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What's on the minds of TNT editorial writers

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 06:56:38 pm

One of our oped contributors has snagged a nice honor for his scholarly work on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Michael Honey, a UWT history professor who has contributed several articles on Martin Luther King Jr. for our opinion pages, has received the Liberty Legacy Foundation Award from the Organization of American Historians.

The award is given annually for "the best book on any aspect of of the struggle for civl rights in the United States." Honey was recognized for "Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign."

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 05:05:34 pm

Chuck Kleeberg has two missions: One is running Pierce County's planning department; the other is chairing the board of his church's free neighborhood health clinic.

Our earlier posting about the difficulties facing Community Health Care prompted this note from Kleeberg. Trinity Presbyterian is located near Sixth and Division near Tacoma's Hilltop community.

There are two volunteer-staffed, free medical clinics that operate in Tacoma. Neighborhood Clinic is affiliated with St. Leo's and sees about 2,000 patients per year (2 nights a week with 2 docs). Trinity Neighborhood Clinic is affiliated with Trinity Presbyterian and sees about 500 per year (one night a week with 1 doc) .

I have been the board chair of the latter for the last few years. We consider ourselves the carpet under the safety net that Community Health Care (and other low income providers) provides to their 35,000 patients. Trinity also has a free mobile dental clinic affiliated with the church. Carpet, underneath.

We're feeling the pinch this year. We have turned away patients, especially kids who needed school physicals, so we could treat ill patients. Since the medical staff at our clinics are volunteers, our costs are low. Most of our budget goes to prescriptions. Other costs are for maintenance services, board insurance, and a part-time staffer to make sure we have volunteers. Our funding comes from other churches and grants. We average $30 per patient visit.

Think what that average will be when our sick overflow visit emergency rooms in the city. We will all have to bear those costs eventually.

We like to think that we are different from those who visit these clinics. I am sure that Community Health sees the retired school teachers, the waitresses, the self employed contractors and the fresh-faced kids we see. They are our neighbors. They have made no more poor choices than we have; they just happened to be a little closer to the line than we are.

Categories: Taking notice 4 comments
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 02:07:38 pm

That's the headline on an interesting article in today's Christian Science Monitor that looks at the new breed of school superintendents and what lengths some struggling school districts are willing to go to in order to hire them.

The article cited an astonishing number – that 20 percent of school districts are actively looking for a superintendent. That seems really high to me; if true, maybe it's partly a reflection of the baby boomer retirement wave we're seeing in other public sector jobs like police and state government.

One of the most successful "rock star" superintendents cited in the article has a familiar name: former Tacoma superintendent Rudy Crew, now head of Miami-Dade in Florida. Crew was named superintendent of the year in 2007 by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 01:23:49 pm

You may have seen this story, headlined "Food stamps' use soars," from The New York Times in the TNT today, or spotted it elsewhere.

Unless you saw the chart that accompanied the article in the print version of the Times, though, you didn't discover that Washington by far experienced the greatest increase in food stamp use last year.

The number of recipients in Washington grew 25.6 percent from December 2006 to December 2007, the chart indicates. But there's an asterisk that denotes "Temporary increase in response to natural disaster."

So that must be due to the flooding that hit Lewis County and other parts of Southwest Washington last winter. I'll check around and see what the rate of change was if the flood-related aid wasn't included.

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 12:58:02 pm

And now for a word from some folks who like to argue about urban design and planning in Tacoma. One of the most diverse event sponsorships I've ever seen, and a great opportunity to discuss how to make a pretty good town even better.

Local Life Tacoma and Exit133 have partnered to bring James Howard Kunstler, urban planning advocate, social critic, journalist and novelist, to Tacoma on April 23, 7:00pm, at the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts' Theatre on the Square.

This event is sponsored by Veritas Mortgage, Embellish Salon, the University of Washington Tacoma Urban Studies Department, Boe Architects, the University of Puget Sound Politics & Government Department, BCRA, and The Broadway Center for the Performing Arts. Student ticket prices are made possible through the generous support of the City of Tacoma.

James Howard Kunstler is the author of seven novels and countless articles and essays including The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency. Geography earned much attention and praise, launching him into the spotlight as a commentator on America's hapless urban planning . . .

Mr. Kunstler aptly describes his lectures as "stand-up comedy with some dark moments." His audience knows he is dependably acerbic, witty, well-read and exceedingly alert, drawing from a tremendous store of hard facts and idealism that ends on a good note: Well-earned and reasoned hope.

Mr. Kunstler will tour Tacoma and be speaking specifically to our city within the larger framework of his life's work. After the lecture, he will sign books in the lobby. Books will be available for sale from King's Books. For more information and tickets, contact the Broadway Center Box Office by phone at 253.591.5894, visit in person at 9th & Broadway or any time online at www.broadwaycenter.org .
# # #
More information is available at:
Local Life Tacoma
www.golocaltacoma.com/locallife.htm
Exit133
www.exit133.com
James Howard Kunstler
www.kunstler.com</blockquote>

Categories: Taking notice 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 12:04:40 pm

Just heard some bad news from one of our favorite – and most needed – community organizations. It's not what you want to hear when we're heading into economic recession when more families will be facing hard times.

Community Health Care, which runs medical and dental clinics for low-income and uninsured people in Pierce County, is cutting services and staff due to financial problems.

CHC plans to lay off 11 employees, transfer four others and eliminate 15 vacant positions. It will also close a children's dental clinic at 1102 S. I St. in Tacoma. Two other dental clinics in Tacoma and Lakewood will remain open.

A CHC announcement today said a combination of flat or only slightly increasing revenues and rapidly increasing operational costs forced the moves, which will result in a balanced budget by June 1. Last year CHC clinics served 35,791 patients.

A CHC fundraising drive for the new Kimi and George Tanbara Health Center in the Salishan area of Tacoma will continue. Groundbreaking is set for May 9.

CHC's annual luncheon –– the usual donation requested sort of affair -- will be held at 11:30 a.m. April 15 at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center.
Mona Locke, former TV newscaster, director of the Puget Sound Susan G. Komen fore the Cure (for breast cancer) and wife of former Gov. Gary Locke, will be the speaker.

Categories: Taking notice

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:58:29 am

A legislative uprising against the state's math 10th grade WASL requirement finally drove a stake through the test's heart last week, when the governor signed a bill to replace it with end-of-course exams. See today's editorial.

Problem solved? No way.

Anyone who thinks the WASL vs. EOC choice is an obvious one should check out this January report to the state Board of Education. (Click on "full report" under End of Course Assessment Final Report.)

In the comparison on page 3, EOCs come out well ahead in several categories – such as "assessing students near the point of curriculum delivery." Otherwise, it's mostly a wash. Most of the people who don't like the WASL now probably won't like the EOC, either.

One virtue of the bill the governor signed is that it lets lawmakers tell WASL-haters they've done something about that mean, nasty, anti-kid test. Note its popularity in the Legislature: It cleared the Senate 35-12 and the House 91-1.

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 05:00:33 am

In September, I wrote an Insight cover article about a University Place entrepreneur, Bob Divers, who hopes to develop a revolutionary $2.2 billion “clean” coal-fueled power plant near Wallula in Walla Walla County.

The project has hit a couple snags, but nothing fatal. Here’s an update:

Hopes for the power plant depend on the outcome of test drilling to prove that liquid CO2 injected thousands of feet deep in basalt formations will mineralize, becoming a solid safely trapped in the earth.

Researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland were to supervise the test drilling earlier this year on Port of Walla Walla property near Wallula. But, as geophysicist Pete McGrail reports:

A number of issues have come up. Because drillers are in very high demand for oil & gas work, we were required to close on a contract yesterday to maintain our place in line. It has taken longer than we expected to process the data we collected from the seismic survey that was done in December and we need that information before proceeding with drilling. Hence, we had to release the driller.

We also need to close a contractual land use agreement with the Port of Walla Walla and that could not be done in time either. So, we had to reluctantly face reality and accept the delay. Next window is September according to information we have at the moment.

The test-drilling project also raised concerns among Walla Walla port commissioners, who said they’re worried about potential liability if things don’t go right. A few local residents also told the commissioners they fear the project could lead to a “dirty” coal power plant at the site.

Divers, a University Place resident, told me in September that the power plant, called the Wallula Energy Resource Center, would proceed only if the test proves that sequestration works. The developers would still have to get approval from the state Energy Facilities Site Evaluation Council. As a political matter, no coal-fired plant that releases emissions in the atmosphere has a chance of being approved.

The test-drilling delay prompted Divers' company to temporarily withdraw its site license application. Otherwise the backers would have to keep paying $10,000 to $15,000 monthly charges to the state while its application was pending.

Power utilities across the country have been cancelling plans for new coal-burning power plants left and right. Good thing, too. But coal is America's most abundant energy resource. If a clean way to tap it can be found, it would go a long way toward reducing greenhouse emissions not only in the U.S. but also in fast-developing nations like China and India.

So we all have good reason to hope Pete McGrail's sequestration experiment works.

Categories: Taking notice 1 comment

Friday, March 28th, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 03:11:54 pm

Saturday:

We believe in respecting the Makah Tribe’s whaling treaty rights. But the tribe only weakens its claim when it fails to enforce its own internal rules against the tribal members who bumbled an illegal killing of a whale and ended up torturing the animal to death. We’re glad to see that at least three of the accused whalers will go to trial in federal court.

Sunday:

The Legislature’s abandonment of the math WASL this session will turn out to be bone-headed unless sufficient rigor is enforced in the new “end of course” exams that are to replace it.

The Public Disclosure Commission’s slap-on-the-wrist response to state Rep. Dennis Flannigan’s failure to disclose a $28,000 purchase of stock in the company marketing the controversial Prometa protocal makes a joke of disclosure rules.

Monday:

We hail the state’s rating as the most-improved state in boosting childhood immunizations. This is important work, especially in light of persistent “free riding” by some parents who object to state-required vaccinations.

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.

Categories: What's coming
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 01:44:46 pm

Dave posted yesterday about the flurry of interest from the children's products industry over our mention that an editorial supporting the state's toxic toy bill might be in the offing.

We ended up talking with representatives of Mattel, the Toy Industry Association and the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, which includes carseat makers who say the law as written would outlaw their products.

They made some good points about how the bill, given more time, could have been more finely crafted. The Legislature did hurry this one through, probably due to the level of anxiety out there. (Or, if you're more cynical, because it's an election year).

But legislating is always a messy process, and we believe that unintended consequences might be addressed during the rule-making process by the Department of Ecology. Should Gov. Gregoire sign the bill, we'll be watching to make sure the subsequent rules don't go further than necessary.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer held out the possibility in its editorial today that some of the concerns could be handled by a partial veto. Meanwhile, in the Seattle Times, columnist Nicole Brodeur came out for a full veto, saying the state should wait on the feds to act.

We're expecting to receive an op-ed from the toy industry; it's tentatively slated for publication Sunday.

Categories: How we work
Posted by David Seago @ 01:34:55 pm

Today's front-page news article headlined, "Geoduck harvest suddenly in limbo," drew a quick response from the aggrieved party -- in this case Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish Farms.

A Pierce County hearing examiner had ruled that the firm couldn't harvest some 900,000 planted geoducks on Case Inlet because its 5-year permit for the site was expired.

Dewey complained that the article omitted a key piece of information:

The article totally omitted that we’d been lead to believe by the county PALS staff that the permit did not expire and that no additional permit was required for the continued operation of the farm. The article makes it sound like Taylor was just ignoring that the permit expired in five years. Until we got the letter from the county in August of 2007, any communication we had with the county lead us to believe there was no expiration to the permit.

Clearly we would not have even planted an initial 6 year crop not to mention subsequent crops had we believed the permit was only good for five years. I made these important points to your reporter and she opted not to include them.

The decision clearly has major ramifications for Taylor Shellfish and the Foss family who leases us the tidelands. As the article notes, we’ll be pursuing an appeal and pursing damages against the county.

Before Dewey contacted us, the ed board had already discussed the issue and decided we need more information before we could form an editorial opinion.

Click here for the text of the hearing examiner's decision.

Categories: Taking notice 2 comments
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 08:42:49 am
Categories: Editorial cartoons
Posted by David Seago @ 05:00:32 am

Spotted a story in the Wall Street Journal this week that should make us awful glad that the Tacoma Sheraton is no longer a Sheraton.

The Journal reports:

The Sheraton brand has slipped so far in quality and consistency that Starwood executives say it can't charge as much for rooms as some competitors. The company has embarked on a three-year project to renovate hundreds of hotel and open dozens more.

That won't be easy, though, because Starwood Hotels & Resorts, owner of the Sheraton company, doesn't actually own most of its hotels. It would have to persuade owners and franchisers to foot the bill for upgrades. (Full story below).

Portland-based Provenance Hotels bought the Sheraton Tacoma a couple years ago and initially planned to continue it as a Sheraton franchise. Instead, Provenance decided to invest $22 million turning it into the glass-art themed Hotel Murano, with spectacular results.

Thank goodness.

=> Read more!

Categories: Taking notice

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 06:40:10 pm

Whoa, talk about over the top. The Building Industry Association of Washington is known for bare-knuckle politics, but some of the stuff in the group's latest newsletter is just wild.

BIAW President Brad Spears, a Spokane homebuilder, tries to tar all environmentalists as extremists by associating them with the "eco-terrorists" who torched three homes on Snohomish County's "Street of Dreams" last month.

Spears blames the Earth Liberation Front – although investigators have not confirmed a link to the group. Somehow Spears links muddle-headed teachers, Al Gore and King County Executive Ron Sims as promoting an ethic of "the end justifies the means."

Spears concludes:

Given this attitude that permeates environmental debate today, can we really be shocked when our youth takes this green light to skirt the rules to the extreme by burning down homes?

The kids who torched the houses in Snohomish County and the kids who earlier burned down a research center at the University of Washington are simply expressing what they've been taught: Preserve the earth at all costs.

The older folks in the mainstream enviro groups silently applaud this new and novel approach: If you build it, we will burn it. It's the next, natural step in the environmental movement.

Yikes! He can read minds, too! If that little speech doesn't take your breath away, check out out the "Stormwater Report" in the same newsletter. BIAW operative Mark Musser traces today's state environmental regulations back to Hitler and the Nazis. To quote:

What environmentalists offer today, instead of the racist German National Socialism that defined the Nazi party, is an international environmental socialism, an amalgam of Nazism and communism . . .

Builders in Washington state are being squeezed by an environmental movement which extols ecofascism on the one hand . . . while on the other hand they are micromanaged to death by an ecological bureaucracy that would make any Soviet commissar green with envy . . .

I kid you not. Ick.

Categories: Taking notice 5 comments
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 05:50:43 pm

I don't know if breaching the four lower Snake River dams is a lost cause, but it's been around for lots of years without getting the political traction it needs in Congress.

Two would-be dam-breachers – Michael Garrity of
American Rivers and Todd True of Earthjustice – came by today to make the arguments again. They're hanging their hopes on an upcoming federal court decision on whether the Bush administration's latest proposal to protect salmon runs in the Snake River satisfies the Endangered Species Act.

Chances are, it won't. That doesn't mean the Pacific Northwest is going to gladly part with 3,500 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity to improve the health of four salmon runs.

An inconvenient truth: Hydropower emits not a molecule of carbon dioxide, which is making it more – not less – popular as concerns mount about global warming.

Garrity and True rightly note that the four dams in question generate "only" an average of 1,022 mw (enough to provide Seattle's power needs). But their much higher maximum capacity allows them to quickly ramp up to meet spikes in regional power demands – such as when severe cold spells hit the region.

I asked Michael how those four endangered runs were faring. Here's his e-mail:

Steelhead: Recent years have seen about 30,000 wild fish returning. The recovery goal is 53,000, although the goal includes a lot of more specific index population goals. The B-run, or winter component, of this run is doing much worse than the summer run (A run).

Spring/summer chinook: Recovery goal is 42,000 (as with steelhead this is broken into a lot of smaller goals for index populations). The last couple of years have seen about 10,000 return after three or four years in the early 2000s over 20,000 and one approaching 40,000.

Fall chinook: Recovery goal is 3,000 given current restricted habitat. 10-year geomean is 1,273, though recent years have been a bit better (in the 2,000-3,500 range).

Sockeye: Recovery goal is 1,500. They've been in the single digits the last few years.

Categories: Taking notice 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 11:59:39 am

Word gets around: Editorial writer Kim Bradford noted on the blog Wednesday that we're preparing an editorial on the toxic-toy bill awaiting the governor's signature.

Bingo, we got emails this morning from a representative of an association that represents makers of children's carseats, and from Bill Stauffacher, a Pierce County political consultant representing the Toy Industry Association, and from a representative of Mattel, the big toymaker. Here's Stauffacher's pitch:

The legislature passed a bill with extremely low standards that apply to all parts of the toy – but offered no flexibility for accessible and non-accessible electronics (jacks, “lead free” solder, resistors), inaccessible parts (screws, axels, and joints) and phthalates widely used in plastic wiring and non-mouthable plastic parts of a toy. Many toys simply won’t meet the one-size-fits all standard established in Section 3 of the bill.

Additionally, small toy retailers are saying the bill’s costly testing and reporting requirements will lead toy makers (especially smaller niche toy makers) to avoid Washington State.

This issue is much more complicated than it appears. All parties – customers, toy makers, retailers – want safe toys and this goal can be achieved. But common sense arguments deserve a fair hearing.

A Wall Street Journal story Wednesday gave a good overview of the issue from a national perspective, noting that Washington is one of many states taking action due to inaction by federal regulators.

And this just in from the Washington Toxics Coalition:

=> Read more!

Categories: Taking notice 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 11:36:53 am

The governor is getting the full-court press from the toy industry to veto part if not all of the toxic-toys bill passed by the Legislature. We think she should sign the bill. Washington would join more than 20 other states that are taking action on lead-contaminated toys because of inaction by the feds. We’re looking at last-minute arguments from the toy industry for partial veto.

We don’t see any good reason the Tacoma City Council shouldn’t approve opening the Jackson Avenue onramp to the Narrows Bridge to all traffic during the afternoon commute hours. Traffic there is flowing easily now, and West End residents have no objection.

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.

Categories: What's coming
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 09:13:18 am
Categories: Editorial cartoons
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:34:57 am

Jim McDermott is a museum-quality specimen of the American foreign policy leftist. It's no big surprise that he was conned into accepting a Saddam-financed propaganda trip to Baghdad back in 2002.

McDermott was right – but only by accident – when he declared that Iraq then was harboring no weapons of mass destruction. Why? Because Saddam's regime said so. Its declarations had to be taken "at face value," McDermott said.

It was a self-destructing claim, however true. Russian intelligence (which got the WMD story right) would have been a far more credible source.

McDermott was roundly criticized at the time for lending his prestige to Saddam by spouting off in Baghdad rather than on Capitol Hill. Presumably, Iraqi intelligence got its money's worth.

But the real problem was the contradiction in his purposes. McDermott wanted to stop a war that – give him credit – later turned into a disaster. But on the same trip, he was also trying to undo the international sanctions that were keeping Saddam from getting unhindered access to the revenues from Iraq's oil wealth.

The unraveling of those sanctions – especially by Russia and France – were precisely what had many Americans alarmed enough to support the original decision to invade Iraq.

After the invasion, a top-to-bottom search for Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" led by Charles Duelfer famously came up empty. But read the fine print. While inflicting one of the greatest embarrassments in U.S. history on the Bush administration, Duelfer also concluded that Saddam intended to get his nuclear and chemical weapons programs back up and running once the sanctions were lifted.

In the real-world political context of 2002, fighting the sanctions amounted to inviting the war. McDermott and many others wanted it both ways: No war – and no fetters on Saddam Hussein. That took more obtuseness than accepting a junket on Saddam's dime.

Categories: Taking notice 8 comments

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Posted by Kim Bradford @ 05:09:17 pm

How's this for pressure? Archie McPhee's, the wacky Ballard institution beloved by children and big kids who never grew up, says it will close if Gov. Gregoire signs the toxic toys law. (Hat tip to AWB).

The governor is said to be weighing whether to sign the legislation outright or veto portions. The toy industry is lobbying hard against the legislation, which sets toy-safety standards that include the nation's toughest restriction on lead content.

We're considering an editorial that encourages the governor to sign the legislation. State rules are not the ideal way to regulate the toy industry, but inaction at the federal level is giving state lawmakers no choice. Nothing we've seen so far shows that the law's requirements will be an onerous as the toy industry makes them out to be.

Categories: What's coming 1 comment
Posted by David Seago @ 10:40:51 am

Our editorial board met Tuesday with U.S. Sens. Murray and Cantwell to discuss their concerns about the Air Force tanker decision. Some of the questions they raise — and that Boeing is raising in its high-profile advertising campaign – are darn good ones. The Air Force needs to provide answers.

At the pace the federal government is moving on the Hanford cleanup, the job won’t be done for another 140 years, leaving the Columbia River vulnerable to leaking radioactive waste. This is absolutely unacceptable. The state may have no alternative but to haul the feds into court again.

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.

Categories: What's coming
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 07:14:46 am

The News Tribune's editorial board has been following light rail politics in the region for a very long time.

We endorsed the ballot measure that created Sound Transit way back in 1996 in large part because it promised to tie this area into the rest of the Puget Sound megalopolis with a rail line running from Tacoma through South King County to Sea-Tac Airport and the big cities beyond.

Sound Transit is now thinking about (fatally) postponing the earlier plans for light rail through this southern corridor. We are not amused; see today's editorial.

Some people can't seem to remember that light rail extensions from Seattle to Tacoma, Bellevue and Everett – though deferred for a later round of construction – were part of the plan from the word go.

Here is Sound Transit's 1996 vision for regional mass transit. The blue dash-and-dot line depicts where future light rail lines were to be built. We think that vision still looks pretty good; we hope the Sound Transit board sees it the same way.

Categories: What's coming 5 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 07:07:50 am

By the time the 2008 Tall Ships Tacoma festival begins in July, a 400-foot-long public esplanade will be open on the water side of the historic Balfour Dock Building on the Foss Waterway. That's an architect's rendering shown here.

This good news comes in the Foss Waterway Seaport's spring newsletter, Seaport Today. The esplanade project began last summer when the Foss Waterway Development Authority took out a deteriorating wharf that supports part of the 107-year-old building. The building will be the home of the Seaport, formerly known as the Working Waterfront Museum.

Go here to see progress on the wharf work. A couple more tidbits from the newsletter:

Former Weyerhaeuser executive Bill Holland has taken over as board president, and the Seaport has hit the $1 million mark in its two-year, $12 million capital campaign.

Wanna volunteer? Contact volunteer@fosswaterwayseaport.org.

Categories: Editorial cartoons
Posted by David Seago @ 05:59:01 am

Quote for the day:

A fictional military man, an old experienced commander, observed that he "knew how capable people who desire something are of grouping all the information in such a way that it seems to confirm what they desire, and knew how willingly on such occasions they omit all that contradicts it."

The writer? Leo Tolstoy, in the new translation of "War and Peace." The novel was completed in 1869 – long before anyone ever heard of "weapons of mass destruction."

Categories: Taking notice 1 comment

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 05:46:46 pm

We have a strongly worded editorial coming Wednesday morning on the prospect that Sound Transit might give up on extending light rail to Tacoma in its next ballot proposal. (Find it here in the morning.)

During an email exchange today with Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg on that matter, he also argued that Sound Transit should hold off until 2009 to go back to voters for Phase II expansion. Ladenburg stepped down as Sound Transit chairman last year but remains on the board for the rest of this year.

All that being said, I'm still not sure this is the right year. I understand the advantage of high voter and young voter turnout, but we are falling into a national recession. Even if the local economy remains good as I think it will, the national economy may well affect the vote.

Also, it appears that John Stanton is prepared to put his "governance change" proposal forward as an initiative and fund signature gathering to get it to the ballot this year. While I think his plan is poorly thought out and dangerous for Pierce County, he has the money to get it on the ballot and distract from any Sound Transit measure.

Plus, once Light Rail opens in 2009 in King County, I think we get a lot more
people as supporters, since this is what has happened around the US in the past.

Stanton confirmed today that supporters of forming a single regional body to govern both mass transit and road construction are exploring an initiative campaign to put it on the November ballot.

Stanton, a Seattle telecom billionaire, and former Seattle mayor Norm Rice co-chaired a 2006 state task force that recommended regional governance. A bill to that effect stalled in this year's Legislature. RG backers will have to decide soon whether to proceed, because the deadline for signatures is July 1.

Like Ladenburg, the TNT ed board and most Pierce County elected officials are wary of regional governance, fearing that the needs of the metro Seattle area will dominate, to the detriment of Pierce County.

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 05:29:58 pm

The 2008 Daffodil Festival's Royal Court, including Queen Olivia Anderson of Cascade Christian School, called on the Pierce County Council today. Only one council member currently running for office sent out a press release and photo.

Categories: Taking notice 4 comments
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 05:22:02 pm

Sen. Patty Murray began our editorial board meeting today by throwing her pen on our conference table and declaring "I'm as mad at Boeing as you are."

It wasn't what you might expect from the state's senior senator, who as of late has been doing her best to inherit the title of "the senator from Boeing" by loudly protesting the Air Force's decision to award the refueling tanker contract to a partnership that includes Boeing's French rival Airbus.

Murray might be disgusted about the ethics scandal that cost Boeing the tanker contract in the first go-around, but it's not holding her back. During our hour with her and Sen. Maria Cantwell – likely their first-ever joint editorial board appearance – Washington's senators detailed their concerns about the process that led the Air Force to award the contract last month to Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.

Most of their complaints have been in the news. Namely: They contend the Air Force changed the rules of the game in mid-play, could be undermining the U.S. trade case against Airbus for receiving illegal subsidies and will be handing over sensitive military information – as well as valuable research and development money – to a foreign company.

One criticism we hadn't previously heard was the inferior survivability of the Airbus' A330 platform. Murray couldn't reveal any proprietary details, but she said that Boeing's tanker has technology that would help save both the plane and crew in the event of an attack. The Air Force gave Boeing high marks in that area but the rating did the company little good since survivability didn't have much weight in the process.

One problem with such concerns is they seem to assume that the Air Force has some interest in putting their pilots and planes at risk. That's hard for us to believe.

Categories: Who's visiting
Posted by David Seago @ 02:37:27 pm

What amounts to a sort of primary for Pierce County’s first no-primary, ranked-choice voting election in November will begin soon.

Officials of the county Republican and Democratic parties are scheduled to decide next month which candidates for county executive and county council will have their blessing as the parties’ representatives on the RCV ballot.

In RCV voting, there is no primary; in November, county voters will rank their top three choices for the executive and council races. Last fall, voters decided to make auditor, assessor and sheriff non-partisan offices.

The 208-member Democratic central committee will meet April 10, two days before a county convention on April 12. The Republicans will meet April 12 to decide which GOP candidates to back.

The parties agreed last year, as part of a blue-ribbon committee formed by county Auditor Pat McCarthy, to name their choices for the county races by April 15, in order to give other candidates time to file as independents during candidate filing week in June. (Dems' plan here; GOP plan here.)

This month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing a top-two primary in Washington could add a new twist to the RCV vote. The court’s decision turns largely on the political parties’ “right of association” -- in other words, the parties’ right to decide which candidates can claim to be the parties’ chosen representatives in elections.

No problem there. But the decision also says political parties don’t have the right to restrict candidates from expressing their party preferences on the ballot. McCarthy has asked the county prosecutor’s office for advice on what that means for the county's RCV process.

McCarthy observes:

Quite frankly, I think the rules dictating these two very different methods (top two vs. RCV will be different, at least to how it relates to this issue, party identification. This assumption may change with a legal interpretation.

Categories: Taking notice 4 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 10:32:07 am

We are dismayed at the possibility that some on the Sound Transit board seem to be backing away from the agency’s historic commitment to a rail connection between Pierce County and Sea-Tac airport (and points north). When the region approved a mass transit system in 1996, the chief benefit for the South Sound was the prospect of a light rail connection to heart of the Puget Sound economy. The board should know: This editorial page will not support a Sound Transit ballot measure that effectively precludes regional light rail for Pierce and South King Counties. If money is short, what’s available to be used to buy right-of-way for a planned line.

Is serving Nutraloaf to prison inmates cruel and unusual punishment? Hardly. The message to unruly prisoners is “if you can’t stand to dine, don’t do the crime.”

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.

Categories: What's coming 1 comment
Posted by Patrick O'Callahan @ 06:16:32 am

Before it get taken for granted, let's note the arrival of democracy in Washington's school levy elections.

Levies in four South Sound school districts – Auburn, Eatonville, Orting and Clover Park – passed this month because, and only because, voters amended the state constitution last November.

The amendment did away with the old requirement of 60 percent approval for school levies. The new requirement: 50 percent-plus-one – i.e., majority rules.

Letting 40 percent of the electorate kill a levy gave opponents one-and-a-half times the voting power as supporters. Under that archaic rule, the March 11 levies in the above districts all would all have failed, despite the fact that the Clover Park, Auburn and Eatonville measures all won around 58 percent.

Someday, it will be hard to believe that Washington set such a high hurdle for local funding of its public schools.

Categories: Taking notice 1 comment

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 06:35:58 pm


Green Drinks Tacoma is NOT a bunch of Irishmen going bonkers on St. Patrick's Day. The drinks, alcoholic or not, are normal, but the folks quaffing them consider themselves green in the Earth-friendly sense.

Here's a dispatch from Krystal Kyer of the Tahoma Audubon Society:

If you're interested in sustainability, conservation, and the environment, then come hang out at Tacoma Green Drinks, a monthly networking and social gathering. Join in as Green Drinks visits the Harmon Brewery & Restaurant, 1938 S. Pacific Ave., Tacoma, on Thursday, April 3.

Green Youth, a periodic networking opportunity created for the under-21 crowd, will begin at 4:00 pm. Adults who work alongside youth or who offer internships are encouraged to attend. The regular Green Drinks gathering will kick in at 5:30 pm.

=> Read more!

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 12:14:23 pm

Gov. Chris Gregoire certainly isn’t taking Pierce County for granted in the run-up to her re-election bid this fall.

Last week she spoke at the Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board’s annual luncheon and staged a bill-signing ceremony on the dais for a tax measure that could help keep the Russell Investment Group in Tacoma.

Saturday she spoke at Pierce County’s annual volunteer recognition event before nearly 700 people at the Landmark Convention Center. Instead of doing the usual speak-and-run, she stayed around more than an hour to shake hands with each of the 93 award winners as they were announced.

And this summer she’ll share some deserved credit by presiding over a groundbreaking ceremony for the new pedestrian overpass over the railroad tracks at the county’s new Chambers Bay Golf Course. Gregoire included $2 million for the overpass in the state capital budget legislators approved earlier this month.

The overpass groundbreaking will begin at 1:30 p.m. July 29. The overpass, due for completion in 2010, will provide public access to 2 miles of undeveloped Puget Sound shoreline.

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 11:55:55 am

A lot the drama around implementing the Top Two primary could be eliminated if the Legislature would just allow the parties to indicate their preferred candidates on the ballot – with an asterisk, say. State doesn’t have to do it, but it would head off more legal challenges from the parties.

By approving health benefits for Tacoma City Council members, the council is moving the city a big step closer toward a full-time council – which is not what the charter envisions. If the council thinks full-time is best, that ought to be a citywide discussion rather than a fait accompli done in piecemeal fashion by the council.

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.

Categories: What's coming 3 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 09:16:58 am

Laurie Jinkins, a well-known Tacoma civic leader and gay-rights activist, has been named deputy director for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

Jinkins, currently assistant secretary for systems quality assurance for the state Department of Health, will start her new job April 7. She expects to serve as the county health department's interim director while its board continues a search for a new director.

Jinkins, an attorney, led Tacoma's charter review commission in 2004 and chaired the successful 2002 campaign against repeal of a city ordinance extending non-discrimination protections to gays.

When I confirmed the news with Jinkins today, she replied:

I am so excited to be able to continue working in public health and to do it in my home town. I'm sure that there will be lots of challenges, but they'll be NEW challenges. Plus, TPCHD is viewed as being one of the most creative, innovative and hard working health districts in the state. I hope to help keep that going.

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 09:05:53 am
Categories: Editorial cartoons

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 06:36:21 am

I've been reading "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," the first in a best-selling series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, because it's the book selected for Pierce County Reads.

I'd always assumed Smith's stories about the clever but modest Mma Ramotswe were too fluffy too bother with, but now I'm a fan, too. These tales of life in Botswana are utterly charming and life-affirming. And full of little pearls of wisdom.

Here's one passage I thought was a beautifully simple way of saying something quite profound:

There was a (British) Commissioner down in Mafikeng, over the border into South Africa, and he would come up the road and speak to the chiefs. He would say: "You do this thing; you do that thing." And the chiefs all obeyed him because they knew that if they did not he would have them deposed.

But some of them were clever, and while the British said "You do this," they would say "Yes, yes, sir, I will do that" and all the time, behind their backs, they did the other thing or they just pretended to do something.

So for many years, nothing at all happened. It was a good system of government, because most people want nothing to happen. That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 05:19:44 am

The Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center, which I take a lot more seriously than its "intelligent design" operation, is becoming an increasingly prominent source of ideas for solving the Puget Sound region's transportation problems.

They are big proponents of congestion pricing and other tolling schemes for shaping traffic flow as well as funding road construction. This detailed post from the center's blog gives a good rundown on transportation-related actions that emerged from the Legislature this month.

Two tidbits I gleaned from the roundup (which includes useful links):

On reason the Legislature is likely to authorize "variable tolling" on the SR 520 corridor next year is that it is a requirement for obtaining $136 million in federal funds to help pay for tolling projects and a passenger foot-ferry on Puget Sound.

And lawmakers passed a bill outlining a broad policy famework for tolling that leaves open the possibility, according to Cascadia's Bruce Agnew, that some toll revenues could be used for transit. Cascadia backs the idea.

Categories: Taking notice 1 comment

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 05:02:35 pm

Sixteen environmental groups and the state League of Women Voters have asked the governor NOT to veto part of a climate-change bill opposed by business groups.

April Putney, Pierce County rep for Futurewise, a smart-growth advocacy group, shared the letter they sent to Gov. Chris Gregoire this week.

The Association of Washington Business, as noted here earlier, asked the governor to veto Section 2 of ESSB 6580, called "Local Solutions to Global Warming." The environmental groups disputed the AWB's claims that the legislation would lead to more land-use appeals and lawsuits.

Pierce County officials told me they support the bill, especially now that unfunded mandates have been eliminated and the greenhouse gas reduction goals made voluntary. According to county special projects coordinator Debby Hyde, the ounty will wants to play a leadership role and participate in pilot projects authorized by the bill.

Categories: Taking notice

Friday, March 21st, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 05:22:32 pm

Randy Boss, one of Gig Harbor's most vocal opponents of the new Narrows Bridge, sent a Paul Revere-like email all over creation just now. In that second paragraph below, I'm sure he didn't mean to say that Bob Oke, the late state senator who championed the bridge, is still campaigning from the grave.

I sent the e-mail below to every member of the Washington State Senate several times during the last session of the legislature asking them to NOT support renaming the Narrows Bridge after the late Senator Bob Oke. The effort was successful as the Joint Memorial never made it past the Senate and therefore died.

Mr. Oke is now taking a new tact. She is meeting with City Councils, County Councils and civic organization trying to gain support from these organizations to convince the State Transportation Commission to do what the Senate could not, and would not, do, rename the Tacoma Narrows Bridge the Bob Oke Bridge.

A formal resolution is now before the Pierce County Council and will be heard on April 7th in support of renaming the Tacoma Narrows Bridge the "Bob Oke Bridge"! I can only assume that similar resolutions are being planned in Kitsap County and other cities throughout the southsound. I need your help.

I need to be able to present to the State Transportation Commission proof that "we the people" are not in favor of this idea. Would you please send me an e-mail opposing this renaming and then send this e-mail out to everyone you know and ask them to do the same. I'd love to march into the State Transportation Commission meeting and drop 10 or 20,000 e-mails on their desk and say "COUNT THESE".

This will only take you a minute - PLEASE HELP......send the e-mail - I'll do the rest!

Randy Boss

Categories: Taking notice 2 comments
Posted by David Seago @ 02:49:23 pm

We've mentioned that both U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell will meet with the TNT editorial board Tuesday to discuss the controversial Air Force aerial tanker contract.

The senators will warm up first with a "roundtable discussion" with Boeing subcontractors at the University of Washington just before their visit to The News Tribune. Cantwell's office said the senators want to hear how the tanker decision will affect Boeing subcontractors in Pierce County.

Murray, particularly, has been on the warpath since the Air Force selected a team of Airbus and Northrop Grumman over Boeing to build a new fleet of refueling tankers. The contract is worth $40 billion, with the potential for add-on work up to $100 billion overall. The Government Accountability Office is investigating Boeing's formal protest of the award.

Boeing, meanwhile, kept up a media offensive, mailing information packets on its tanker proposal to editorial pages around the nation. Much of the information can be found at www.boeing.com/tankerfacts. Another Web site, www.globaltanker.com, lays out Boeing's argument that the greater fuel efficiency of its proposed plan would save the Air Force billions.

Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 10:43:23 am
Categories: Editorial cartoons

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

Posted by David Seago @ 06:45:25 pm

The governor is getting pressure from the business community to veto part of a climate-change bill approved by the 2008 Legislature. We may look at this for an editorial topic.

The Association of Washington Business asked Gov. Gregoire to veto a section of ESSB 6580 that directs the state Department of Trade and Economic Development to give cities and counties tools, including computer modeling, for assessing the climate effects of land-use decisions.

The AWB contends:

Section 2 will create de-facto DCTED rules and regulations that could provide the foundation for climate change-related land use appeals to the Growth Management Hearings Boards. Such appeals and litigation have hindered responsible land use planning, adversely impacted private property rights, limited the supply of buildable land and had an adverse affect on affordable housing in this state.

I ran the AWB’s concerns past Bill LaBorde, former Tacoma Utility Board member now serving as program director for Environment Washington.
He says the bill originally would have made reducing greenhouse-gas emissions one of the goals cities and counties have to consider in local land-use decisions.

But the bill got watered down, LaBorde says. There’s nothing mandatory about it now, and the CTED tools would only be available to cities and counties that voluntarily want to use them.

For more on the AWB veto request and LaBorde’s response, read on:

=> Read more!

Categories: Taking notice 4 comments
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 01:17:29 pm

When Gov. Chris Gregoire plans to sign a measure promoting airplane suppliers, she goes to Spokane where community leaders are trying to lure aerospace companies.

When she wants to sign housing bills, she shows up in Seattle where property values are pricing people out of the market.

And when she decides to