pierce County Reading Foundation. He’s one sharp guy, with a strong social conscience as well. Part of his role at Russell was directing the company’s corporate emphasis on charitable giving and community involvement. Like Russell CEO Craig Ueland, Kiga was keen on wanting to see real results from the company’s civic and charitable efforts.

It was good having Kiga in Tacoma. No word yet on his successor at Russell.

Read Boeing’s news release on Kiga’s appointment here.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg talked about a trip to New Orleans Tuesday to help sell the Tacoma City Council on Sound Transit's commuter rail plans. I asked him afterward to repeat the tale. You'll see his point.

My wife, Jake Fey, Rick Talbert and Spiro Manthou (all four are Tacoma City Council members) went to the National League of Cities convention in New Orleans November 12-17. I tagged along for a vacation. We were sitting in a cafe by the waterfront and remarking what a beautiful Riverwalk they have.

Along the river is a great pedestrian walkway, several parks, a huge shopping mall and their convention center. These stretch several miles from the French Quarter, past the Business District, to the Warehouse district (now converted to
hotels and restaurants). As we ate, I noticed something and asked if anyone else noticed anything unusual right then. No one could think of anything. I then pointed out that a huge freight train full of containers was making it's way right through downtown less than one block away. This was probably a 100-car train.

The fact is that the Riverwalk, the mall, and parks are separated from
the main city by three train tracks that travel at grade all the way
throught New Orleans. Pedestrian and auto traffic crosses mostly
at-grade crossings. Both sides of the tracks are busy and vibrant. It
apparently has not hurt New Orleans at all to have long freight trains
"cutting their city in half." I think the "danger" that the one Sound
Transit set of tracks will have on Tacoma and the Dome District is
overblown.

At Tuesday's City Council study session, Fey was the most vocal in worrying about the potential impact of Sounder trains on the Dome business district. Talbert spoke strongly in favor of Sound Transit's plans, and Manthou, as usual, said nothing. Connie Ladenburg, of course, backed the Sounder extension, noting that South Tacoma has been waiting a long time for the service.

Daniel Tavares Jr. would have gotten rougher treatment in some places than he did in Massachusetts for the crime that originally put him behind bars: fatally stabbing his mother 16 years ago.

A hypothetical: Had Tavares hacked his mother to death in Texas – not Massachusetts – and spent his subsequent prison time attacking guards and threatening to kill people, would he have been free in Graham, armed and angry, a couple weeks ago?

But ancient Rome made Texas look like Massachusetts. If you killed your mother (or father) there, the penalty was fearsome: You were sewn into a sack with a viper, a rooster, a dog and a monkey, then dropped into the sea with those happy companions.

Whatever happens to him now, Tavares should count himself lucky.

There's not much question that Commonwealth of Massachusetts is softer on killers than the State of Washington. Massachusetts doesn't execute anybody for anything; we'll very occasionally march a murderer to the death chamber, so long as he volunteers for it.

But some worthies in Massachusetts are seriously upset about the cluster of blunders (see today's editorial) that allowed Daniel Tavares Jr. to flee the state and land in Graham, where by his own admission he shot a young couple to death a week ago Saturday.

This is a Big Story in Boston, and its connection to Mitt Romney (as governor, he appointed the hapless judge who released Tavares without bail) has given it national political resonance.

Here's a Boston Globe report that the Massachusetts prison officials appear to have dawdled fatally in seeking charges against Tavares for assaulting two prison guards.

On Wednesday, the Boston Herald and Boston Globe reported (as did the TNT) that Massachusetts authorities knew Tavares had fled to Washington three months before the killings, but showed little interest in arresting him here.

In an editorial, the Globe defended the judge who released Tavares without bail.

And Globe columnist Scot Lehigh took a dim view of the the way local officialdom has responded.

Chances are that Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will succeed Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg as chair of Sound Transit when Ladenburg leaves his county post at the end of 2008.

Nickels is campaigning for the post and will probably get it, Tacoma City Councilwoman Julie Anderson told us this week. Chief editorial writer Pat O'Callahan and I had few minutes with Anderson after Tuesday's City Council study session.

Anderson, the council's representative on the Sound Transit board, turned in a low-key performance during the study session. She left it to Ladenburg to address fears that Sound Transit's planned commuter rail line from Freighthouse Square to Lakewood would stunt development of the Tacoma Dome business district.

Regarding Nickels, Anderson told us that Nickels' ascension as Sound Transit chair wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for Tacoma and Pierce County. "I've seen him take some tough votes" that put regional goals ahead of Seattle's, Anderson said.

Anderson discounted my theory that the failure of the big Roads and Transit ballot package means any future light-rail development will be exclusively in King County. "Not unless the charter is changed," she responded.

Sound Transit's statutory taxing district takes in parts of Pierce and Snohomish counties as well as King County. As long as Sound Transit remains a three-county agency, any future expansions will have to serve all three counties, under the principle of "sub-area equity."

Anderson said she will seek another four-year term on the Sound Transit board. She was re-elected to the City Council this month with only token opposition.

Rick Desimone, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray's chief of staff for eight years and a veteran of Washington politics, is happy to be a Tacoman again.

Desimone left Murray's D.C. staff at the end of 2006 and now heads the state office of McBee Strategic, a D.C. political consulting firm with strong Northwest ties. McBee founder Steve McBee worked for U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks for many years, Desimone told me today.

I met Desimone when he dropped by the TNT with Linda Lanham, the subject of my previous post here. I was curious how a top political operator like Desimone ended up a Tacoma resident. Turns out he was already a Tacoma boy.

I ended up in Old Town because I love Tacoma. I grew up in Federal Way, but was always oriented toward Tacoma (mostly because of Frisko Freeze) because I went to Annie Wright for middle school and Bellarmine for high school. I went on to Seattle University after that.

When I was beginning to start my family we moved from Seattle to Tacoma (I've always been one of the commuters). My kids now go to Annie Wright.

Desimone's political resume goes back to working for Seattle City Council candidate Cynthia Sullivan in 1990. He worked for Bill Clinton's two presidential campaigns and held a post in the Clinton administration before joining Murray's staff in 1998. He had run Murray's first re-election campaign.

The conventional wisdom in Washington politics is that Boeing gets what it wants. But there's more to the state's aerospace industry than Boeing, Linda Lanham wants you to know.

Lanham used to be the Machinists union's top lobbyist in Olympia. Now she's wearing a new hat as executive director of the Aerospace Futures Alliance of Washington, a new interest group formed to represent 650 other aerospace-related firms employing 110,000 people in Washington.

Lanham dropped by to see the ed board on the eve of a "Governor's Aerospace Summit" Thursday in Bellevue. Gov. Chris Gregoire and Boeing Commercial CEO Scott Carson will kick off the event, which focuses on how to ensure the state's aerospace industry remains competitive.

Transportation, health care costs, workforce education and taxation, as well as expansion and retention of existing aerospace firms in the state, are the alliance's top concerns, Lanham said.

Pierce County has 60 aerospace-related companies, Lanham said, although the Boeing and Toray Composites plants at Frederickson are the best-known.

Former Snohomish County Executive Bob Drewel chairs the AFAW board. Former Tacoma economic development director Julie Wilkerson, now head of the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Developments, sits on the board.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Dems have taken some hard knocks (from me, among others) for caving into pressure from Tim Eyman to reinstate Initiative 747 in a special session.

Dino Rossi, Gregoire's Republican challenger-apparent, has escaped much of the flak because there's no reason to think he's selling out his conservative principles in pushing to revive I-747.

Rossi's made a big deal of Gregoire seemingly parroting his own call for the special session – evidence of deficient leadership, he said. But Rossi is starting to look like a parrot himself. His demand for the session followed Tim Eyman's, and now – by some coincidence – he's repeating Eyman's demand that the Legislature also abolish banked taxing capacity, something I-747 never did.

Here's what Rossi broadcast via email Monday:

During Thursday’s special session, the Governor and the legislators must pass a bill that reinstates the will of the voters. The voters have spoken and they want a one percent annual cap on property tax increases. In order to do this, the bill needs to put the cap at one percent and eliminate banked capacity. Without these elements, claiming to have passed a one percent property tax cap is false advertising.

If we elect Rossi next November, does Eyman get the desk in the governor's office?

I've had a couple calls recently from readers who can't stand that conservative jerk Jonah Goldberg and wish we would dump his syndicated column.

I told them we get just as many calls demanding we get rid of that liberal jerk Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist we also carry in our opinion pages.
Here's an example, taken from today's Reader Representative log in the newsroom:

Caller:
John N. (Phone number withheld)

Expectation:
Banish Paul Krugman columns from the editorial page. Reader is concerned that we're going the way of the PI. He called the Krugman column "outrageous."

Response:
I called N. who restated that he finds the Tribune is getting too liberal for his tastes. I suggested he call or write editorial page editor Dave Seago with his complaints.

What's good for the goose . . .

Lakewood's mayor, Claudia Thomas, doesn't usually hang with the Tacoma City Council. But she provided the most dramatic moment of its study session today.

Some champions of Tacoma's Dome District have been pressing the council to try to halt the extension of Sound Transit's Sounder line – which now ends at the Dome – to Lakewood. They're mostly worried that the new rails could bisect and blight the area.

Thomas was indignant about yet another delay in delivering commuter rail service to Lakewood, which Sound Transit promised the city way back in the 1996.

"The citizens of Lakewood are tired of waiting," she said. "I can't keep going back to my citizens and making excuses for why we're not there. I'm here to say, 'Let's move.'"

It was a blunt reminder to Tacoma that the 59,000 people next door in Lakewood do have a dog in this fight.

Legislators meeting in special session this week should reinstate Initiative 747, yes. But they should do it temporarily and leave room for more deliberate debate in January's regular session.

Let's be blunt about it: the lahar warning system in the Orting Valley is lousy, mainly because it's not really a system. Better to emulate the state's tsunami warning system, which is funded and operated by the state.

The Pierce County Council voted 7-0 today to establish a transfer-of-development-rights program. It's a far-reaching and progressive land-use move that our editorial board has strongly supported (Latest one here).

The unanimous vote was a surprise. Even the program's strongest skeptic, Councilman Roger Bush, R-Graham, went along, although he did express misgivings. In recent weeks the building industry sought to weaken the plan, but no damaging amendments were approved today.

As a longtime observer of the county's land-use battles, this move strikes me as one of the biggest wins in a long time for smart-growth advocates. Key support for the plan came from Councilman Dick Muri, R-Steilacoom, whose backing was crucial for getting the plan out of committee.

Although I didn't hear this directly from Muri, I'm told that as a Republican, he liked the market-driven principles behind TDR. The idea is to create a market in which developers seeking to build greater density in developed areas can buy development rights from farmers or timber owners. This gives rural landowners a way to extract value from their property without having to sell it for development.

A sense of inevitability took over today when the Tacoma City Council heard Sound Transit officials pitch the agency's plans for crossing the Dome District with Sounder trains.

After Sound Transit Chair John Ladenburg – whose day job is Pierce County executive – explained why building light rail to Lakewood wasn't feasible – for both cost and technical reasons – the council started focusing on how to make sure Sound Transit "does it right" when it builds its long-promised commuter rail line to South Tacoma and Lakewood.

Council members Jake Fey and Julie Anderson – the latter sits on the Sound Transit board – asked City Manager Eric Anderson to work up general "terms of agreement" with Sound Transit that would spell out the city's design goals for the Dome District crossing.

In recent weeks, Dome District business leaders and Tacoma architect Jim Merritt have sought to delay the route decision, contending that the Sounder line would cut the district in half and stunt its development.

But Ladenburg and Sound Transit Director Joni Earl – both Tacoma residents – vowed the agency would work closely with the city on route design to minimize the impact on the district. But Ladenburg made it clear that Sound Transit isn't going to delay the Tacoma-to-Lakewood project any longer. The Sound Transit board is schedule to act Dec. 13 on the final route alignment.

I thought Earl scored points when she noted that "if we were starting with a clean slate," the corridor up South Tacoma Way to Lakewood is not where the city would want a light-rail line. Ladenburg noted that commuter rail is for city-to-city service, while light rail is best for local, "cluster to cluster" routes.

This is the crossing Sound Transit would like to build in order to extend Sounder commuter rail service from Freighthouse Square to Lakewood. The view looks south, showing the crossing just north of the intersection of Pacific Avenue and South Tacoma Way.

The image shows the preferred alternative that Sound Transit officials will discuss with the Tacoma City Council at a noon study session Tuesday. Pacific Avenue would be lowered to pass under the bridged track carrying Sounder trains up the hill south of the Tacoma Rescue Mission, instead of going up South Tacoma Way as Sound Transit originally proposed.

The Sound Transit board is scheduled to make a final decision on the route across Pacific Avenue on Dec. 13.

The route issue is getting heated. Tacoma architect Jim Merritt and Dome District business leaders, including the CEO of the Brown & Haley candy firm, contend a heavy-rail line through the Dome district would be a long-term planning disaster for the district. Sound Transit should use light-rail to connect to Lakewood, they told us in an editorial board meeting last week.

Today, top Sound Transit planners told the ed board that building light-rail to Lakewood would cost four to five times as much commuter rail, and there's no money for that. They also contended that commuter rail, offering a "one-ticket, one-seat" service all the way to Seattle was promised the voters in 1996.

The political dynamics of the dispute are intense. Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg is Sound Transit chairman, and Councilwoman Julie Anderson is Tacoma's representative on the Sound Transit board. Both strongly back the Sounder extension and the preferred alternative.

Click here to see a map of the planned Sounder corridor from Tacoma to Lakewood and potentially to Dupont.

Randy Lewis, the City of Tacoma's lobbyist in Olympia, doesn't buy the notion that the defeat of the $18 billion Roads & Transit package points up the need for "regional governance" of transportation.

A digest of his e-mailed comments:

As the debate about what to do with transportation in our area goes forward, it could be helpful to citizens for the press to clarify some of the points all sides love to make.

I noticed our state auditor (Brian Sonntag) joining the chorus for consolidated governance on your op-ed pages recently (Insight, 11-18). As with most proponents of regionalization, he trotted out that alarming statistic about there being over 100 agencies doing transportation planning.

Proponents of regionalization want to scare people into believing that is evidence of out of control bureaucracy of course so they never point out that the vast majority of those agencies are cities planning their residential and arterial streets. There are 24 cities in Pierce County, another 40 in King and a dozen more in Snohomish and Kitsap. Add four counties and there is the vast bulk of this so-called problem.

=> Read more!

King County Executive Ron Sims will headline Pierce County's annual trails conference Thursday in Puyallup. The event is sponsored by the ForeverGreen Council, a coalition aiding trail-building efforts in Pierce County.

I plan to be there to hear a feasibility report on a proposed 45-mile rail-trail from Tacoma to Elbe. The cost has been pegged at $72.5 million, which could be reduced if alternate routes are found for the most difficult parts of the route.

Sims was invited because of his monumental efforts to expand paved recreational trails in King County. In 2006, after a five-year battle against local opposition, King County opened an 11-mile East Lake Sammamish Trail linking Issaquah, Sammamish and Redmond to other county trails.

Sims – a bicycling enthusiast – also engineered a complex deal this month that will preserve an existing rail line from Renton to Woodinville for a future trail.

Pierce County's longest trail, the popular, 14.5-mile Foothills Trail from Puyallup to South Prairie, may be extended at both ends before long. ForeverGreen is working on plans to connect the Foothills Trails with the Interurban Trail in South King County. Getting across the Puyallup River is the main hurdle.

For more information on the conference, contact Jayme Gordon at jaymeg@piercecountycd.org.

Every good cause, it seems, has a dinner auction going for it. Next Saturday it’s local lawyers who will pony up to support legal aid for the poor in Pierce County. Non-lawyers are welcome, too.

The Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Foundation is holding an “Art for Equal Justice” event from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Tacoma Art Museum. (Details here).

The speaker will be John McKay, the former U.S. attorney in Seattle who lost his position due to alleged politicizations of the Justice Department under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

According to the foundation, Pierce County attorneys volunteer more than $400,000 a year in services for low-income clients needing legal help with family, housing and other issues.

I've long thought the Puyallup Tribe of Indians doesn't maximize its economic opportunities as much as it should, given the prime location of its reservation alongside Interstate in Tacoma.

A recent New York Times story details how Snohomish County's Tulalip tribes are doing a bang-up job of economic diversification on its reservation next to I-5, 35 miles north of Seattle.

In addition to a casino, the tribes' Quil Ceda Village has a Home Depot, a Wal-Mart and a host of other stores and restaurants. They are planning to open a $130 million, 12-story hotel and conference center in July. A $2 million bio-gas plant is scheduled to open in 2009.

The development has reduced tribal unemployment from 65 percent 12 years ago to 10 percent today; the countywide unemployment rate is 4.5 percent.
Unlike the Puyallups, the Tulalips have a 22,000-acre reservation.

The Puyallup Tribe in September signed a deal with SSA Marine, a Seattle-based shipping terminal operator, to build a new container on tribe-owned property on the Hylebos Waterway at the Port of Tacoma. Set to open in 2012, the terminal would be the tribe's first major source of revenue outside its two casinos.

Saturday:

Lakewood’s systematic, neighborhood-by-neighborhood strategy for city code enforcement is a practical, targeted way to reduce blight and crime in the city.

Sunday:

A legislative task force studying how to implement a new family leave benefit in Washington is leaning toward recommending that it be financed with the general fund. That’s a deal-breaker. Backers had proposed that it be paid for with a small payroll tax on all worker. Making in a general-fund entitlement would open the door to costly expansion of the benefit later. Better to scrap it if payroll tax won’t work.

It would be wonderful if the latest advance in stem cell research — using skin cells instead of cells from human embyros to produce stem cells — solves the ethical and moral issues that have surrounded this promising technique. Let’s hope the findings hold up.

Monday:

The Pierce County Council warned that it might have to make further budgets next year after adopting a 2008 county budget. But the council still managed to fund a long list of less-than-essential grants that could be consider the council version of pork.

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 received this letter to the editor too late to publish before the County Council vote on the county's 2008 budget. (news story). But I ran it past county spokesman Ron Klein for a fact-check. The letter:

The Pierce County Council votes Tuesday on a Sewer rate increase. I contend that the rate increase is because of the scheduled spending of $7.5 million (with possible grants) to $10.5 million in the next 2 years for projects. The rate-payer money will pay for a bridge over the railroad tracks at the Chambers Bay property, a dock and something else to do with the railroad tracks.

Klein's response:

This year's sewer rate increase is tied to the Consumer Price Index of 3.5%. The CPI takes the rising cost of labor, equipment, materials, and supplies into consideration. Altogether, sewer rates have increased 22% since 2000, roughly equivalent to the CPI. However, the Chambers Creek Properties projects accounted for only 2% of the total sewer budget over that same time period.

In the 2008 proposed budget, we asked for a total of $3.25 million to complete design and begin construction of the North Dock and build the pedestrian overpass. $2 million of that amount is expected to come from state grants. $1.25 million will be sewer funds. Even if the $1.25 million was removed, the proposed monthly rate increase of $0.75 per family would still be necessary.

Joe Wisocki, the manager and golf pro at Chambers Bay Golf Course, says revenue is running ahead of budget in all categories.

=> Read more!

Speaking of Tavares (see below), I am wondering if any attorneys out there can suggest any possible good reason he was allowed to plead guilty of manslaughter after he stabbed his mother to death back in 1991.

I mean good reason – not a quick-and-dirty plea bargain, or some Massachusetts notion that a guy deserves a break on his first matricide. (After all, the court was dealing with a motherless boy.) See our editorial.

The initial charges against Tavares were murder and attempted murder, the latter for repeatedly stabbing a neighbor who tried to come to his mother's rescue. Those charges somehow evaporated.

A passion killing can qualify as "voluntary" manslaughter, but only if the provocation is extreme. So what could Ann Tavares have done that excused her son from a murder charge? And what about the attack – never punished – on the the Good Samaritan neighbor? Was he chopped liver (so to speak)?

But here I'm practicing law without a license. Anyone who has a license, feel free to enlighten the rest of us.

Since it cost me $2.95 to retrieve from the Boston Globe's archives, I might as well share this skeletal 1991 news story about Daniel Tavares Jr.'s killing of his mother in Massachusetts.

It seems to have been the first time Tavares – now accused of shooting to death a Graham couple – appeared on the radar screen. It was certainly a gruesome debut.

SOMERSET -- A 25-year-old man charged with fatally stabbing his mother with a carving knife is undergoing psychiatric evaluation. Ann Tavares, 46, suffered multiple stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the home where she and her son lived early Thursday morning, said Assistant District Attorney Gilbert Nadeau. Her son, Daniel Tavares, pleaded innocent in Fall River District Court to a charge of murder and was committed to Bridgewater State Hospital for 20 days. Tavares also was charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing Richard Pires, 38, when he tried to intervene in the argument. Pires, who lived in an apartment in the same building as the Tavares, was treated at a hospital and discharged.

Didn't get much for my money, did I?

Pierson Clair, CEO of the Brown & Haley candy firm, is among the opponents of Gary Coy's plan to clean up the old Sperry Ocean Dock on Schuster Parkway and dock two more big marine-reserve ships there.

Clair takes strong exception to a comment I made in an Oct. 23 posting in which I suggested that the Chinese Reconciliation Park would not be affected by Coy's plan because the two new ships would be moored on the other side of the two ships now moored adjacent to the park.

Clair provided this computer-altered photo to show how the additional ships would block more of the Commencement Bay view from the park, which is still under construction.

I stand corrected. My previous comment did recognize significant view impacts from Schuster Parkway and the residential area above. We expect to editorialize on this dispute soon.

The News Tribune's opinionating crew will be too stuffed to do any blogging today. We hope all our readers – in print and online – are having a wonderful holiday with friends, relatives and significant others.

We'll be back in action on Friday.

Thursday:
Some of the things we’re thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Friday:
The accused killer of a Graham-area couple come to Washington with an astonishing record of violence — for which he was treated very leniently by the state of Massachusetts.

The incredible amount of overtime being racked up by Pierce County jail officers is not a good thing. the combination of overworked jailers and a potentially violent, captive inmate population is a recipe for trouble.

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.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to rule on the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.'s, ban on handguns promises a major Second Amendment case. (news story)

Here's an unsolicited, free oped piece we received today from the author of a book on Supreme Court gun cases. It provides some historical context for the latest case.

Update: I also recommend chief editorial writer Patrick O'Callahan's recent Insight article explaining why a Supreme Court's ruling on the D.C. handgun ban might not have as much affect nationwide as gun-rights supporters believe. Read it here.

By Alan Korwin
The Supreme Court today decided to hear the District of Columbia v. Heller civil-rights case, characterized by many as its first gun case since the Miller case in 1939, a common error.

The High Court has been ruling on guns and gun rights since 1820, with
31 cases addressing the subject before Miller and 63 cases afterwards
until this one. The widely quoted Miller case concerned two bootleggers
and a sawed-off shotgun. Miller was murdered before his case could be
retried as directed by the Supreme Court, leaving that short,
controversial decision to be interpreted in many ways.

=> Read more!

Somebody on the Pierce County Council – I can think of two prime suspects – has aimed a budget amendment squarely at county Auditor Pat McCarthy, potential candidate for county executive next year.

Here's the text of the amendment:

Provided, the RCV Voter Education Program plan implementation shall use no name, image or likeness of any Pierce County official, shall not utilize paid radio or TV advertising, and shall focus its efforts solely on print and written means of communication to education to educate Pierce County voters on Rank (sic) Choice Voting.

In other words, council members Calvin Goings, D-Puyallup, and Shawn Bunney, R-Lake Tapps – both candidates for county executive in 2008 – want to make sure McCarthy doesn't go plastering her mug or even her name on any voter education materials if she happens to be running for county executive at the same time.

Suspicious bunch, those council people. At least they didn't forbid newspaper advertising.

Still no declaration of candidacy from Democrat McCarthy yet. If she decides not to run for executive, she could run comfortably for a third term as auditor, thanks to a charter amendment voters approved Nov. 6.

Opened a fat mail envelope today to find an anonymous and lengthy oped submission offering irrefutable insights on global terrorism in general and Al Qaida in particular.

Best part was this assurance in the introduction:

"No waterboards were used in the preparation of this piece."

The Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County piped up today to claim the title of Pierce County's oldest charity.

Our editorial Tuesday on Gateways for Youth and Children called it the oldest charity in the county – a description we picked up from Sunday's fine investigative report by the TNT's Jason Hagey. Here's the friendly rebuttal from the Humane Society's Marguerite Richmond:

In your editorial today, Gateways Charity was mentioned as “Pierce County’s oldest charity.” According to their website, they were formed in 1890. In fact, The Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County was incorporated two years earlier, in October of 1888.

But the interesting part is that while their mission was “the protection of man’s helpmeet, the dumb brute,” up until the early 1920’s the Humane Society spent most of its efforts advocating for children. A Tacoma Ledger article from 1889 describes a Mr. Culver, who was the “child protection officer” for the Humane Society. He was appearing before a judge to protest the imprisonment of four boys who were being held in the old jail. In another report, a judge asks him to find work for “vagrant youngsters.”

When the Humane Society moved its shelter to South 29th and Proctor in 1928, the Children’s Industrial Home was just down the street on South 30th and Washington (where Gateways’ buildings remain). Newspaper references to the Humane Society describe its location as “next to the Home on the Hill”.

I just thought it was interesting that the two organizations go back so far, and were working on the same issues.

And thank you for exposing Gateway Charities’ fraudulent behavior, and for taking a strong stand in your editorial. It’s a terrible shame that this long-standing organization is being destroyed by a few unethical people. Only when nonprofits operate in an environment of transparency and accountability can they create the kind of social change that stand the test of time. Without it, their long history means nothing.

Who needs Pierce County for publicity purposes if you've got Lindsay Lohan?

I was flipping through a recent Star magazine at my hairdresser's last weekend and, to my amazement, spotted an article about Prometa, the anti-drug protocol that's been so controversial in Pierce County. Apparently troubled star Lindsay Lohan (mug shot) has been undergoing treatment for drug addiction using the protocol.

Star magazine reported that Lohan was under the care of Matthew Torrington, M.D., medical director of the PROMETA Center. “In my clinical experience, I have found the treatment to be very, very effective and an incredible aid to people who are suffering,” Torrington told the magazine. Due to patient confidentiality, he wouldn't confirm that Lohan was his patient.

The magazine notes that "the lack of clinical studies has some professionals in the medical world worried" about Torrington’s methods. Dr. David Kan, a substance-abuse expert at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco, told Star: “At this time, there is no peer-reviewed research that has been done on the treatment. There is also no evidence to suggest it is productive.”

Hey, if Lohan stays clean, will the Pierce County Council rethink pulling Prometa's funding? I don't think so, either.

I made a point in a recent posting not to say anything disrespectful about Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America. Even though he fought to retain the institution of slavery.

Several online readers have asked to see the rest of the article about Davis that was submitted last week by Calvin Johnson of Georgia. I ran just the first part of the article in my post because I was amused that a freelancer would submit an article like that to a newspaper way up here in Washington, which didn't even become a state until long after the Civil War.

Ask and ye shall receive. Click on "Read More" to see the entire article. Diehard Southern sympathizers need not take offense because I declined to publish the article in print. We get a ton of unsolicted articles from all over the country. We prefer oped contributions from local writers about state and local issues.

By the way, Washington's House of Representatives voted in 2002 to remove the "Jefferson Davis Highway" designation from what used to be known as Old Highway 99. A historical marker (pictured) designating the highway in honor of Davis rests near the highway in Blaine. But the bill died in a Senate committee.

=> Read more!

If taxpayers don't want to pay for transit and highway improvements in the Puget Sound region, just about the only thing left to do is to try some of the bright ideas suggested by think-tankers.

Proposition 1, the massive roads and transit tax package, crashed and burned at the polls Nov. 6. So policy suggestions by outfits like the Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center for Regional Development may get more serious attention.

The center today released what it called a "Transportation Action Plan for Puget Sound."
Highlights:

* tolling and congestion pricing;
* centralized regional decision-making on transportation;
* more private investment in roads and transit;
* more bus rapid transit and commuter rail;
* an enhanced network of suburban park-and-ride lots;
* more government fleet purchases of - and fuel infrastructure development for - flexible-fuel plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

About those plug-in cars: The mayor of Austin, Tex., actually has a plan to use wind power to charge plug-in electric cars; when the cars are parked, their batteries could also provide "green power to the city. I kid you not. Read the story here.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg's proposal to save county funding for the controversial Prometa drug treatment program didn't surface today. His spokesman, Ron Klein, said it may be unveiled late Tuesday.

Ladenburg had said last week he would try to address the criticisms that led the County Council to suspend funding for the Prometa program.(News story).

In the meantime, County Councilman Calvin Goings said proposed changes to county ethics rules will be heard by the council's operations and rules committee Nov. 26.

A change spurred by the Prometa fuss would require the CEO or director of any organization receiving 30 percent or $50,000 (whichever is less) of its funding from the county to file financial disclosure reports. These would be the same reports now required of candidates for county office. County department heads would also be required to file the reports.

That proposal stems from reports that the director of the Pierce County Alliance, the nonprofit that administers the Prometa program, owned stock in Hythiam, the company that licenses Prometa. Ladenburg and other employees of the Alliance also held Hythiam stock. (story here).

But most of the proposed changes to the ethics code have to do with lobbying regulation. For the first time, professional lobbyists working county issues would have to register and file disclosure reports. Violations could bring a $1,000 fine.

Until the ethical conflicts and governance of the Gateways nonprofit are cleaned up, the best thing for the community to do is to withhold donations. Meanwhile, we hope regulators, including the IRS, will investigate the irregularities The News Tribune’s investigation revealed Sunday.

It was inexecusable for the FBI to have waited so long to alert the courts and defense bar that evidence based on discredited bullet-lead analysis should be reconsidered. The National Academy of Sciences concluded three years ago that the forensic tool is “unreliable and potentially misleading.”

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.

Three years ago, Pierce County Councilman Dick Muri was all in favor of all-mail voting, and county Auditor Pat McCarthy was against it. Now Muri is adamantly against all-mail voting, and McCarthy wants it.

What gives?

Last week, Muri initiated an oped article that appeared in the TNT Wednesday. It declared the council's unanimous opposition to all-mail voting and declared the issue dead. That was news to McCarthy – but she didn't learn about the council's stance until she saw the article.

She fired back with an oped of her own on Friday. Muri responded in a letter to the editor Sunday.

I thought it was pretty cheesy of the council not to inform McCarthy before its oped appeared in the paper. After all, she had testified before the council on Nov. 9, explaining why she felt the advent of ranked-choice voting in most county races next year would make all-mail voting a good idea. Earlier this year, the council had indicated it would make a decision early in 2008 on all-mail voting.

So I asked Muri to go on record explaining his change of heart. If things stand, next fall Pierce County will be the only one in the state that hasn't made the switch to all-mail. Click on "Read More" to see Muri's response:

=> Read more!

A compromise plan to balance farmland preservation and development in the Orting Valley – reported in Friday's The News Tribune, apparently fell apart later that day.

April Putney, Pierce County representive for the land-use watchdog group Futurewise, told me the issue of water rights was the sticking point:

Investco called the negotiations off. We heard it was because they couldn’t agree to the stipulation that lands with conservation easements wouldn’t be allowed to sell or transfer their water rights. (Our thinking: if there’s an easement on that land it’s for farming, and we don’t want any more (developers) selling water rights....

County planning officials confirmed that the deal was at least temporarily derailed. The County Council's community development committee was to resume a hearing on the Alderton-McMillin community plan Monday.

Both Putney and county planning director Chuck Kleeberg said that developers of The Buttes, a large residential development south of Orting, had sold off water rights, then asked for de-designation of valuable farmland on the grounds that without usable water, the land was no longer suited for farming.

Non-profit leader Helen Myrick has dropped a bid to unseat Pierce County Councilman Roger Bush next year. Instead, she'll take a new job with United Way.

Myrick, formerly head of the Greater Pierce County Community Network – focused on reducing child abuse, domestic violence, teen substance abuse, and youth violence – had planned to run as a Democrat.

On Monday she becomes vice president for community impact for United Way of Pierce County, overseeing initiatives focused on affordable housing, early learning and access to health care.

Myrick's move leaves Eatonville School Board member Bruce Lachney as the only announced Democratic challenger against Bush, a former Republican legislator.

Pierce County Assessor Ken Madsen tells me he's acquired a headache trying to figure out all the implications of the temporary demise of Initiative 747, the 1 percent property tax cap.

I've got one, too. Almost everything Tim Eyman's involved in gives me one. More about Eyman in a minute.

The Washington Association of County Officials, Madsen says, is recommending that legislators, if they convene in special session this month, make two fixes if they reinstate I-747.

First, they should eliminate the "enhanced banked capacity" that taxing districts now have as result of the court ruling that struck down I-747. But lawmakers should preserve the banked capacity that local governments earned before the initiative was struck down.

Initiative 747 allowed local governments to "bank" unused tax capacity from years in which they did not raise property taxes to the maximum allowed. County officials believe governments that earned that capacity with fiscal restraint should be able to keep it for urgent priorities.

Second, the assocation argues, lawmakers should bar "levy lid lifts" from becoming permanent unless the ballot language clearly says so. King County Assessor Scott Noble has accused some taxing districts of failing to disclose this in their tax requests.

As for Eyman, who sponsored Initiative 747, he insists that government officials ought to be thankful he didn't push for property tax rollbacks rather than a 1 percent cap. Click on "Read More" to read, in full, his response to one of my questions to him on Friday.

=> Read more!

Three of the closest South Sound races in the Nov. 6 general election are still too close to call.

As of Friday afternoon, Kathy Turner leads Rick Hansen by only 12 votes for the Puyallup City Council at-large seat. University Place City Council incumbent Gerald Gehring is only 17 votes ahead of challenger Rose Ehart. And in a Ruston City Council race, Jim Hedrick has only 8 more votes than Dan Albertson.

That should make for nervous weekends for those folks.

Click here for the latest results from the Pierce County auditor's office.

Saturday:

The indictment of Barry Bonds for lying about steroid use is one of the most sordid chapters in baseball history. It seals the taint already attached to his home-run records. The best thing baseball’s rulers can do now is ratchet up their efforts to clean up the game with a better testing program and stiffer penalties.

Sunday:

Lost in all the partisan jockeying over reinstating Initiative 747’s 1 percent tax cap is the reason local governments are tempted to take advantage of its temporary demise. The cap has made it difficult or impossible to fund the level of police, fire and other public services citizens want.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg’s plan to come back to the County Council next week with a proposal on Prometa drug treatment is the right move. The Pierce County Alliance brought trouble on itself with financial conflicts of interest and its embrace of a marketing role for the unproven treatment. Ladenburg proposes to address those criticisms. The council should give it a fair hearing.

Monday:

The region’s electric utilities, both public and private, would be wise to back a homegrown compromise that would end a public vs. private dispute over sharing the benefits of low-cost federal hydropower.

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.

Metro Parks Tacoma Commissioners Ryan Mello and Victoria Woodards tell me the park board will take a stab at pleasing both competitive swimmers and families with its replacement for Titlow Pool.

District staff and the board have been wrestling for months with the issue.
About $6 million from an $84 million bond issue approved in 2005 was allocated for replacing the aging West End pool. But finding a suitable location and deciding whether to include a 50-meter pool for competitive and lap swimmers have been sticking points.

Mello reports that Wednesday the board agreed in principle on building a pool complex that includes both a 50-meter pool and a play feature like the popular one at Stewart Heights Park in South Tacoma. A resolution to that effect will be considered at the board's next regular meeting Nov. 26.

With that direction, staff will be asked to prepare options for location and financing. Mello adds:

I anticipate that at our last meeting of the year or first or second meeting of next year, the Board will decide on 'where', based on the information further developed by staff, planners and consultants. We also agreed to narrow the site selection to Kandle, MPT Headquarters/Heidelberg Complex Areas and the Titlow Park site.

Woodards says there will have to be a significant private-sector contribution to the project if the 50-meter pool is to be included. Although Woodards didn't say this, I believe she means that the Tacoma Swim Club, which fiercely advocates the 50-meter pool, will have to chip in if it wants a new one.

One difference between the Northwest and the South is that Southerners have longer memories. Consider this submission that showed up in my email:

Dear Editors,
On December 6, 1889, Jefferson Davis, the President of the
Confederacy, died in New Orleans, La. His death was front page
news in both Northern and Southern newpapers. I would appreciate
your publishing my article below, 684 words, for information and
education. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are calling 2008,
"The Year of Jefferson Davis." Thank you!
 
 By Calvin Johnson
The Christmas of 1889 was a sad time in the South.
 December 6th, is the 118th anniversary of the death of a great
American Hero---Jefferson Davis.
 The "Politically Correct" would have you forget the past...But
do not forget the history of the men and women who made the
USA great . . .

Thanks to a state Supreme Court ruling, the 1 percent cap on property taxes is dead – at least until the Legislature reinstates it. But neither Tacoma nor Pierce County will try to take advantage of Initative 747's temporary demise to raise taxes.

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Mayor Bill Baarsma made a point of announcing that the city's 2008 budget will not raise property tax revenues by more than 1 percent.

Ron Klein, spokesman for Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, said the executive has no plans to ask for more than 1 percent. Not that he could get one with Republicans holding a council majority.

Don't know if any other local governments in the county are considering trying to beat the cap. If they do, they have to act soon. That's why I-747 champion Tim Eyman, Republican lawmakers and GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi are urging the governor to call a special session to reinstate the 1 percent cap.

Here'sa letter to the governor from House and Senate Republican leaders calling for a special session. Here's our most recent editorial on the subject.

The cliffhanger vote on a constitutional amendment allowing simple majority approval of school levies mirrored the outcome of many close levy votes: it just squeaked by. With the old 60 percent requirement gone, local funding for schools will be much more stable.

It looks a lot like the state will be lucky if it can fulfill its promise to take over Pierce County's mental health system by Jan. 1. So far, the signs aren't good.

Speculation about a bid for state attorney general by Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg has been heating up this week, as our Political Buzz bloggers have noted.

Here's another telling clue: Ladenburg is slated to be one of the candidate beneficiaries of the state Democrats' annual holiday bash. State Party Chairman Dwight Pelz emailed this invitation today:

Please join us on December 2nd for a celebration of our past and future victories. It will be a last chance to dine and drink with other dedicated and enthusiastic Democrats before we launch the hard work of 2008 - electing Chris Gregoire, John Ladenburg, Darcy Burner, our Presidential nominee, and 100 more Democrats statewide.

Dinner starts at 6:00 p.m. and the reception begins at 7:30.

Our invited special guests include Senator Patty Murray, Governor Chris Gregoire, Congressmen Brian Baird, Norm Dicks, Jay Inslee, Rick Larsen, Jim McDermott, and Adam Smith.

I thought this would be the clincher about Ladenburg's plans. Ladenburg spokesman Ron Klein replies: "Baloney. He has made no decision and probably won't until end of year."

Tacoma's U.S. Rep. Adam Smith is leading a House examination of "strategic communications" – otherwise known as propaganda – used by the state and defense departments.

The New York Times today (article here) quotes Smith as saying:

Our credibility is at stake. If people think they are being manipulated, or if we are delivering a dishonest message, it can undermine the ability of the State Department or the military to carry out the mission.

Smith is chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats. The subcommittee was to meet this morning. See Smith's opening statement here. Webcast and audio of the session are available at the same site.

He visited Iraq earlier this month, a subject he will discuss with the TNT editorial board on Nov. 29.

Mike Cohen, developer of the Point Ruston project on the old Asarco site at Ruston, has landed a "high-end" Silver Cloud hotel for his Commencement Bay site.

From a just-in press release:

The 150-room Point Ruston Silver Cloud Hotel will feature an upscale restaurant and lounge, conference facilities, swimming pool and exercise and spa facilities. Silver Cloud chief executive officer Jim Korbein estimates that the hotel will have 150 employees. The hotel building will sit adjacent to a waterfront plaza where three additional restaurants are planned.

Silver Cloud already operates a 90-room limited-service waterfront hotel in Old Town. We're glad to see Cohen's project moving forward. Public access to the waterfront and an public esplanade are key components of Cohen's plans.

Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy is ticked off at the County Council. In an opinion article that will appear on our letters page Friday, she accuses the council of blindsiding her with a rejection of all-mail voting – and of improperly making a decision behind closed doors.

Although McCarthy testified to the council Friday on her recommendation for all-mail voting in 2008, she writes that she heard nothing more until Wednesday – when she read this oped from the council. She writes:

All seven council members evidently agreed. This was a public decision made behind closed doors – not at an open public meeting pursuant to statute. I am not aware of any public vote on this matter. The council may have violated the law.

(Update:Council Chairman Terry Lee said today the discussion occurred during the council's weekly Tuesday public study session. He also said that "rejection" of all-mail voting required no action by the council.)

McCarthy cites a couple of other instances which struck her as grandstanding by council members, and adds:

It is this process of making policy by headlines and opinion writing, as opposed to dialogue with the executive, department heads and other elected officials who carry out the policies, that disturbs me most . . .
For the council, getting headlines has become more important than making sound government decisions.

McCarthy is expected to announce within weeks whether she will run for county executive next year. Council members Shawn Bunney, R-Lake Tapps, and Calvin Goings, D-Puyallup, are seeking the job, as is Tacoma City Councilman Mike Lonergan. Lonergan is running as an independent.

See Secretary of State Sam Reed's argument for all-mail voting here.

Notes from the Pierce County Council's hearing today on the highly controversial Prometa drug treatment used by the Pierce County Alliance . . .

Councilman Shawn Bunney, soon-to-be-declared candidate for county executive, was primed for the cameras. He brandished a stage prop – a large poster demonstrating what he considered evidence of marketing "hype" for Prometa. He peppered Prometa advocates with pointed questions.

His most effective sally, I thought, was pointing to a Prometa website advertising "The Pierce County Alliance Center for Prometa Treatment." The page includes this statement:

Based on a 2006 pilot program, which delivered exceptionally positive treatment outcomes, the Pierce County Alliance is now offering the PROMETA protocol to patients throughout Washington State for the treatment of methamphetamine and cocaine dependence.

Those "exceptionally positive outcomes" are a matter of sharp dispute. Matt Temmel, the county performance auditor whose report shredded the claims for Prometa made by the Pierce County Alliance, stood by his conclusions in testimony today.

The Alliance countered with heartfelt testimony from several clients who described how Prometa treatment had saved their lives."I got my life back," one woman told the council.

Those anecdotal success stories are powerful. But the alliance damaged its credibility with financial conflicts of interest and less-than-rigorous use of treatment data. See our Sunday editorial here.

Coming up with a way to grade Washington’s public colleges and universities on how effectively and efficiently they educate students – and connect funding to performance – is no easy task.

But that’s one of the mandates lawmakers gave the state Higher Education Coordinating Board, which is due to present the 2008 Legislature a 10-year master plan for post-secondary education.

An accountability system and other elements of a draft plan will be reviewed at a HEC Board session from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday in the student union building at Highline Community College, Des Moines.

A quick glance at the accountability section of the master plan (Word document) suggests the board wants to move deliberately. It proposes establishing a pilot project to run over the next two bienniums, using only new funding based on peformance standards. In the meantime, the current funding model, based simply on enrollment, would continue.

Our lead editorial Wednesday criticizes both Gov. Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi for playing safe politically instead of doing the "thoughtful" thing: Reinstating Initiative 747 with a conservative annual adjustment for inflation.

Also: Most people who have fireplaces love to use them this time of year. But much of urban Pierce County has become an air-pollution non-attainment area, which means particulates in the air have reached unhealthy levels. The warm glow of a real wood fire is nice, but protecting our lungs means obeying local burn bans.

If you're one of those holdouts against all-mail voting, you just got a valentine from the Pierce County Council.

We just received an oped piece issued by the entire council declaring emphatic rejection of Auditor Pat McCarthy's recommendation to switch to all-mail voting next year.

The council reiterates that it has the authority to decide the question, and it's settled: Pierce County will not go the all-mail route, even if it becomes the state's last holdout next year.

The oped will appear Wednesday on our oped page. And here is Secretary of State Sam Reed's oped last summer calling on Pierce County to join the all-mail parade.

I am one of the lucky adoptees. Having been born in Oregon, I can request a copy of my original birth certificate, complete with my biological mother's name. I have had that right since 1998, when voters decided the right of adoptees to access their birth records trumped the interests of birth families in remaining anonymous.

Adoptees in 42 other states, including Washington, are not so fortunate. For many of them, the only birth certificate they may ever see is the one that was doctored after their adoption to list the names of their adopted parents.

Growing up, I never had a strong urge to find my birth parents, but not being able to get my original birth certificate always struck me as strange all the same. It seemed like something akin to having a secret FBI file — or worse, given that a birth certificate is a person's most basic government record.

This week, the Donaldson Institute is out with a report that calls on states to open original birth records to adult adoptees. The institute found that experiences in the eight states that allow access have been overwhelmingly positive.

Birth records are one of the 300 exemptions to public disclosure subject to review by Washington's new state Sunshine Committee. They aren't on the committee's radar screen yet, but the Donaldson report makes a strong case for future consideration. Equal access to birth records is a matter of basic fairness.

It's been mighty windy the past 24 hours. But I'm hoping there will be one positive result from all the bluster: Maybe the last remaining campaign signs will be blown down.

To their credit, most candidates have taken their signs down. But driving around over the weekend, I spotted some laggards. What's worse, some of the signs were for folks who didn't make it through the primary. One was along Ruston Way; there's no excuse whatsoever for that one still being up.

Now that the election is a fading memory, any remaining signs are fair game for anyone who's tired of looking at them. Feel free to yank and dispose.

In Washington, about the only thing we do about school concurrency is require developers to pay impact fees that do little more than help pay for more portable classrooms.

Nothing stops a developer from building a new subdivision even if the local schools are already overcrowded. It’s up to voters to approve bond issues for more schools.

Not so in Florida. Next year a 2005 “school concurrency” law takes effect. Bottom line: If schools are already overcrowded where developers want to put up subdivisions, cities and counties may turn them down. That's sounds pretty drastic, but then Florida has the mother of all school-overcrowding crises.

Check out this oped submission I received from Florida consultant Peter Rebmann, who has agreed to share it here on the blog. (Click on “Read More”)

The piece intrigued me because it spotlights how Florida is dealing with a school-overcrowding crisis that makes our school-construction problems look piddly. But a few decades hence, we could be there, too . . .

=> Read more!

An invitation to "help elect a progressive county executive" shows Calvin Goings has won points with Pierce County's gay and lesbian community.

Gay-rights supporters are hosting a private fundraiser in Tacoma next week for Goings, a County Council member who is seeking the executive's seat next year when current Executive John Ladenburg must step down due to term limits.

Goings, D-Puyallup, is prime sponsor of a proposal to extend employee health benefits to same-sex domestic partners. The council is expected to act on the measure later this month. Ladenburg announced in June he would seek the change (news story).

I also notice that Goings and County Councilman Tim Farrell, D-Tacoma, are holding a "town hall" meeting at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 15 at Snake Lake Nature Center, 1919 S. Tyler St. in Tacoma. Their county-paid flier says the two want to hear from citizens concerned about open space and farmland preservation.

A reader commenting on Sunday's editorial about the Port of Tacoma confronting public opposition to its proposed Maytown distribution center in Thurston County had a question: How much is the port spending on PR in connection with Maytown?

Kelly Kearsley, the TNT's port beat reporter, provides this info on what the port calls "community outreach."

The firm is Barney and Worth – offices in Olympia and Portland – and the port allocated $100,000 for the firm to create a Web site, develop a press strategy, create information materials, such as fact sheets, and organize community round tables.

As of mid-September (that’s the information I have on hand), the port had spent about $37,000 of the contract.

See Barney and Worth's Maytown-related website here. And here's the site created by the Maytown opposition.

The Tacoma Police Department’s change of policy on how and when to issue Amber Alerts is a tacit admission of error in the Zina Linnik abduction and murder case last summer. The News Tribune’s examination of the police handling of the incident shows shows relatively low-level administrators overruled an investigator’s request for an alert when the cops’ first suspect didn’t pan out. We will never know whether an earlier alert would have prevented the girl’s murder, but TPD still won’t say when they believe the girl died. Now that we know the details, the 12-hour delay in issuing the alert appears inexcusable.

The nearly $400 million gusher of construction money ticketed for Fort Lewis in the new military construction bill will be money well spent — and it further secure’s the post’s future as an indispensable strategic asset.

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.
.

Pierce County Councilman Dick Muri notes this morning that Hythiam, the company that licenses the controversial Prometa drug-addiction treatment , has just raised $46 million in a negotiated stock purchase. Muri comments:

OK, they raised another $46 million in cash last week (much more than that in the previous 36 months). How about they use 1% of that amount to fund Prometa studies here in Pierce County!!

Muri is one of the four Republican majority council members who cut off funding last month for a Prometa treatment program used by the Pierce County Alliance, the non-profit that runs treatment for the county’s drug court. He had opposed the original county funding for the program, arguing that taxpayers shouldn’t be funding an trial of an unproven treatment.

The council will hear the alliance’s defense of the program in a hearing at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Room 1045 at the County-City Building. See our Sunday news story here.

David Fischer, the Broadway Center's new director, is a nice guy, but he can bare his fangs when he needs to.

Fischer evidently showed enough sharp teeth to win key concessions recently from Republic Parking, operator of a downtown parking garage that has long been the bane of visitors to events at the Pantages, Rialto and Theater on the Square venues.

After another royal foulup in late September at Republic's Park Plaza North garage – patrons who had paid for parking couldn't get out the gate after their shows, and help was nowhere to be found – Fischer went ballistic (I surmise).

Broadway Center patrons last week received a letter from Fischer "to apologize and celebrate." The letter was accompanied by an apology from Republic for its September system failures. Worth celebrating was Fischer's announcement that henceforth Broadway Center will exercise some management control of Park Plaza North.

Broadway Center staff will now be able to quickly release patrons trapped in the garage after events. In addition, automated ticketing and payment systems will allow the garage to stay open up to two hours after performances.

Fischer is not the first Broadway Center director to figure out that trapping departing customers in the parking garage isn't good for business. But he's the first to really get something done about it.

Paul Miller has the goods on Ron Sims.

Ttransit backers assured us in 1996 that light rail would first be built in Seattle, then extended to Tacoma and other places in the Puget Sound.

Sims was one of them. Miller recalls – in the email below – hearing the King County executive promise that he and other Seattle folks would be there for the South Sound when it was our turn for light rail.

Yet when our turn came, Sims was the most visible and prominent opponent of Proposition 1, which would have finally extended light rail to Tacoma (and Bellevue, and Snohomish County).

Before you read, a short glossary: "Sub-area equity" was the agreement not to steal transportation money from the hinterlands to spend in Seattle. "Commuter rail" is Sounder, whose service through the Kent Valley is limited by having to share the rails wth freight trains.

I was amused reading your editorial response to Ron Sims position vis-à-vis the light rail extension to Tacoma. While I may have disagreed with the timing of the recent ballot measure I applaud the retention of sub-area equity from the first measure for this very reason.

I remember well sitting across the conference table from Ron and other Seattle/ King County representatives as they argued with us against sub-area equity. Ron’s message was flat out “help us get our system built and trust us, we’ll support you in future expansions.” I didn’t believe or trust him then, and I still don’t. The Seattle-centric position of funneling all resources primarily to the core problems never seems to be paired with a comparable concern for funding issues beyond their district boundaries.

Those to the north seem to forget that solving the transportation problems for the many Pierce County residents commuting into King County is what allows King County to maintain its economic strength.  Those who point to commuter rail as the be-all and end-all forget that commuter rail has clear upper constraints on capacity without inflicting adverse impacts on our ports.

Anyway, my compliments on recognizing hypocrisy.

Hey, we may be wonky here, but we keep track of the arts scene, too. And here are a couple items that double as social notes for people who like to dress up and raise auction paddles to boost the community.

The Night Tacoma Danced, the Tacoma Art Museum's annual fundraising gala, is getting a new date and a makeover. And next fall, TAM and the Museum of Glass will jointly hold a fundraising gala featuring the newly remodeled Hotel Murano – now the Sheraton Tacoma.

TAM Dirctor Stephanie Stebich told TAM members by letter this week that The Night Tacoma Danced," usually held in March, will switch to Oct. 18 next year. Called "The Tacoma Art Museum Gala" – no points for originality there – it will be held at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center. (No dancing, evidently; I guess it's too hard on knee replacements.)

But the cool factor will be high on March 8, when TAM and the Museum of Glass jointly stage a gala event at the Hotel Murano, the remodeled and highly artified remake of the Sheraton Tacoma. Hotel tours and a private concert by Burt Bacharach and former lyricist-collaborator Hal David on tap.

For those of you more attuned to Arcade Fire and Spoon, Bacharach-David gave us such hits as "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." I presume TAM and MOG have identified a target demographic here. Tickets are $500 a head, $5,000 a table. Details here.

And the name of this special wing-ding? "Museo: 2-Museum Benefit. Hotel Murano Launch Party."

Gov. Chris Gregoire was hearing Dino Rossi's footsteps when she called on the Legislature today to re-enact a 1 percent cap on local government tax collections.

I'm sure that Jason Mercier, a policy analyst over at the conservative Washington Policy Center, wasn't the only right-leaning blogger who bruited that explanation today, but he's the one who got here first.

He was subtle about it. He just noted that Rossi, the Republican going for rematch with Gregoire next year, issue this statement today before the governor issued hers:

“If Christine Gregoire is serious about providing property tax relief and reinstating the will of the people, then she will act now to cap property tax increases at one-percent,” said Rossi. “This cannot wait until January. Homeowners are threatened with a huge tax hike and local governments and tax districts now have the ability to retroactively tax up to the 6 percent limit. This would be devastating to many senior citizens and low-income people who are being taxed out their homes. Simply asking local governments to not raise taxes is not enough. It is time for Gregoire to turn her words into action and call a one-day session to protect the will of the taxpayers.”

The gov didn't promise to call a special session, but I think her subtext was pretty clear: If we don't re-enact the 1 percent cap, guys, I lose the governor's mansion next year.

Pierce County Councilman Terry Lee, who is NOT running for county executive next year, nonetheless made the sort of proposal today that would have stood him well on stump.

Lee said he will propose creating the posiion of "property tax advisor" to help county residents with tax appeals and other property tax-related matters.
The advisor would be located with the existing performance audit staff or with an ombudsman office that has been discussed. He adds:

The Property Tax Advisor would assist the public by: Answering questions on value notices, appeals, exemptions, taxes, and levy rates; Researching property sales for taxpayers evaluating their assessments; and Guiding taxpayers doing independent research.

We are currently experiencing over 2,500 appeals per year by taxpayers
who have no one helping them to facilitate a successful petition with
the Board of Equalization when challenging their assessed values.

I bounced the idea off County Assessor Ken Madsen, who said Lee has discussed the plan with him. Madsen thinks the position could be "very helpful" to citizens preparing tax appeals and educating the public. "It seems easy, but it is complex," he noted. He did caution, however, that the advisor would have to take care not to act as an advocate in tax matters.

Saturday:
Federal Judge Ron Leighton’s injunction against the state’s controversial “Plan B” rule should be a wake-up call: It’s a clear indication that the U.S. Constitution’s free exercise of religion clause won’t easily be tossed aside. The issue of convenience for those seeking Plan B won’t trump a clearly defined First Amendment right.

Sunday:
Funding for the Pierce County Alliance’s Prometa drug treatment program should stay suspended until some serious flaws are corrected. Among the fixes: No one associated with county government or the alliance should have any financial interest in the product, the alliance’s contract with Hythiam should be revised to eliminate any alliance role in marketing Prometa; and a credible means of evaluating the alliance’s Prometa results must be assured.

The Port of Tacoma is dealing with feisty local opponents who don’t want to see the port jointly develop a new rail distribution center in Thurston County with the Port of Olympia. The port is right to seriously consider other alternatives, but in the meantime, it should be transparent as possible in its dealings with the public, whether they be pro or con.

Monday:
Lakewood city officials face a genuine dilemma in seeking ways to maintain popular community policing efforts in two neighborhoods originally slated to lose them due to budget cuts. Any budget moves to keep the two in place will be only short-term fixes; long-term funding of some kind is the only way to keep neighborhood policing for all parts of the city.

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 year ago, it would have been reasonable to describe Tim Eyman as all washed up.

For a reputed initiative wizard, he'd had suprisingly little success at passing ballot measures or getting them to stick. His biggest triumph was the 1999 passage of Initiative 695, which (though overturned in court) forced the Legislature to repeal the state's detested motor vehicle excise tax. The other big one was I-747 in 2001, which attempted to limit property tax increases to 1 percent a year.

Eyman's credibility was badly damaged in early 2002 by revelations that he'd been secretly paying himself out of campaign contributions. Since then, nearly all the measures he's been connected with – nine, if I'm counting right – have been snakebit. They either didn't make the ballot, were defeated at the polls or thrown out in court.

The exceptions were I-900, a barely controversial 2005 performance-audit measure that even we endorsed, and I-960, which targeted the Legislature's taxing and spending.

But I-960 is a big exception. Its passage Tuesday proved that Eyman, after all those years and despite all those misses, can still pick a target and hit the bull's eye.

But his real joy – much as he's moaning about it in public – has to be the state Supreme Court's absolutely screwy decision this morning to overturn I-747. That's already fueling the kind of grassroots anger that propelled him and I-695 to victory seven years ago.

Lesson: Don't count Eyman out. Don't underestimate him. And if you don't like what he's serving, better dish up a tastier alternative.

Much as we don’t like Initiative 747, the state supreme court’s decision overturning it today was very troubling. It relied on a hypertechnical legal argument and the five-vote “majority” included two pro-tem justices. But now that the initiative is down, state leaders should exercise leadership in offering citizens a less draconian alternative that limits property tax collections to the rate of inflation.

Tuesday’s ringing endorsements of Pierce County charter amendments that made several county offices non-partisan and reaffirmed ranked-choice voting were repudiations of old-time partisan politics.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@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.

Max Baerwaldt, the little-known Seattle businessman who led the campaign against Proposition 1, the huge roads-and-transit package that voters soundly defeated Tuesday, sent the press these comments this morning:

Thank you for your coverage of Prop 1. A big win against a heavily favored juggernaut is a rare and wonderful experience. We were fortunate to have the power of the buzz saw that will forever be known by on our side. Some points to consider for future guidance: Fix what we have first, before starting any new projects. Sound Transit must complete, operate, and validate what they promised in 1996 before asking for any new expansions or new taxes. Fund transportation projects with user fees (gas tax, HOT lanes, congestion pricing), but do not use the regressive sales tax. Reform governance with transparency and direct accountability (directly elected boards). In spite of sound advice to do otherwise, I will now return to the shadows and hideout until the next great battle.

Everyone likes to talk about the Big Election Stories, but the really fun stuff is much farther down the ballot.

Take the Crystal Mountain Sewer Commission. In the race for Position 1, Scott Bowen got 92.86 percent of the vote. Of course, only 14 ballots were cast. One of those went to "Write In," who got 7.14 percent.

Bowen's sitting pretty compared to the candidate for Position 2, Barry Wilcox. Wilcox won only five votes, – eight went to Write In.

That's 38.46 percent against 61.54 percent. How do you get whupped so badly when you're running against no one? And how difficult is it going to be for either Bowen or Wilcox – in an electorate you can count on two hands and one foot – to figure out who voted against them?

Speaking of running against no one, veteran Metro Parks Commissioner Tim Reid ran for re-election against a guy who dropped out of the race long ago. As we reported, Jim Schmidt was moving out of the district and tried unsuccessfully to get his name off the August primary ballot.

This non-candidate came in second, moved on to the November election and wound up winning – as of yesterday's count – 7,124 votes against Reid's 11,806.

I have to assume those 7,124 good citizens just weren't paying attention. If they'd only been reading The News Tribune ...

Here's a really, really tough question: Would you like your fellow Americans to get health care, or would you prefer that they curled up and died on the sidewalks?

That was the ethical dilemma posed by Tacoma's Proposition 1, which simply asked voters if they'd like everyone to be given "access to high-quality health care."

No explanation of how, exactly, the care should be provided – though the particulars of such a policy have been a matter of raging debate for two decades in this country. Details, details.

As of this afternoon's count, 71 percent were voting for treating the sick. What were the other 29 percent thinking? Don't they want people to live? Brutes.

... when people started calling us from places outside the Prop 1 taxing district – especially Gig Harbor – demanding to know why they couldn't vote against the measure.

Did the constitutional amendment that would have let school levies pass with simple majorities go down Tuesday because its backers got greedy?

HJR 4204 could have been tempered in the Legislature by restricting levy votes to the general election or by requiring them to win 55 percent of the ballots intstead of 50 percent-plus-one.

The K-12 establishment would have none of it. It scented victory in November. How could a simple majority measure not win a simple majority?

But the amendment wound up entangled in a mini-tax revolt. Now school districts remain saddled with that old, unfair 60-percent supermajority requirement.

Of Washington's 39 counties, only one – Cowlitz – had worse turnout (20.59 percent) than Pierce County (23.5 percent), according to the secretary of state's office. To see a statewide chart, click here.

Best turnout? That would be tiny Wahkiakum County with 62 percent, followed by Columbia with 57.9, Garfield with 55.2 and Lincoln with 54.1.

One explanation could be that Pierce County hasn't gone over to all-mail voting like every other county. About 75 percent of Pierce County voters vote by mail, but there are still 58 polling places for those who want to vote in person.

Auditor Pat McCarthy submitted a proposal to the Pierce County Council this summer to switch to an all-mail voting system. The adoption of ranked-choice voting for some county offices will make it more cumbersome to offer both in-person and mail-in voting, she argues.

The only truly heated initiative fight in Washington Tuesday was over Tim Eyman’s anti-tax Initiative 960. But that paled in comparison to the highly emotional and expensive battle over repeal of a property-rights measure in Oregon.

The outcome was convincing, and I was glad to see it: Oregon voters emphatically favored cutting back a far-reaching property rights measure approved in 2004 that had gone too far.

This year’s Measure 49 sharply amended Measure 37, a law requiring governments to pay property owners for any economic loss due to land-use regulations – or else waive the rules. In 2005, Washington voters rejected a similar initiative.

Many Oregonians, especially farmers and rural residents, were surprised at how Measure 37 had opened up farmland and forests for development. The new measure allows rural landowners to build a few homes — three in most cases and as many as 10 for some — but curbs larger subdivisions and industrial development allowed under the 2004 law.

Tuesday’s result seems to confirm arguments by Measure 37’s opponents that voters didn’t realize the true consequences. Timber companies were the biggest opponents of Measure 49; environmental groups led the fight for it.

Pierce County voters on Tuesday emphatically endorsed ranked-choice voting – for a second time.

Ballot proposals to delay RCV for two years and to limit ranking to the top three choices in each race were handily rejected. The message to county officials is clear as can be: We want our RCV. It’s set to debut next November.

An RCV proposal in Clallam County foundered, however, with a 55 percent no vote.

Rob Ritchie of FairVote.org sends word that voters approved instant-runoff voting, as RCV is also called, in Sarasota, Fla., and Aspen, Colo.
Cary, N.C., conducted its first RCV election, and a North Carolina State University exit poll showed voters reacted positively.

The outlook for regional transportation solutions is grim in the wake of Proposition 1’s resounding defeat. The strategy of yoking the transit and road measures didn’t work, and Sound Transit may have taken the biggest hit. Voters may have been put off by costs of the two measures, but the truth is that there is no cheap way to alleviate traffic congestion.

The easy win for Initiative 960 shows Tim Eyman is back — and legislators gave him the ammunition by abusing emergency clauses and playing games with Initiative 601 spending limits. There’s a catch: the measure will have to withstand a court challenge from opponents who contend, plausibly, that the constitution can’t be amended by initiative.

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.

Last week, when a Republican lawmaker from Clark County was summarily banished from the Legislature after a gay prostitution scandal, people wondered whether the GOP House leadership would also take umbrage over a straight sex scandal.

The answer appears to be yes. This week, another Clark County Republican, Jim Dunn of Vancouver, was stripped of all his committee assignments over a mysterious but "inappropriate" comment in the Tri-Cities to a woman not his wife.

Dunn said the remark was something like, "I bought you a drink because I want to take you home." Those may not have been the precise words, given the fact that no one seems willing to repeat them verbatim.

This stops somewhere well short of Monicagate, but the Republicans have even denied Dunn the usual travel reimbursements – maybe to keep him away from the Tri-Cities.

Interesting that both these cases feature Republicans, who are usually accused of preferring financial to sexual sleaze.

The definitive comment on ambisexual political scandals came from Edwin Edwards, one of two Louisiana governors (both Democrats, by the way) to be sent to prison. He said he'd be elected unless he was "caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

Then there was the famously corrupt Richard Leche – the other Louisiana governor sent to prison – who said, "When I took the oath of of office, I didn't take a vow of poverty."

In the cases of Curtis and Dunn, make that a vow of chastity.

On some election nights, we opinionaters stay late at the office to write what we call "turnaround" editorials for the next morning. But we're not doing that tonight.

We don't expect the outcome of the high-profile ballot measures like Proposition 1, the Roads and Transit package, to be certain by 10 p.m., which is about the latest we could wait for results. Editorial pages have to "close" earlier than the news pages. Even with later deadlines, close votes on ballot measures and political offices will result in "too close to call" stories in the morning.

Presidential elections are usually "called" early enough for us to do turnaround edits with time to spare. But that wasn't the case in 2000, when when the Bush-Gore contest came down to a standoff in Florida. All we could do was write an editorial expressing the feeling most Americans shared – astonishment.

Like most residents in the small town of Roy, I can't tell what's going in The Case of the Missing Mayor.

The only thing new today is that the police chief confirmed that he asked the sheriff's office to handle the case involving Mayor Kim Eldridge. Eldridge was removed from office Monday, pending an investigation stemming from a 20-year-old felony conviction. (story).

If Eldridge completed all the terms of her sentence and properly applied for reinstatement of her voting rights, she's might be OK. If she didn't, she may have violated the law by illegally voting as a felon and by running for office when she wasn't a legally registered voter.

One thing that puzzles me is exactly how Eldridge was removed as mayor. Can a police chief do that? The sheriff? In this case, it was not be action of the town council. Right now, nobody's talking.

Tacoma City Councilman Mike Lonergan has just announced he will run for Pierce County Executive in 2008. He said he will run as an independent.

Oddly, Lonergan sent his press release with a request to hold it until Thursday, but within minutes the news was all over the county. Can't keep a secret like that.

In his press release (see below), he noted the executive's race will be decided in a November ranked-choice voting election. RCV, or instant-runoff voting as it is also known, presumably gives independents like Lonergan a better chance. Voters who make their first choice a Republican or a Democrat could still mark an independent (or some other candidate) as their second choice.

If Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy jumps into the executive's race as expected, there will be at least two Democrats in the field, the other being County Councilman Calvin Goings. Republican County Councilman Shawn Bunney will also be a contender.

For Lonergan's statement, read on:

=> Read more!

Buddhist monks have led uprisings. So have students, slaves, soldiers, puritans, pretenders and the poor of Paris.

But lawyers?

Oddly enough, a lot of the people fighting the riot police in the streets of Pakistan are attorneys angry that President Musharraf had fired the country's supreme court and dismantled its independent judiciary.

In one battle, lawyers stood on the roof of a court building in Lahore and threw rocks on the police below. They threatened to throw eggs at the Musharraf lackeys who'd been appointed judges after the judiciary had been purged.

Pakistan's not a lost cause if do many of its attorneys are this passionate about the rule of law. Let's hope they have plenty of company.

Our editorial on Musharraf.

The email subject line said, "Reed unveils State Government milestone."

What was the milestone? A 100 percent accurate statewide voter registration database? The closure of the last in-person voting place left in Washington? An actual historic state highway milestone unearthed in the secretary of state's back yard?

Nah, nothing like that. Turns out that SecStateWa now has his very own Myspace page. And a Facebook group. You can catch Sam on YouTube, too, right here.

I was going to say something else, but I better stifle it. I don't want my voter registration cancelled.

Spotted a neat interactive map from the Sunday New York Times that shows which U.S. counties have the highest concentrations of subprime loans – those high-interest, high-risk mortages that have laid low some of the biggest titans on Wall Street.

Pierce County shows up with 32 percent of all mortgage loans in the subprime category. But Grays Harbor County tops the state with 35 percent. King and Snohomish counties have only 20 and 25 percent, respectively.

The national average is 29 percent. The Times reports that subprimes are more likely to be concentrated in low-income and Hispanic communities.

A weekly memo Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson sent this afternoon to City Council members may be the prelude to a fight.

Anderson reports that the state Department of Transportation notified the city it is willing to temporarily help the city pay for additional public-safety costs resulting from its Oct. 23 emergency closure of the Murray Morgan Bridge. But . . .

DOT said it won't pay such costs on a long-term basis, and even in the short term, any mitigation money it does provide should come out of the money the Legislature previously authorized – about $26 million – to rehab or replace the bridge.

Since the city says it will have to spend $190,000 a month for extra police and fire costs to protect the Tideflats and Northeast Tacoma, that bridge account could get drained pretty fast. Construction costs have escalated sharply since that $26 million pot was created. And I can't imagine a new bridge could possibly be constructed in less than two years, even if everybody agreed on a plan right now.

The City Council isn't gonna like that.

From the horse's mouth, here are some rebuttals to accusations that the state Department of Transportation neglected the Murray Morgan bridge to death over the last 15 years.

When transportation chief Paula Hammond came in in last week, we asked a lot of conspiratorial-minded questions about why her agency lost interest in repainting the bridge.

Paint is a bridge's chief protection against corrosion. The Murray Morgan – now ruined by corrosion – was repainted at what appear to have been roughly 10-year intervals until 1983. Then the brushes were stowed for good.

Another suspicious question: Why did the Murray Morgan's "sufficiency rating" fall precipitously from 44.64 in 1998 to 2 – that's right, 2 – in 2001.

Below are WSDOT spokesman Stan Suchan's answers to the questions we asked. As for the first response, I can't help noting that some Roman bridges are still standing – and carrying traffic – after 2,000 years. Can't we do better than 75 years?

What is the life expectancy of a bridge?

The design life of a bridge we build today is generally accepted to be 75 years. When the Murray Morgan Bridge was built the design life of a bridge was generally accepted to be 50 years.

How long does bridge paint last and why wasn't the Murray Morgan Bridge painted after 1983?

=> Read more!

Initiative machine Tim Eyman isn't waiting for election night to put his spin on the result on Proposition 1, the regional roads-and-transit package. He sends this word today to his friends in the media:

On election night, there will be plenty of spin from both sides: "it
was too much transit," "it was too many roads," "it was Sound Transit," "it
was the RTID."

It's all a crock. Prop 1 was doomed from day one because it included a radioactive tax - higher car tab fees.

Takes a spinner to know one.

TNT business columnist Dan Voelpel has chronicled the birth and demise of a plan to blanket Pierce County with a free wi-fi network for Internet access. Last summer, the private firm that tried a pilot project in Steilacoom pulled the plug, saying it couldn't make enough profit.

The idea was doomed from the start, if you buy the argument made by Slate contributor Tim Wu in this article. He makes a powerful case that the only municipal wi-fi networks that work are the ones created as public utilities. In other words, so-called "public-private partnerships" are guaranteed failures when the competition is the big telephone and cable companies. Wu cites plenty of big-city muni wi-fi flops to make his case. Pierce County is not alone.

Worth a read.

--David Seago

Back in action here after a long weekend. Something I heard but forgot to mention last week:

Pierce County government does have an ethics commission, but the way it works is that the public never knows whether a complaint has been filed. Ethics complaints will be disclosed only if the commission investigates and determines that there was an ethical violation.

As Councilman Calvin Goings reminded me last week, this means that if anyone has filed an ethics complaint against County Executive John Ladenburg for possible conflict of interest involving Prometa, the commission won't acknowledge it. If there is an investigation underway, we won't know about it until and unless a hearings examiner decides there was a violation.

The commission was set up this way because council members at the time feared that people would file groundless or trivial ethics complaints as a form of political harassment. Still, I would rather see the county err on the side of openness.

Saturday:
New investment-ethics rules for county officials and nonprofit heads make sense in light of the conflicts of interest unearthed by our Prometa coverage. Disclosure should be nonnegotiable.

Sunday:

According to the Seattle Times, opponents of Roads & Transit claim the light rail link to the South Sound is the worst part of the Proposition 1 package. We beg to disagree.

An $11 million judgment against the most obnoxious people in the country – the loonies who show up with “Thank God for dead soldiers” at soldiers’ burials – raises deep First Amendment issues: They are peacefully assembling to exercise free speech of a religious point of view. But even those rights must be balanced with the privacy of grieving families.

Monday:

Attempts to tighten a boundary for a commercial zone in Graham threaten to hurt landowners banking on development of their properties. It’s another painful consequence of Pierce County’s irresponsible refusal to manage growth in years past.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@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.

Some voters have wondered why they're not seeing the big Roads & Transit measure Nov. 6 (Proposition 1) on their absentee ballots. (See our editorial today.)

It's probably because they don't live within the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID), the mostly urban corridor stretching from DuPont up to Everett. They don't get to vote, but then they don't have to pay the vehicle tax if the measure passes.

Here's an overview map of the RTID district. To see closeups of the three counties, click here. You'll have to download PDFs.

However likeable and competent interim Tacoma Superintendent Art Jarvis may be, the school board must conduct the national search it promised for a permanent superintendent. No reason Jarvis can’t throw his name in that hat, but he shouldn’t have an extra edge, either. Tacoma’s schools – recently rapped, however unfairly, as “dropout factories” – need the very best leadership they can get.

Some voters on the Gig Harbor Peninsula and in other areas outlying the Puget Sound region’s urban core are complaining that they aren’t getting to vote on Roads & Transit. But there’s a reason: They aren’t getting taxed for it, either.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@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.

In researching the editorial that runs today on home inspectors (and the need to have at least some basic standards for them), I read the draft report on the issue by the state Department of Licensing. It will go to the Legislature this coming session.

Here are some tips I garnered from that report that could help home buyers pick a good home inspector.

1. Find your own. Don’t rely on one suggested by the real estate agent who stands to get a commission if the sale goes through.

For a link that could help find a home inspector in your area, click here.

=> Read more!

Dick Dorsett will soon have to be a long-distance friend of the port. The former Pierce County lobbyist and agency head is heading for Washington, D.C.

Dorsett, most visible lately as a co-founder of Friends of the Port, a Port of Tacoma watchdog group, will represent the Strategies 360 political consulting firm in the nation's capital. The Seattle-based firm is headed by Democratic consultant Ron Dotzauer.

Voters may remember Dorsett as the Tacoma Democrat who ran in 2004 for the Pierce County Council seat now held by Tim Farrell. At the time, he was executive director of Washington Association of Area Agencies on Aging. He later worked as a lobbyist for the Port of Tacoma before joining Strategies 360 in 2006.

What most people don't know about Dorsett, a UPS Law School graduate (remember when UPS had a law school?) is that he is an amateur archeologist and speaks Arabic. Check out this part of his bio:

Dick’s horizons and passions extend to the ancient Middle East. He’s long been an avid archaeologist and has worked extensively in Jordan. His Arabic language skills have allowed him to play a key role in the fieldwork of the Madaba Plains Project which conducts excavations south of Amman, Jordan. In addition to excavating ancient sites, Dick has recorded and produced two CDs of Bedouin folk music.