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 tomorrow's print edition:
The LeMay Automobile Museum had a very bad 2008. But it looks to have a very good 2009. The Tacoma City Council can help make that happen next week – and it ought to.
The museum project came close to going bust last year after the economy went sour and backers hit a brick wall trying solicit donations. Fund-raising had stalled at $49 million – including donated land and automobiles – and they needed at least $57 million to break ground on a complex that had already been squeezed for economy by the architect.
America’s Car Museum – as it is also called – is now back on its feet, thanks to a creative financing plan. Museum leaders have identified two sources of credit, private and federal, that would put the project over the top and permit a long-awaited groundbreaking later this year.
This editorial will appear in Tuesday's print edition.
True high-speed rail is still far down the track, but President Barack Obama’s blueprint for investing billions in rail has one big thing going for it: The Pacific Northwest is on it.
Obama’s plan – which directs the spending of $8 billion in federal stimulus money and pledges to request another $1 billion annually for the next five years – represents the biggest federal commitment for passenger rail in decades.
Certainly, $8 billion won’t buy a European-style network of bullet trains crisscrossing the country.
But the money can help pick up the pace along well-traveled regional corridors. One of the 10 corridors identified by the White House is the Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., route served by the Cascades line.
An update on Brian Ebersole.
The former Tacoma mayor, speaker of the state House of Representatives and Bates College president keeps getting more interested in what we used to call the Third World. (The old communist Second World went bust 20 years ago; shouldn't that make underdeveloped countries the new Second World?)
Ebersole's been operating a hotel in the Philippines; now he's gotten into Cambodia. Locally, he's also been working on behalf of the Martin Luther King Housing Development Authority. I asked him why he left the organization a few days ago. His reply:
Pat,
I'm resigning only from my compensated position at Martin Luther King Housing Development Authority, I will still work on their behalf as a citizen volunteer. They can not afford to pay me, and they need all their resources to keep going.Regarding the Philippines and Cambodia – in 2005, I bought a small beach hotel in the Philippines. It keeps five good people employed and provides them health care. They would have no income or health care if the business shut down.
A HUD loan for the LeMay Museum looks like the only way the project can be kept alive in Tacoma. It needs City Council approval.
The Pacific NW may be uniquely positioned to tap federal dollars for high-speed rail, thanks to Washington and Oregon’s incremental investments in the Cascades line.
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.
John McGrath wrote a great column in Sunday's TNT. He endorsed the proposed rescheduling of the Apple Cup – the annual WSU-UW end-of-season football game – at a neutral site, Seattle's Qwest Field. This is a very, very good idea.
Disclaimer: Although I am a CWSC (CWU to youngsters) Wildcat, I grew up in Ellensburg reading the daily sports page of The Spokesman Review. That makes me an ex-officio Coug.
And while I am excited about Qwest, I must say that I have truly enjoyed watching the Cougs beat the Huskies in November in the Palouse. I will never forget watching Drew Bledsoe hurling long bombs to crimson-uniformed, nimble-fingered Coug wide receivers sprinting down snow-covered Martin Stadium field. The only purple in sight was tiny blotches of uniformed dawgs buried in deep snow....
