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Friday, May 2nd, 2008
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 03:22:46 pm
Dave Seago and I visited Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg this morning. Before delving into a number of other issues, we had to ask him the burning question of the day: Can Chambers Bay's tree be saved? As Dave Wickert reported today, the Doug fir won't necessarily die from the hacking it received Tuesday night. But Ladenburg said that even if it lives, the tree's structural integrity might be too compromised to leave it standing near a popular walking path. The county has had several offers – from Cascadia developer Patrick Kuo and Weyerhaeuser, among others – for a replacement tree. A few years ago, the famed Pebble Beach course lost its iconic 67-foot cypress to lightning and disease. The course went to great lengths to find a twin. Ladenburg says the $1,000 reward for information about those responsible for taking an ax to the Chambers Bay tree is working its magic: Sheriff Paul Pastor told him there are two suspects. UPDATE: Wickert checked with the sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer, who says they do NOT have suspects in the case. They’re working several leads from Crime Stoppers, as they do in any case. But often those do not pan out.
Categories: Who's visiting
• 2 comments
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 11:17:57 am
Tacoma City Councilman Mike Lonergan was planning to run for Pierce County Executive as an independent. Then he was going to run as a Republican. Now he's got a new strategy: Form his own party. Lonergan ran a notice in The News Tribune classifieds this week announcing that the "Executive Excellence" party's nominating convention – called for the sole purpose of nominating one Mike Lonergan for county executive – will be held at 9 a.m. May 10 at King Oscar Tacoma Inn, 8820 S. Hosmer in Tacoma. State law used to require minor party candidates to hold nominating conventions attended by at least 100 people, but under the new Top Two election system, conventions are no longer required. The Secretary of State clarified the issue after Lonergan had already booked the banquet room at King Oscar, so the candidate decided to go ahead and stage the convention/campaign rally anyway. Why the switch from independent to the "Executive Excellence" party (which will have to be shortened to Exec Excellence to fit on the ballot)? Lonergan said the label makes it clearer to voters why he's running. "I'm the only candidate in the race who has chief executive experience," he said.
Categories: Taking notice
• 3 comments
Posted by Kim Bradford @ 07:06:19 am
Seattle's experience with banning sales of high-octane booze would suggest such efforts amount to a fool’s errand. As fast as cities outlaw one kind of fortified beer and wine, distributors and retailers find a way around the prohibition. Or so it seems, judging by the results of the Emerald City's attempt to rout rotgut alcohol from certain neighborhoods where public drunkenness is a problem. A policy adviser to Mayor Greg Nickels reported this week that stores are skirting the ban by selling the same products under different labels. Greg Hopkins isn't worried that the same thing will happen in Tacoma. He's the police officer who has bird dogged alcohol sales on the Hilltop, downtown and much of the North End since Tacoma adopted the state's first alcohol impact area in 2002. Hopkins says distributors here don't play those games any longer. He knows because he checks up on retailers every day. If they have a product on their shelves that’s too potent or cheap, Hopkins calls the distributor stocking that store. The booze is pulled or the price raised.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by David Seago @ 05:45:43 am
Washington's labor leaders and social-justice activists are frustrated: Not one member of the state's congressional delegation has come out against a proposed free-trade pact with Colombia. Not even the seven House Democrats – including U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks and Adam Smith – who often side with labor. The Washington Fair Trade Coalition wants to know why they won't join a majority of their fellow Demcrats in opposing the trade deal.
It's kind of a funny question, because the coalition's latest public complaint – full text below – itself provides the answer: "Washington is a very trade-dependent state" it acknowledges. I imagine Dicks and Smith don't mind that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi maneuvered to prevent the House from having to vote on the pact before November. The House was supposed to vote on the pact within 90 days after President Bush sent it to Congress last month. But House leaders simply changed the rules. Democrats or not, our representatives in the other Washington know that international trade butters a lot of bread in this state. One of every six jobs is said to be trade-related. Trade through the ports of Tacoma and Seattle generates a big chunk of the region's economy. Here's our most recent editorial on this issue.
Categories: Taking notice
Posted by Cheryl Tucker @ 05:42:05 am
 Longtime KIRO radio host Bob Pittman signed off the air for good last month. In this note, he recounts how his radio gig started with a letter to the editor published in The News Tribune. Radio journey began About 18 years ago, I wrote my first letter to the editor. It was about a lawyer's responsibility to educate the public. As I recall, I was annoyed with living trust scams that were blowing through town and I wrote to lay partial blame at the feet of the lawyers. Lawyers have a responsibility to educate the public and we had fallen down on the job, I said. I lamented that people were afraid of lawyers and so fell victim more readily to the bad guys. Because of that letter I did a guest appearance on a local Tacoma radio program that led to a guest appearance on KIRO radio in Seattle. My guest work resulted in an invitation to host a legal advice program on the 50,000-watt blowtorch that was KIRO, with the likes of Jim French and Dave Ross. Cisco was yet to come, and John Carlson was just getting started. "Legal Line with Bob Pittman" aired on a Saturday evening way back in 1991 and proceeded to march through time until the broadcast fell victim to the budgetary meat ax of weekend infomercials, some 17 years later, this April. Each weekend I had the privilege of demystifying the law, translating the legalese and pointing people in the right direction with regard to their legal problems, all because of a letter to the editor I wrote so many years ago. Thanks for the memories. Bob Pittman
Categories: How we work, Taking notice
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