This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.
Washington’s attorney general is proposing worthy legislation aimed at limiting abuses of public disclosure laws.
Attorney General Rob McKenna has been a leading champion of expanding and protecting public access to official records and meetings. He’s also a pragmatist.
McKenna has been concerned in recent years with a couple of abuses of the state’s open records and meetings laws – namely, the ability of local governments to hold illegal closed-door meetings and of prison inmates to pervert records requests to harass their jailers and judges.
He hasn’t met with much success on either front. McKenna’s legislation to require public bodies to tape their executive sessions has become a perennial target for sharp-shooting city and county lobbyists.
And his argument that incarcerated felons have no right to request public records – an interpretation that would have spared agencies from having to respond to meaningless requests from prisoners with too much time on their hands – was rejected by the state Supreme Court last year.
This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition:
The benefits of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a two-mile tunnel could be spectacular, but they largely accrue to Seattle.
At last, a decision.
Eight years after the Nisqually Earthquake rocked the Alaskan Way Viaduct a little too hard, Gov. Chris Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive Ron Sims have finally settled on a plan to replace the elevated highway.
If the Legislature agrees, Highway 99 will run underneath downtown Seattle in a two-mile tunnel instead of riding high on an elevated highway. The price tag: somewhere north of $4 billion.
That is a mountain of money – far beyond the $2.8 billion the state has set aside for the project. Advice: Watch your pocketbooks. Everyone in the state had better be tracking the progress of this plan.
The expense, in and of itself, doesn’t mean the tunnel is a bad idea. In fact, it is a bold decision that carries both risk and the potential for big payoffs. Bold decisions are precisely what the debate over the viaduct has lacked all these years.
A friend of mine who is one of those rare “love me or leave me” individuals, is known for speaking his mind and sharing the truth as he sees it. If the truth happens to offend or delight, it’s all the same to him.
The guy can be a little blunt, but with him you know you’re getting the unvarnished version.
Today on Facebook he showed a video clip of his truck getting repossessed. Ouch. It was painful to watch. Who knows why he posted it. My guess is typical to his character he thought to himself, “If we’re going to share our lives on this thing then let's really share our lives.”
He’d be the first to tell you that right now things could be better.
We and probably the rest of the state are OK with replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle with a tunnel as long as there is some guarantee of a stop-loss on the state share of the $4 billion-plus price.
Attorney general Rob McKenna, shot down by state lawmakers and the courts in his attempts to bird dog closed-door meetings of public bodies and crack down on inmate abuses of the open records act, is offering some potentially worthy compromises.
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.
Look for an editorial here later today on the Alaskan Way Viaduct plan. In the meantime, take a look at this video from the state Department of Transportation showing what a trip through the tunnel might be like.
Hat tip: Former TNTer Niki Sullivan, now of TVW's The Capitol Record.
Wow. State Sen. Darlene Fairley (D-Lake Forest Park) either really hates open government, or else she thinks the state Sunshine Committee isn't doing enough to promote open government.
It's clear from a bill she's sponsoring, though, that she doesn't think the commission is worth a warm bucket of spit.
This morning, the paper carried my column critiquing a U.S. News report that Washington was the best state to start a business. A reader wrote to ask: "It seems that whenever one of these listings comes out... that its validity is immediately embraced by those who like what it has to say and attacked by those who don't. In your judgment, are there assessments that can be trusted to tell us something meaningful while transcending political bias?
Here's how I responded:
