The headline on the Seattle Times blog caught my eye. Then I read who was doing the talking.

Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, chairman of the Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee, said closing McNeil is one of many options Senate budget-writers are looking at to balance the state budget in light of an $8 billion-plus shortfall.

This could be the year, but I don't think so.

Hargrove for years has tried to get into the budget language to study the possible closure of the McNeil prison because it's so darn expensive to operate. He even succeeded last year or the year before, but Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed that language from the budget.

It's on an island. Everything has to be brought out there by ferry.

But the bottom line is this: The state doesn't want to go site another, brand-new prison in some other community. That new prison would cost upwards of $300 million, probably $400 million by the time it is built.

McNeil is ugly from an operating budget standpoint. But it's already there. Besides, that didn't bother Gregoire (back when she was attorney general) or then-Gov. Gary Locke or all four corners (legislative leaders) several years ago when they decided to dump the Special Commitment Center for sex predators on the island. Their own studies said it would be a whole lot cheaper to put the SCC next to the state prison in Monroe, in Snohomish County, but they put it in Pierce County anyway.

Here's what the Seattle Times posted on its blog.

There are still some bills in the Legislature which might give King County (less likely for other counties, but still possible) the authority to collect utility taxes in unincorporated areas.

Many local governments are having budget problems. King is bigger at everything.

County Budget Director forecasting a 40 to 50 million
dollar general fund shortfall for 2010

Council budget chair says services will depend on State legislative action on revenues

In the wake of a 2009 King County Budget that started with a $93.4 million gap, the County’s Budget Director today warned that the County’s general fund faces a potential shortfall of 40 to 50 million dollars in 2010.

=> Read more!

Labor Council president Rick Bender is pretty torqued, as he may have a right to be. House Speaker Frank Chopp, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and Gov. Chris Gregoire all agreed to kill the Worker Privacy bill after a Labor Council e-mail suggested labor should not contribute any money to Democratic political action committees until the bill they wanted was passed.

"This whole thing never should have happened," Bender said. "An honest mistake occurred in copying this email to some legislators who already supported our legislation, so to characterize this internal email as some kind of threat to legislative leaders -- or a possible crime -- is absurd."

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall of the next House Democratic Caucus meeting, when labor-friendly members ask Chopp exactly why he had to kill a bill that so many of them wanted? Sorta lends credence to the belief by some (expressed to me) that Boeing didn't want the bill so leadership agreed to kill it.

UPDATE: Here's another wrinkle to this episode: State Patrol Chief John Batiste says in his news release that the state Public Disclosure Commission requested all the materials from the WSP investigation. Not true.

PDC chief Vicki Rippie just told me her agency didn't request anything. The PDC was notified by the State Patrol that all the WSP stuff would be sent to them, she said.

"We will obviously look at it," Rippie said. "But we didn't request it."

She noted there is a section of PDC civil law, RCW 42.17.230, that might apply. But it appears to this lay reader that the Labor Council is just as "not guilty" of that provision as it was "not guilty" of any criminal violation.

But Chopp and Brown might want to check with Boeing's lawyers for a second opinion.

Here's my earlier coverage on this issue.

And here's the news release I just got from the Washington State Labor Council. And below that it the State Patrol news release that said there was nothing criminal in what happened.

=> Read more!

Tacoma City Councilwoman Marilyn Strickland announced today that she is running for mayor.

Strickland, 46, is the second candidate to announce a run for the seat being vacated by Bill Baarsma, who is barred by term limits from running again. Tacoma architect Jim Merritt announced his candidacy in January.

Strickland was elected to the City Council in 2007 and currently serves as vice chairwoman of the council's Public Safety, Human Services and Education Committee -- a committee that was formerly known simply as the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Strickland, who ran for City Council on an education platform, is responsible for adding "education" to the committee's name.

She also serves on the council's Government Performance and Finance Committee, and is on the board of Safe Streets, the Pierce County Regional Council, and is a member of the Theatre District Association.

Strickland said she is running for mayor because she believes Tacoma needs to maintain its momentum.

=> Read more!

It seems as if this project has been in the works forever, but as soon as it stops raining, crews will start paving on the 8-mile section of Interstate 5 between Grand Mound and Maytown in Thurston County.

Paving begins on I-5 widening project south of Olympia

OLYMPIA - Interstate 5 drivers in Thurston County should expect delays starting this week as crews working on a freeway-widening project begin paving in the median.

Over the next several weeks, frequent rolling slowdowns and nighttime single-lane closures are needed to get trucks and equipment in and out of the median. The paving will start once the wet weather subsides.

=> Read more!

It's 8.4 percent now. And Arun Raha, state's chief economist, now says he expects it to reach 10 percent in 2010, largely because the economic stimulus stuff will be slower to produce jobs than he thought a few weeks ago.

NOTE: On May 3, unemployment benefits rise to a minimum of $225 a week. The maximum will be $611 a week. (Cheryl Hutchison at Employment Security confirmed those amounts do include the $25-a-week federal increases that were part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package approved by Congress.)

As for unemployment, here's a link to the Schmudget, the blog by the Washington State Budget and Policy Center. I love how they do graphics to illustrate stuff. Here's the one they did on unemployment projections.

Washington’s unemployment rate rose in February

OLYMPIA – Washington’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 8.4 percent in February, up from January’s rate of 7.8 percent, according to the state Employment Security Department.

The state lost an estimated 28,200 non-agricultural jobs, seasonally adjusted.

=> Read more!