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 Friday's print edition.
The assessor-treasurer’s office has a big problem on its hands: Thousands of property inspections that were never done.
Score one for the power of elected office.
For years, Dale Washam – and perhaps others – have been trying to call attention to an apparent violation of state law by the Pierce County assessor-treasurer’s office.
Washam went so far as to file a recall in 2005 against then-Assessor Treasurer Ken Madsen, alleging that he had allowed the office to skip required physical inspections.
That recall was rejected as factually insufficient. So too was a 2004 claim and eventual lawsuit brought by an ex-employee of Madsen’s, who complained he was fired for reporting the lack of inspections to the state.
Fast-forward to 2009. Washam, who shocked the county by beating out better-known and more qualified candidates for the assessor-treasurer’s job, takes office. Once on the inside, he promptly compiles evidence of what he has alleged, in part to fend off a proposed 3 percent budget cut.
That evidence appears convincing.
New Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam has apparently been vindicated in at least one respect. His claim that the county should have been doing "boots-on-the-ground" property inspections checks out. The upshot could be that a lot of taxpayers have been paying too little.
A "We agree" from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Last fall, Congress approved spending $72 million to pay $500-a-month bonuses to military personnel whose active-duty service has been involuntarily extended by so-called “stop-loss” orders. Nearly six months later, not a dime has been spent. That must be remedied – and quickly.
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.
We can’t pretend it isn’t front-page news can we? The breakup of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, that is.
For those of you returning from a recent trip to Mars, Bristol is the teenage daughter of recent GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah “lipstick on a pit-bull” Palin. Johnston is the father of Bristol’s baby, the same young man who won us over with his MySpace description that he is a “bleepin’ redneck” and proud of it. The two were supposed to get married after prom, but the headline today is they have broken up.
In such a time as this, a time of economic (How did former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan put it? Oh, yeah, "tsunami”) in such a time of economic tsunami-ism, how can we be bothered with the break-up of two Alaska teenagers? It happens every day in every city across America, why is the blogosphere all abuzz?
As I write this, tweets and twitters are being exchanged in wild abandon. Natural curiosity has people wondering about the particulars: Who broke up with whom? Did baby Tripp make them feel trapped? Did Joe the plumber have anything to do with it? Did Grandma Johnston mistake a meth bottle for baby bottle?
