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.
The picture emerging out of City Hall is of a government blissfully ignorant of its citizens’ financial straits.
The Great Recession seems to have taken a holiday at Tacoma City Hall. The City Council is poised to do something unheard of these days: Give its city manager a beefy 14.5 percent raise.
The nearly $30,000 cost is budget dust compared to the additional $4.5 million the city will begin shelling out Friday to hundreds of city employees whose pay was found to be “below market.”
Those raises were adopted in early December based on the premise that employee retention was a problem. The evidence was shaky then, and the claim that the city can’t hold on to workers is more dubious today.
It’s hard to imagine in this market anyone having trouble recruiting and retaining for secure jobs that provide generous health care and other benefits, and that rarest of all perks, a pension.
While Tacoma works to make city employment even more attractive, workers elsewhere are facing pay cuts, unpaid furloughs and the elimination of retirement benefits. That’s if they’re lucky enough to not be killing time in unemployment lines.
Against that backdrop, Tacoma city leaders appear to be living in an alternate universe. City staff were prepared to pay another $300,000 to a consultant who helps organize employee meetings until the council called whoa. Now it’s the council looking like it’s operating on autopilot.
This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.
Drug-related immunity bill goes one step too far
Those who provide drugs to others shouldn’t get immunity for calling 911 in overdose cases.
If people sharing drugs notice that one person has sickened, perhaps passed out, should they get immunity from drug-related prosecution if they call 911 for help?
What about the person who actually provided the drugs? Should he or she also get a pass from prosecution if it saves a life?
Those questions are at the heart of
The Great Recession seems to have taken a holiday at Tacoma City Hall. The Tacoma City Council is poised to do something unheard of these days: Give its city manager a beefy 14.5 percent raise.
It makes sense to grant immunity from prosecution to those who call 911 in drug overdose cases. But that immunity should be limited to drug users, not those who provide the drugs.
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.
Ooh, there’s trouble in paradise today, and poor Rush Limbaugh is at the center of it.
At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC,) Rush Limbaugh said once again that he wanted President Obama to fail. Oops. For that he is getting raked over the coals, and not by the usual suspects.
In response to Rush’s CPAC remarks, remarks by the way that earned him stratospheric cheers, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele said this: "So let's put it into context here … Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment" that is at times "incendiary" and "ugly."
“Just an entertainer”? Excuse me? A man with Rush’s educational pedigree (he enrolled for two semesters at Southeast Missouri State University but failed his classes, including ballroom dancing,) should not be called “just an entertainer.” So what if Rush can’t dance, he has things to say.
