I asked Virginia Painter, the public affairs director for the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, for some background on the proposed closure of 13 state parks, including Joemma Beach, Kopachuck and Tolmie.

She said the agency had been told by Gov. Chris Gregoire to cut $10 million from what it had received from the state general fund. While some of the savings were made in ways that might not be as apparent to the public, the closures will make up about half of the savings.

Painter said all 13 of the parks are considered inconsistent with the mission of the parks system as determined by the Centennial 2013 Vision.

That outline determined that state parks should be "premier destinations or places of regional or statewide significance. The criteria used to determine what is significant included "unique features, significant resources, high visitation and extraordinary scenery"

Wrote Painter: "In other words, these 13 are parks that really are more appropriate for a county or city park - and we are hoping that counties and cities eventually can take them over so that they remain public parks."

Here is her entire response...

=> Read more!

There's always too much to write about the day a governor comes out with a budget, but eventually we'll get to them. One of the stories I'll be writing about, probably next week, will deal with how Gov. Chris Gregoire wants to save money in the prison budget.

As you'll see among the highlights below, she wants to supervise only the 13,000 most dangerous ex-cons. That's half the number currently on supervision. And she wants to cut the maximum supervision to 12 months from 24 months.

More on all of this later. Here's the companion story to the budget story that will appear in Friday's paper.

Highlights of Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget proposal

--Sets state general fund spending at $33.5 billion in 2009-11. The total would be $66 billion with federal and other funds.
--Does not raise taxes.
--Freezes pay for about 110,000 state agency and college employees. There were supposed to get 2 percent raises each year.

=> Read more!

I said a couple weeks ago we'd all be hearing more about "closing tax loop holes," and here's one such effort.

“The Legislature should close tax loopholes for corporate polluters before they close any state parks,” says Craig Engelking, lobbyist for Sierra Club Cascade Chapter.

(Gov. Chris Gregoire's budget proposal would close 13 state parks.)

We plan on going after some tax breaks polluters are getting right now. We’re specifically targeting the 5 oil refineries in the state. Right now, under the manufacturer’s equipment and machinery sales and use tax exemption, they get about $20 million in tax breaks from the state, maybe more. We’re working on legislation to end that tax preference and to use the money to help fund green jobs training and energy efficiency investments. We also want to use some of it to help prevent closure of state parks.

Craig Engelking
Lobbyist

Pat McCarthy is hosting a celebration at the Pantages Theater tonight for nearly 500 friends, family members and campaign supporters.

The invitation-only event is a chance for McCarthy to thank supporters who helped her win election to county executive last month. The festivities include an unofficial swearing-in ceremony, in which her husband – Superior Court Judge John McCarthy – will administer an oath of office. (McCarthy officially will be sworn in at the beginning of January).

It’s also a chance to celebrate McCarthy’s birthday: she’s 55 today.

Meanwhile, McCarthy is wrapping up her tenure as auditor and preparing to become executive. In an interview Monday, McCarthy said she has an 18-member transition team chaired by political consultant and lobbyist Bill Stauffacher.

Among McCarthy’s first decisions: how to organize the executive’s office. She said she’s decided not to have a chief of staff (a role Lyle Quasim filled for current Executive John Ladenburg). Instead, McCarthy said she’ll likely hire several “executive directors” to oversee various county departments. She said previous executives – including Booth Gardner and Joe Stortini – have used similar models.

Excuse the cross post, but for those who haven't seen it, I have a post over on Lights & Sirens about former Pierce County Sheriff candidate Robert "The Traveller" Hill being arrested again today.

Follow this link to read it.

Joemma Beach on the Key Peninsula, Kopachuck near Gig Harbor and Tolmie north of Lacey are among the 13 state parks proposed for closure under Gov. Chris Gregoire's austerity budget.

A full list should be available shortly.

In her printed budget announcement this morning, Gregoire said the parks "no longer fit the mission of the Parks system."

The state Parks and Recommendation Commission is also considering winter closures of other state parks.

All totaled, the cuts will save the state budget $5.2 million over two years.

Gov. Chris Gregoire today unveiled a two-year state budget to close a $5.7 billion budget gap by freezing pay for some 250,000 state and school workers, assumes an infusion of nearly $1 billion from the federal government and slashes state spending by elminating programs and laying off workers.

But true to her campaign pledge, there are no tax increases in the 2009-11 budget proposal she is sending to the Legislature.

“Our state is facing significant economic turmoil,” Gregoire told reporters in her opening remarks Thursday morning. “I have lived within our means.”

UPDATE: Here is another link to governor's budget office documents.

Teachers and state workers who would go without pay raises for two years criticized the governor’s proposal. So did advocates for the poor who will lose part of all of their state assistance and medical coverage.

But Republican legislative leaders, who are in the minority, embraced the overall size and philosophy of Gregoire’s budget.

“This is 2003,” said Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, referring to the no-new-taxes budget offered that year by then-Gov. Gary Locke. “We like the size of the box. She’s given the Legislature some good direction.

“She showed the political courage she should have showed two years ago,” he added.

UPDATE NO. 2:(Scroll down to read reactions from Sen. Joe Zarelli, top-ranking Republican on Senate budget committee, House Speaker Frank Chopp, House budget chairwoman Kelli Linville and Rep. Gary Alexander, top Republican on House budget committee.)

The projected budget shortfall faced by Gregoire and the Democrat-controlled House and Senate over the next 30 months is more than twice the size of the budget problem of 2003-05. Republicans blamed much of that increase on extravagant spending by Gregoire and her fellow Democrats.

Gregoire blamed “the reckless decisions on Wall Street,” that led to an unprecedented slide in the national and state economies and steep decline in tax collections.

The focus now shifts to the Legislature, which convenes Jan. 12 for a 105-day session. Unlike Gregoire, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have made no election-year promise to hold the line on taxes. Labor unions for 110,000 state and college workers, as well as the 81,000-strong Washington Education Association will try to persuade lawmakers to thaw the wages that Gregoire proposes to freeze. Teachers were in line for a 4.1 percent raise in the 2009-10 school year.

=> Read more!

By CURT WOODWARD
The Associated Press

Sticking to her campaign pledge, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Thursday unveiled a no-new-taxes budget plan that would fix a nearly $6 billion deficit by whacking spending, suspending voter initiatives and borrowing some money.

(For Gov. Chris Gregoire's full budget proposal in on her Web site. And what you can't find there, you can find here at the Office of Financial Management site.)

Spending cuts would be felt across state government, including K-12 and higher education, social services, prisons, health programs and state parks.

The proposal will draw howls of protest from all corners of the state, particularly among interest groups who benefited during the Democratic governor’s first term, when state spending jumped by about a third.

The Legislature, controlled by Democrats, convenes Jan. 12 to begin its work on the two-year budget. Unlike Gregoire, majority lawmakers have not explicitly ruled out some form of tax increases.

In a statement, Gregoire cast the national recession as both the culprit behind Washington’s deficit and the reason not to raise taxes on consumers and businesses.

“Our state is not immune and our revenue — largely reliant on a sales tax — is down dramatically, resulting in the largest budget gap in state history,” she said.

=> Read more!

From the Associated Press. Joe Turner is at the press conference and will have more highlights up soon.

Highlights of some of the cuts suggested in Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget proposal:

• HIGHER EDUCATION: Gregoire proposes a $300 million reduction in higher education, including a 13 percent reduction for the state’s research and regional institutions. Community and technical colleges would see a 6 percent cut. This could mean higher tuition, fewer courses, larger class sizes, and reduction in faculty. Raises for faculty and staff also are suspended.

• K-12 EDUCATION: Suspends nearly a quarter of the money from the voter-approved initiative to ensure smaller class sizes, and suspends the entirety of another initiative for cost-of-living raises for teachers. Maintained is $12.2 billion for basic education services, like special education and transportation, which is protected.

• PUBLIC SAFETY: Gregoire proposes eliminating the requirement to supervise misdemeanor criminals and low-risk felony offenders once they are released from prison, saving nearly $70 million. Sex offenders and violent criminals would still fall under supervision. She also proposes early release for elderly and ill criminals, and deporting non-citizens who have property or drug offenses.

=> Read more!

Former Pierce County Auditor Cathy Pearsall-Stipek has endorsed a former vice chairwoman of the local Democratic Party to be the next county auditor.

Beckie Summers-Kirby just finished two years as vice chair of the Pierce County Democratic Party. She also has served on the Tacoma library board and the city’s civil service board. She is the wife of state Rep. Steve Kirby, D-Tacoma.

Whether Summers-Kirby or any other Democrat becomes the next nonpartisan auditor remains in doubt. The County Council will appoint an auditor in January to replace Pat McCarthy. The Democrats argue that McCarthy was twice elected as a Democrat, so they should get to pick three nominees from which the council should choose.

But voters last year made the auditor’s office nonpartisan. And the council this month approved a process that doesn’t rely on Democratic Party nominations to pick McCarthy’s successor.

Among those said to be interested in the job: Republican Councilman Shawn Bunney, outgoing Democratic County Councilman Calvin Goings (Goings has expressed interest in the job but told me last week he’d changed his mind), Tacoma City Councilwoman Julie Anderson, Tacoma City Councilwoman Connie Ladenburg, state Sen. Jim Kastama and state assistant director of elections Katie Blinn.

Local Democrats may take the issue to court. And they’re meeting Saturday to pick three nominees to submit to the council.

In a letter addressed to fellow precinct committee officers, Pearsall-Stipek endorses Summers-Kirby.

“Beckie would be our auditor for the right reasons, not as a stepping-stone to a higher office,” Pearsall-Stipek wrote.

Update: Here's a list of folks who apparently are seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for auditor: Julie Anderson, Katie Blinn, Becky Summers-Kirby, Metro Parks Tacoma Commissioner Tim Reid and Centro Latino board chairman David Artis. Others may yet step forward.

Update2: Bruce Lachney, a Democrat who ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat County Councilman Roger Bush, said folks at the party have asked him to consider the auditor's job. Lachney said he'd be interested in serving as a "placeholder" for a year. But he's not interested in the job long term and said if appointed he would not seek election to auditor next year. "I think my skill set is more driven to policy than to administration," Lachney told me this afternoon.

You can read all of Pearsall-Stipek’s letter below.

=> Read more!

From Les Blumenthal in our D.C. bureau:

While there is sure to be lots of whispering about why they are actually leaving, there's been a shakeup among senior staff at three Washington state congressional offices:

Out as Sen. Maria Cantwell's chief of staff - Maura O'Neill, a former dot.com executive from Seattle who chaired the Woman's Political Caucus. She lasted a little more than a year.

In as Cantwell's new chief of staff - Katie Lister, the senator's former deputy chief of staff and communications director who helped run her 2006 re-election campaign. Lister has been at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in a hush-hush job for the past year or so.

Out as Republican Rep. Dave Reichert's chief of staff - Mike Shields, who has been with the congressman since the beginning. He is going to the National Republican Congressional Committee as director of Special Projects. His focus will be on convincing GOP incumbents to run again. Good luck.

In as Reichert's new chief of staff - Christopher Miller, who has been the deputy and has been onboard since the beginning.

Out as Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' chief of staff - Connie Patroyan, a long time Hill hand who came out of Slade Gorton's old press shop.

In as McMorris Rodger' new chief of staff - Jeremy Deutsch.

This is budget day for Gov. Chris Gregoire, who unveils her supplemental budget for 2007-09 and her new budget for 2009-11.

The news conference is at 9:30 a.m. But we reporters are among the last to find out what's going on when it comes to budget. What generally happens is that Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are briefed ahead of time, probably last night. And word spreads to so-called "stakeholders."

My Associated Press colleague, Curt Woodward, got this budget tidbit yesterday and the Seattle Times posted it. The governor won't "Cover All Kids" by expanding subsidized health care coverage to kids whose families earn as much as $62,000 a year (for a family of four.)

If you get state money to take care of a group of people, for instance, General Assistance Unemployable, you usually get a heads-up from the governor's budget office or the legislative budget committee staff that your ox is about to be gored.

Such is the case with some or all of the general assistance programs. I'm told that program is no longer. And there are about 34,000 people on general assistance today. One of those programs is sortof a state-paid waiting area for people who are medically unable to get jobs, buying time for the state to try to get them signed up for federal SSI.

Gregoire reportedly also will propose delaying employer contributions to various state pension plans, saving somewhere between $400 million and $600 million.

And those contracts, the ones that were going to give about 110,000 state workers 2 percent pay raises in each of the next two years? They're gone, I'm told. Although I'm didn't think the governor could abrogate the deals she had just negotiated with state labor unions.

=> Read more!

I'll be curious to see how this works out. My guess is that Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, won't break any news on her blog -- I could be wrong about this -- but she will post a lot of stuff about the philosophy of Senate Democrats and their reasons for taking whatever actions they do.

Here, add this link to your NetVibes page.

You'll want to follow Brown's blog during the upcoming 105-day session, at the very least