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Friday, November 30th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 02:32:46 pm
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.
Categories: How we work, Taking notice
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 01:23:30 pm
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.
Categories: Who's visiting
• 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 11:51:47 am
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:
Categories: What's coming
• 1 comment
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 07:11:44 am
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. 82 percent of immigrant households have at least one worker, compared to 73 percent of native households.
Categories: Taking notice
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 12:05:15 pm
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.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 09:11:57 am
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.
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 07:16:12 am
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.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:56:09 am
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.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Posted by David Seago @ 05:28:58 am
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.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
• 2 comments
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 06:25:54 pm
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.
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.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 05:50:29 pm
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.
Categories: Who's visiting, Taking notice
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:51:07 am
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:
If we elect Rossi next November, does Eyman get the desk in the governor's office?
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 05:38:41 am
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.
What's good for the goose . . .
Categories: How we work
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:20:15 pm
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 06:12:44 pm
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.
Categories: What's coming
Posted by David Seago @ 05:27:47 pm
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 04:55:31 pm
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.
Categories: Taking notice, Editorial cartoons
Monday, November 26th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 06:44:16 pm
 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.
Posted by David Seago @ 06:08:26 am
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.
Categories: Taking notice
Sunday, November 25th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 05:03:17 am
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 06:04:48 am
 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.
Categories: Taking notice
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 05:19:54 pm
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. 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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 11:42:01 am
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:
Categories: What's coming, Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 10:49:44 am
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:
Klein's response:
Joe Wisocki, the manager and golf pro at Chambers Bay Golf Course, says revenue is running ahead of budget in all categories.
Categories: Taking notice, Editorial cartoons
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 05:54:09 am
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.
Categories: Editorial cartoons
• 2 comments
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 05:50:41 am
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.
Didn't get much for my money, did I?
Categories: Editorial cartoons
• 3 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 05:02:42 am
 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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 4 comments
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 01:24:45 am
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.
Categories: Taking notice
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 11:21:16 am
Thursday: Friday: 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:
Categories: What's coming
Posted by David Seago @ 10:42:04 am
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 High Court has been ruling on guns and gun rights since 1820, with
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 05:15:41 am
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:
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 06:48:59 pm
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."
Categories: How we work, Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 06:15:26 pm
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:
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 05:11:55 pm
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 05:01:19 am
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 6 comments
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 07:30:24 pm
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."
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.
Categories: Taking notice
• 5 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 06:23:56 pm
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.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 10:14:08 am
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:
Categories: What's coming
Posted by David Seago @ 05:53:20 am
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:
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 03:02:51 pm
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:
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.
Categories: Taking notice
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