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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Tom Orr, a cop-turned-lawyer-turned-administrator, runs the Law Enforcement Support Agency, the agency that answers most of the 911 calls in Pierce County.
He came by today at our invitation to answer questions about a performance audit that concluded LESA – “arguably the busiest and most demanding” such agency in the state – was seriously understaffed.
LESA is genuinely struggling to provide timely 911 response, and it may face greater struggles if it’s squeezed further by the recession.
But citizens could lighten its load immediately. How? Don’t call 911 unless it’s an emergency, guys. Orr said that about 40 percent of the calls coming into LESA are for routine stuff – barking dogs, for example, or questions about the weather or traffic conditions.
Barking dogs, for heaven’s sake. LESA’s non-emergency number, by the way, is 253 798 4721.
Washington's new assisted suicide law has been put to use. A 66-year-old Sequim woman with pancreatic cancer died Thursday night after taking the lethal dosage of drugs prescribed to her.
How do we know this?
Compassion & Choices of Washington, which campaigned for the Death with Dignity law last fall, announced the woman's death as the first under the new law. The Department of Health said last month that the law prohibited it from being the one to make such an announcement.
After I questioned how Compassion & Choices can be sure of its assertion – given the mandated secrecy surrounding the identities of patients who request aid with dying – spokesman Steve Hopcraft admitted it can't. The group is working with "several" terminally ill patients but he doesn't know whether it has contact with every patient who is taking the legal steps required to end his or her life.
All sorts of interesting e-mails come in to the Letters to the Editor – including a press release from Golfweek magazine.
Golfweek, which bills itself as "the most authoritative, authentic and independent publication in golf," has just named Chambers Bay golf course as the second best municipal course in the country. The course in University Place will host the 2015 U.S. Open.
No. 1 is Bethpage State Park (Black), site of next month’s U.S. Open in Farmingdale, N.Y., and No. 3 is Torrey Pines (South), in La Jolla, Calif.
The top 10 public courses in Washington, according to the magazine, are:
