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Monday, December 31st, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 03:56:45 pm
After I noted here Friday that the Dallas Morning News had panned Texas' early learning initiative, John Barnes of the conservative Washington Policy Center e-mailed me with more of the same. Liv Finne, an adjunct scholar at the center, has been reviewing universal preschool programs and similar initiatives and doesn't like what she sees. Here's her take on universal preschool and all-day kindergarten. Here's her lengthier assessment of the prospects of Washington's early learning efforts. The Washington Policy Center can be counted on to oppose any spendy new government program, but Finne's concerns about public preschool programs displacing competent parental care – to the extent that they actually do that – are well-placed. The best research available indicates there's no institutional substitute for mom and dad or their equivalents – providing mom and dad are around, and aren't addicts or dysfunctional in other ways. That doesn't mean schooling won't help little children, so long as it's not cutting out their parents in the bargain.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 02:39:06 pm
Both opinion pages on Tuesday will be devoted to our annual “explainer,” a special layout that identifies the various functions of the opinion section and profiles the newspaper’s editorial board. Thursday: Pierce County fared well in its game of brinksmanship with the state over funding for mental-health services, emerging with more funding than it had originally requested through the usual channels. That’s good news for county residents who depend on those services, but the Legislature is going to have to address the underlying issue of inadequate funding. Local law enforcement officials are just waking up to the fact that Craigslist and other online sites have become a way for prostitutes to “book” clients. Fife city officials have responded with an ordinance banning such online solicitation, but other Pierce County cities don’t seem too concerned. The situation bears watching. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming
• 1 comment
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 10:39:24 am
Our Saturday editorial described one way that public agencies are using (or abusing) a provision of the public records act. In Soter v. Cowles (the records case the state Supreme Court ruled on last week), the Spokane School District used the provision to sue The Spokesman-Review before the newspaper could sue the district. As we said in the editorial, the approach smacks of a strategic lawsuit against public participation. But that's not the only way public agencies are twisting RCW 42.56.540 to foil records requests. Toby Nixon, a former state legislator and president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, explains:
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 05:12:28 am
In his column today, The New York Times’ David Brooks has Part II of his Sidney Awards for best magazine essays of 2007. Part I appeared Thursday. Those essays gave slices of American life; Part II celebrates “more polemical” essays of 2007. Here are links to essays mentioned in today’s column. • Christopher Hitchens’ “The War” in Vanity Fair. • Ross Douthat’s “Lord Have Mercy” in The Claremont Review of Books • Jeffrey Goldberg’s “The Usual Suspect” in The New Republic • Christopher Jencks’ “The Immigration Charade” in The New York Review of Books • Jonathan Haidt’s “Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion” in Edge • J. Bradford DeLong’s “Creative Destruction’s Reconstruction” in the Chronicle of Higher Education • Heather MacDonald’s “The Abduction of Opera” in The City Journal And here again are the links to the essays Brooks cited Thursday:
Categories: Taking notice
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 06:33:25 am
The state Supreme Court's ruling on a Spokane public records case — the subject of our editorial today — had an interesting nuance. Justice Barbara Madsen sided with the majority in upholding lower court rulings allowing the Spokane School District to keep documents about a student's death under wraps. But during oral arguments last March, Madsen seemed to foresee the dangers inherent in keeping the records secret. A Friday story in the Spokesman-Review (the newspaper which was seeking the documents) quoted Madsen's questioning of the school district's attorney:
Madsen wrote a concurring opinion, saying the dissenters made strong policy arguments in favor of public disclosure. But, she argued, the job of changing state law to address those arguments belongs to the Legislature, not the court.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Friday, December 28th, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 04:53:06 pm
I was tempted to cringe on behalf of Mitt Romney over the new AP report that "the Romney administration" let Daniel Tavares Jr. out of prison prematurely. What happened: Someone in the Massachusetts Department of Correction failed to take away 300 days of "good time" Tavares should have forfeited by being a nasty boy in prison. Another 300 days would have saved the life of the Graham couple he killed last month. People make stupid mistakes in every bureaucracy. Doesn't mean it's the governor's fault. But then there's Romney's own campaign-trail demand for the resignation of Kathe Tuttman, the judge who set Tavares free in a bail bond hearing. As it later turned out, Tuttman had been told little about Tavares' violent history – not even the fact that he'd stabbed his mother to death. If Tuttman can be blamed for not knowing something no one had told her, why not Romney for not knowing everything his prison functionaries were up to? Or for summarily calling for Tuttman's head without having a clue about what happened in that bail hearing?
Posted by David Seago @ 10:36:01 am
Editorials for the holiday weekend: Saturday: Sunday: There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Tacoma port commissioners grudgingly agree to join their counterparts in Seattle and Olympia in providing streaming video and taped telecasts of commission meetings. Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Clearing prostitutes from city streets is no longer good enough. Fife police operation shows that cops need to monitor Craig’s List, too, to curb an open market in sex. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:47:04 am
Texas got the jump on Washington by a couple years in launching an ambitious early learning initiative. As we ramp up the state Department of Early Learning, Thrive by Five and other programs, we ought to be learning from Texas' early mistakes. According to the Dallas Morning News, their program hasn't been faring well:
Categories: Taking notice
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 03:32:06 pm
Is or is not the state still using Pierce County as a dumping ground for ex-cons? We applauded the Department of Corrections for changing its evil ways in an editorial Sunday. See my Dec. 23 post below. I looked at the last few months of data. But our sharp-eyed reporter Joseph Turner looked back through August, the first full month a new policy required the DOC to document where its inmates had come from and where it had released them. See his e-mail below, and state Sen. Mike Carrell's response below it. Bottom line: It depends when you start counting. Turner:
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 10:03:25 am
 1. Benazir Bhutto's assassination threatens to set loose the devils in Pakistan, a country that has both nukes and the Taliban. 2. Orting City officials should reconsider their rebuff of a resident who missed the deadline for challenging a utility tax rate hike by two days. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming, Editorial cartoons
Posted by David Seago @ 05:45:47 am
 Hillary Clinton, battling for votes in Iowa, would dearly love to project the family-friendly image Tacoma's Democratic U.S. Rep. Adam Smith so easily – and naturally – conveys in the annual Christmas card sent by his office. I suspect Smith, now in his ninth term representing the Ninth District, is the only member of the state's congressional delegation with two young children. Daughter Kendall, 7, and Jack, 4. Kendall attends a Tacoma elementary school where her mother, Sara, is PTA president. Kendall no longer needs training wheels on her bicycle, and Jack is mad about soccer, the card reports. Only one sentence mentions the congressman's day job: He likes chairing the House Armed Services terrorism committee. Speaking of which, Smith made news last week by calling on U.S. military leaders to shift more resources from Iraq to fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 05:19:15 am
In his column today, The New York Times’ David Brooks lists his choices for best magazine essays of 2007 that captured different slices of American life. Here are links to those essays. • Nick Paumgarten’s “There and Back Again” in The New Yorker • Vanessa Grigoriadis’ “Everybody Sucks” in New York Magazine • Matt Labach’s “Roger Stone, Political Animal” in The Weekly Standard • Michael Lewis’ “The Evolution of an Investor” in Portfolio • Jeremy Kahn’s “The Story of a Snitch” in The Atlantic • “Crime, Drugs, Welfare – and other Good News” by Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin in Commentary
Categories: Taking notice
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 05:01:08 pm
Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne said our editorial earlier this week about an apparent decline in inmate "dumping" here failed to credit one key legislator. State Rep. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, should have been recognized for his role in passing "Fair Share" legislation earlier this year. Says Horne:
Categories: Taking notice
• 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 02:11:24 pm
The draft version of a potentially far-reaching state plan for addressing climate change was released almost unnoticed in the pre-Christmas bustle. I haven’t had a chance to study it yet, but the work of the govenor’s climate advisory team is online at this state Department of Ecology website. And here is DOE’s announcement about the report. The advisory team is accepting public comments on the draft recommendations until Jan. 10. The final report is due to the governor Feb. 7. Among other things, the team recommends adding “global warming pollution” as one of the factors cities and counties must consider to comply with the state’s Growth Management Act. Cities would be encouraged, if not required, to develop as compact, transit-oriented communities. The panel also recommends establishing a firm schedule for adopting a "cap and trade" system for reducing carbon emissions. When we spoke with DOE Director Jay Manning earlier this year about the panel’s work, he acknowledged that changing transportation patterns is “where the rubber really meets the road” in reducing CO2 emissions. More than 70 percent of the CO2 emissions in Washington come from motor vehicles. We’ll have to see how the advisory team proposes to deal with that problem. Presumably it is counting on the Western states being able to impose tougher emissions standards for vehicles – something the EPA blocked just last week.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 06:45:26 am
The Class of 2008 is destined to become the most poked and prodded group of students ever to make its way though the state's public schools. Not only is this the class for which the WASL actually means something, but it also is the first class to have been assigned Secure Student Identification numbers. Those numbers will allow state school officials to get a better picture of what happens to students. Kids who get their diplomas on time are easy to count — it's those students who don't graduate with their class who are harder to track. For too long, the state posted dropout rates that were greatly understated because it didn't count students whose whereabouts were listed as "unknown." The new identification numbers, given to the members of the Class of 2008 when they entered high school as freshmen, should all but eliminate that category. The numbers, due out in a few days, will allow state officials to determine who transferred, who left the public system to go a private school, who moved out of state and who just plain dropped out.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 12:01:00 am
If you haven't already seen it, check out today's Christmas editorial. Every year it's a struggle for editorial writers to find a fresh take on Christmas. Get too secular, and some devout Christians will complain. Get too religious, and a few overbearing secularists will complain. It's a mighty temptation to just drag out the classic "Yes, Virginia" editorial, or perhaps the famous passage from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," but that seems too much like taking the easy way out. So this year we sent chief editorial writer Patrick O'Callahan to the Northwest Room at the Tacoma Public Library. We asked him to collect passages from Christmas editorials The News Tribune published during World War II. We think Pat's selection will remind all of us no one wishes more fervently for "Peace on Earth, goodwill to men" than those whose loved ones are serving their nation in harm's way. On behalf of all of us who work at The News Tribune, we wish our readers a most joyous Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Categories: Editorial outtakes
Monday, December 24th, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 02:42:36 pm
An unexplained detail – make that an unexplained skeleton – has added yet another mysterious twist to the case of the Massachusetts Maniac. The night before he gunned down a young Graham couple last month, Daniel T. Tavares Jr. was bragging to the locals about killing three people in Massachusetts. He'd been convicted of only one – stabbing his mother to death in 1991. Nine years later, in prison, he told police to look in his old back yard for another body, that of a 32-year woman killed by two other guys in "some wild party." The bones showed she'd stabbed to death, like Tavares' mom, but the then-district attorney concluded that Tavares wasn't responsible. That might be a credible conclusion – except for the fact that Massachusetts prosecutors seemed to have this thing for Tavares. They charged him with manslaughter, not murder, for stabbing his mother 16 times. They gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card by failing to charge him with two prison assaults. Then – when he skipped the state with his Washington girlfriend's name tattooed on his neck – they issued an arrest warrant good only in New England. So, we're wondering, where's the third skeleton? We suggest the cops dig up the rest of that back yard.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 01:33:36 pm
State Sen. Mike Carrell says Pierce County residents should be scared — really, really scared — of what's brewing in Olympia. The Lakewood Republican sent out an e-mail over the weekend, warning that regional transportation governance is just a way for liberals to take money out of our pockets — and spend it elsewhere. As evidence, Carrell points to Senate Bill 5803, legislation that would establish a new structure for regional transportation planning. It would authorize a new Regional Transportation Commission to levy tolls without a public vote. Carrell says that when the bill came up for a vote in the Senate this year, he tried but failed to get it amended. The legislation passed the Senate and is still in play in the House. Carrell's e-mail keyed off an Inside the Editorial Page post last week after an editorial board visit from the governor. As Dave Seago explained, Chris Gregoire told us she wants to do away with sub-area equity, the principle that the money raised in a county should be spent in that county. Carrell warns:
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 01:33:24 pm
Christmas Eve seems an appropriate day to mention a charity that does a lot of good in this community. Tacoma Goodwill helps about 4,200 people a year get the education, training and job placement they need to become self-supporting. You might hear a lot more about Goodwill in the new year when the organization begins its public fundraising campaign for the new $20 million Work Opportunity Center it is building at its current location on South 27th Street and Tacoma Avenue. The expansion will help Goodwill meet its goal of tripling services in Pierce County in the next five years.  So far, Goodwill officials have about half of the money they need to build the center. Earlier this month, the governor took a quick break from surveying flood damage to help Goodwill officials unveil their plans. The state is chipping in $1.5 million for the 63,000-square-foot building, which will be located where Goodwill now does auto detailing. Credit is due Goodwill officials, who choose to stay put on the Hilltop rather than relocate. They are planning a handsome building that will be a great asset to the neighborhood.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 01:31:37 pm
Christmas: Wednesday: Washington students’ 85 percent success on the (pared down) WASL ought to be applauded: 100 percent success would mean the test isn’t a test. That’s why there are alternatives. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming, Editorial cartoons
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:23:18 am
Two local state senators, Debbie Regala of Tacoma and Mike Carrell of Lakewood, were not amused by a headline on Thursday's front page: HOUSING PROGRAM TO PUT MORE EX-CONS IN COUNTY They (and other Pierce County lawmakers) have done Herculean work in the Legislature to stop the state from dumping grossly disproportionate numbers of released felons, sex offenders, etc., in Tacoma and Lakewood. Regala and Carrell collaborated on a bill this year that did create a supervised housing experiment for ex-cons. But another part of the law requires the Department of Corrections to send offenders back to their "county of origin" – i.e., the place they were first convicted of a felony. There can be exceptions. The department sometimes releases inmates to a county they didn't come from. Family support is the most common reason. But so far, Corrections isn't using these exceptions against Pierce County. Some offenders who came from elsewhere are released here; but some who came from here are released elsewhere. I checked the department's reports. In October, for example, four ex-cons originally from another county were sent to Pierce – but six of our ex-cons were sent somewhere else. Since the legislation took effect, Pierce County has come out ahead by about six felons. Not a lot, but a damned sight better than getting dozens of felons who shouldn't be here – a pattern we've seen in the past. Mike Carrell e-mailed: "I think the headline on the story SHOULD have read, 'At last, Pierce County is only housing felons from Pierce County,' or 'Pierce County is now a felon-donor county.'" See today's editorial.
Categories: Taking notice, Editorial outtakes
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 10:34:09 am
"When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there." --Presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, trying to explain why he had said he saw his father march with Martin Luther King Jr. -- something that never happened.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 06:16:07 am
Environmentalist and former Tacoma Utility Board member Bill LaBorde wants us all to make noise about the EPA's blow to California car emissions rules this week. LaBorde, who now heads Environment Washington, called on citizens to "raise a stink" about the ruling by logging protests at this website.
We editorial writers won't be adding our names to the list, but our editorial today made it clear we, too, think the EPA ruling was a stinker. But the Detroit News, natch, has a different view.
Categories: Taking notice
Friday, December 21st, 2007
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 01:18:43 pm
This just in: FEMA has added two counties – King and Snohomish – to the seven where flood victims qualify for personal grants and other help from the federal and state governments. Here's the whole list: King, Snohomish, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, Thurston, Clallam and Kitsap. Notice the strange absence of Pierce County? Every Western Washington in its immediate vicinity, including neighbors King, Thurston and Mason, got hit hard enough by the floods to be declared disaster areas. Somehow the catastrophe passed Pierce County by while clobbering watersheds all around it. Did Pat Robertson remember the Puyallup Valley in his prayers?
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 12:46:07 pm
Washington's U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell announced good news today for people seeking Social Security disability benefits. Turns out that the Northwest states rank second in the nation in the average length of time it takes applicants to get hearings on their disability claims. On Tuesday, Senate joined the House in approving an additional $336 million to help the Social Security Administration reduce a huge national backlog of disability claims. The senator proclaims:
In Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska, disabled applicants wait an average of 584 days to get a decision on their eligibility.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 11:35:36 am
Citizens can and do make a difference. Friends of the Port, a small "port policy" group founded just a few months ago, has persuaded the Tacoma Port Commission to start televising its meetings. The Friends' Ronnie Bush reports that the commission voted 4-1 Thursday to put its meetings on the Web with streaming video. Rainier Communications, the county's public cable TV commission, will also broadcast taped video of the meetings. Both operations will start in March. The dissenter was former legislator Ted Bottiger, who groused about the costs and urged the broadcasts be tried on a trial basis first to gauge viewership. Although she voted for them, Commissioner Connie Bacon said she was convinced few citizens would watch, according to Bush. As we noted in our most recent editorial about this, the size of the viewing audience is not the point. The point is making the commission's deliberations as open and accessible as possible to the public. The ports of Olympia and Seattle already provide telecasts and-or webcasts of their meetings, as do the Tacoma City Council and the Pierce County Council. Tacoma's port commission, accustomed to operating largely out of the public eye, has been way behind the curve in promoting transparency. It would be a good idea for the commissioners to get used to making decisions before the cameras. This will help remind them that they are in fact working in public, and that the audience, however small, is entitled to see and hear the commissioners discuss the public's business. Friends of the Port, by the way, prefers not to be called a "watchdog group." "Policy group" is its preferred descriptor. Whatever. If Tacoma's port commissioners seem somewhat annoyed by the Friends, they can be thankful they're not overseeing the Port of Seattle. A new state performance audit hammers the Port of Seatle for wasting nearly $100 million on sloppy and improper management of contracting and construction. A spokesman for the state auditor's office says it currently has no plans for a performance audit of the Port of Tacoma.
Categories: Taking notice, Editorial outtakes
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 10:25:26 am
Here's another do-it-yourself test to find out how your political philosophy lines up with those of the presidential candidates. These tests may work well for people who pretty much subscribe to either the Republican or Democratic platform in its entirety. They don't seem to pick up the fine shadings of issues and positions that may not be stereotypically conservative or liberal. The last one on of these I took told me my guys were Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, in that order. This one tells me I should vote for John McCain, Mitt Romney or Duncan Hunter, in that order. (I confess, I don't know who Duncan Hunter is; does he play for the White Sox?) I guess if you want universal health insurance in some form, you're a flaming liberal, but if you think the country should be able to control its borders, you must be a Republican. Isn't this kind of thinking an insult to people in both parties?
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:55:52 am
 You'd look like this, too, if you'd been married to Bill Clinton for the last 32 years. Look for Ellen Goodman's take on sexism and Hillary's wrinkles, on the ed page Friday.
Categories: Taking notice
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 05:15:33 pm
 The opinion factory here gets a lot of holiday greeting cards from politicians, local institutions and businesses. This one, from the Foss Waterway Seaport, was my favorite this season. It shows the historic Balfour Dock on the west side of the Foss, north of the Murray Morgan Bridge. The reminded me that work is underway on rebuilding the dock structure and rehabbing the cavernous building, which will ultimately house a museum celebrating the history of Tacoma's working waterfront. Here's an update from Seaport Director Tom Cashman.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 12:08:25 pm
Not surprisingly, some Republicans in Olympia think we gave the governor too much credit in today's editorial on her supplemental budget proposal for 2008.
Categories: Taking notice
• 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 11:17:37 am
 Pierce County’s Chambers Bay Golf Course has turned in a great scorecard for its first season. Key numbers from course general manager Joe Wisocki: Tee-time reservations are running about 16 percent ahead of projections. Before December’s stormy weather, they were running 25 percent ahead. Pro shop revenue is 50 percent over projections, and restaurant revenue is more than 210 percent over projections. The number I really like, though, is the additional $1.4 million the governor’s proposed capital budget includes for a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks below the golf course. The Legislature has already approved $1 million for the bridge. The county has earmarked $1 for the project. If the 2008 Legislature approves the governor’s request, construction could begin next summer. That would open up more than 2 miles of undeveloped Puget Sound shoreline for beach walkers and picnickers. Finally, county public works officials estimate that an average of 200 to 300 people a day use the 3.1-mile recreational path that snakes around and through the course; the number doubles or triples on weekends. As many as 1,500 were counted on the trail during a four-hour period on a sunny day last summer. Call it Ladenburg Links if you want, but it’s hard to argue that the course hasn’t been a hit with the public – golfers and non-golfers alike.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 10:15:51 am
It shouldn’t have taken a class-action lawsuit for state corrections officials to discover widespread problems with prison workers abusing women inmates at Purdy and other state penal facilities. Consequences are due not only for the workers who victimized inmates but also for administrators who failed properly investigate the inmates’ claims. This is a major disgrace for the corrections system. EPA has delivered a devastating blow to efforts by California, Washington and 16 other states seeking to curb auto emissions. The administration is putting the interests of the automotive industries ahead legitimate environmental concerns. About our editorials:
Categories: What's coming
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 09:00:16 am
This time of year, everyone comes out with their Top 10 list. But one list you hate to see is from Doctors Without Borders, the international humanitarian organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999: the Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2007. Unfortunately, only one entry on the list is good news: The Expanded Use of Nutrient Dense Ready-to-Use Foods Crucial for Reducing Childhood Malnutrition. The others are essentially a litany of woes around the world – mostly in Third World countries – that have received little news coverage. To see the full list, click here.
Categories: Taking notice
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 04:36:10 pm
Here's Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma's take on two of the issues the City Council took up Tuesday night:
Regarding health benefits for council members (see previous post):
Categories: Taking notice
• 4 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 04:04:31 pm
We're glad the Tacoma City Council punted last night instead of voting to give council members the same health benefits as full time city employees. We found out about Councilman Bill Evans' proposal too late to prepare an editorial on the issue. We probably would have been against it. But the council ended up voting 5-4 to put the proposal off until March 18, giving a citizen committee time to study it and make recommendations. So we'll get another crack at it. We'll see what the committee says. Apparently the council also wants the committee to consider whether council members should be considered full-time officials. This is news to us, so we'll see what more we can learn about this. But most of our ed board – like most citizens, I suspect – regards only the mayor position as a full-time job. The intent of the city charter is to have a citizen council rather than one comprised of people who would be making a living at it. While state law may not regard health benefits as additional compensation, providing full health coverage to council members for only $40 a month would certainly provide a financial incentive for some people to become candidates. In fact, that's part of Evans' justification for it. But I'd rather see citizens running for the council because they want to serve. Lonergan moved to continue the health benefits until March 18. This would give the Citizen Committee time to study and make a recommendation. It was a 5-4 vote to hold it over (4 against - Evans, Stenger, Fey and Baarsma)
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 12:45:21 pm
On an 8-1 vote, with Councilman Mike Lonergan the lone dissenter, the Tacoma City Council approved plans to build a "platinum" $32.5 million Urban Waters facility on the Thea Foss Waterway. Platinum is the highest standard of "green building" certification. Our editorial position was that the plan is too costly, at a whopping $580 per square foot. Mayor Bill Baarsma in particular championed the project as an "environmental statement" by the city. Supporters also argued the savings in energy costs would eventually pay for themselves. The city's sewer, stormwater and solid waste customers will cover the tab. At least the east side of the Foss (north of the Murray Morgan Bridge) will get an aesthetic lift from an attractive building. But city officials will have to figure out what to do with 100-plus workers and only 35 parking spaces.
Categories: Taking notice
• 8 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 05:22:25 am
For a perceptive and stylish take on state Rep. Fred Jarrett's defection to the Democrats, check out this column by Richard Davis in today's Everett Herald. Davis, a former oped columnist for the TNT, cleverly dissects Jarrett's "It's not me, it's you" dig at the GOP, which is losing ground in the suburbs east of Seattle. After Davis joined the Association of Washington Business last year as communications veep, we discontinued his regular column but still pick up one of his columns now and then. Davis' columns have been appearing in several other Washington newspapers, but he tells me he plans to take a break from columnizing for a while.
Categories: Taking notice
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
Posted by David Seago @ 10:14:51 pm
The portents abound: Regional Transportation Governance is barreling down on us Pierce County folks whether we like it or not. The latest: During her visit with the TNT ed board today, Gov. Chris Gregoire declared, "It's time we had a heavy-duty conversation about governance" in the wake of Proposition 1's drubbing at the polls. The governor said she was prepared to introduce her own RTG legislation for the 2008 session, but she agreed to let state Sens. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, take the lead in crafting a proposal. Gregoire reminded us that a blue-ribbon panel led by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and businessman John Stanton in 2006 had recommended putting regional road and transit authority in the hands of one body consisting mostly of directly elected members. RTG means no more Sound Transit, no more Regional Transportation Improvement District - bodies comprised of elected city and county officials from Pierce, King and Snohomish counties. And the notion of "sub-area equity," Gregoire said emphatically, has got to go. That gave us a little shudder, because the principle that the money raised in each county should be spent each county is pretty much Holy Writ in Pierce and Snohomish counties. The problem with sub-area equity, Gregoire contended, is that local goodies get piled atop the most serious regional priorities, for reasons of local politics, that the total cost of any package balloons and it topples of its own weight. A pretty good description, I admit, of what happened with Proposition 1 on both the transit and road sides. But, as I told the governor, "we little people in the sticks" have a legitimate fear of getting little more than table scraps while the Seattle-centric mega-projects get taken care first. Another RTG portent: This article from the online news site Crosscut. Commentator Ted Van Dyke lauds the gathering momentum for RTG. The vision:
I've already predicted that the future of light rail in this region, post-Prop.1, will lie entirely within King County. Heck, except for the line to the airport, it may lie entirely with the City of Seattle. Tacoma's short LINK light-rail line could remain an curious anomaly for another half-century - or longer. Local officialdom, including Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, his counterparts in King and Pierce Counties,and transit supporters could still put up a formidable fight against RTG in Olympia. But Proposition 1's ignominious defeat means the prevailing winds now favor creating regional authority governing both roads and transit. And the local-government electeds might come around. After all, that regional transportation authority would probably mean the creation of a whole new slate of highly visible, well-paying elective offices that would be mighty tempting for the likes of, say, the capable Mr. Ladenburg.
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 05:21:20 pm
The governor was in today to talk up her budget and other things. Some highlights: • She's bound and determined to end the session with a $1.2 billion surplus. She figures if the rest of the country sees an economic downturn, Washington's going to need some money in the bank. • She's good with FEMA, after a few initial complaints about its response to the Lewis County floods. They moved fast when they figured out how big the problem was, she said. "They're a partner." • I asked about rebuilding houses that in some cases had water up to the rooflines. She didn't seem too worried: The Army Corps of Engineers told her the disaster resulted from a "150-year flood" aggravated by a "500-year weather pattern." Let's hope it doesn't happen again for another 500 years. • The state's Health Care Authority has cut the increase in the state government's medical spending from a ruinous 11 percent in 2005 to 3 percent. That's a big deal if it's not a fluke. • Since Roads & Transit went down in flames last month, she's been focusing on "regional governance" for transportation projects. Those are two loaded words; we tend to view them as Seattlespeak for siphoning Pierce and Snohomish county dollars into King County. She thinks the problem is solveable. "To me, that's all about who's on the governance board."
Categories: Who's visiting
• 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 11:56:01 am
Reader Bill Anderson of Auburn sent this letter to Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma warning against the special deal that software giant SAP is offering the city. Because the council is scheduled to vote on the proposal tonight, we're publishing Anderson's letter here for the sake of timeliness.
Categories: Taking notice
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Posted by David Seago @ 11:41:15 am
Gov. Chris Gregoire is visiting the ed board this afternoon to discuss her 2008 supplemental budget proposal, which was released today. But the Washington Education Association has already criticized her budget for for failing to restore pay cuts for teachers. What caught our eye, though, is the way the WEA managed to get in a dig at Dino Rossi, the gov's formidable Republican opponent for re-election next year. The WEA press release begins thusly:
I thought this may be the WEA's way of signaling to its members and allies that they consider Rossi no friend of education. My colleague Kim Bradford thinks it might be a way of reminding the governor that she's going to need the WEA's support for what is expected to be a tight rematch with Rossi in November. In any event, the WEA said it is "disappointed" with the education funding in the governor's proposal. Read on for the full WEA statement:
Categories: Taking notice
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Posted by David Seago @ 05:50:07 am
A veteran County Council-watcher tells me he doesn't blame the council for being thoroughly confused at its Dec. 11 meeting – so confused it took a recess to sort things out. Just about everybody was confused on that occasion, he says. We had a news story Sunday describing how the council twice – on Nov. 20 and on Dec. 11, voted one way on an issue, recessed, then returned to reverse the first vote. As we noted in today's editorial, this makes the council look like it's doing business out of sight of the public, even if its collective heart is pure. Here's another view of the comedy in the chambers on Dec. 11 (see the video here).
Wouldn't you like to know who down at the County-City Building quotes Goethe?
Categories: Taking notice
Monday, December 17th, 2007 |
