BY Joseph Turner
joe.turner@thenewstribune.com

A proposal to replace Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bore tunnel -- with the state paying $2.4 billion of the cost -- won approval today from the House Transportation Committee. But it still has a ways to go before it gets out of the Legislature and onto the governor’s desk.

Committee members voted 16-12 in favor of Senate Bill 5768, which already had won approval from the state Senate. But several changes were made to the measure before it won committee approval.

The bill gives legislative approval to most parts of the deal that Gov. Chris Gregoire struck in January with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive Ron Sims.

The earthquake-damaged viaduct would be torn down and replaced with a 1.7-mile deep-bore tunnel under downtown Seattle at an estimated cost of $4.24 billion.

The state’s share would be $2.4 billion, plus about $400 million from tolls, and the state would be on the hook for any tunnel construction cost overruns. Seattle would pay to replace the seawall.

Committee chairwoman Rep. Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island, announced that a vote on a bill to authorize early tolling on the Highway 520 bridge, another mega project whose cost could rise to $6.6 billion, won’t be taken by the committee until Monday.

Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, said he just before the vote on the Alaskan Way Viaduct bill that he didn’t like the idea of tolls -- “re-taxing,” he called it -- or how little Seattle was doing on the project, but he was going to vote in favor anyway.

“The biggest travesty would be not to build it,” he said, even though “I don’t ever intend to go into that stupid tunnel.”

=> Read more!

The Washington Attorney General's Office has issued an opinion that has prompted the Palouse mayor and City Council to change their policy on public comments at council meetings. And it should serve as a warning to other public officials who don't like it when gadflies criticize the actions or behavior of city workers.

Here's the story that ran today in The Boomerang, the newspaper in Palouse.

But basically, council meetings used to begin with a statement that "the council will not entertain any comments regarding personnel issues of city staff."

Assistant Attorney General Tim Ford essentially told the council to "Stop that!"

What Ford actually said was that "restriction was unreasonable, an attempt to silence opinions and a pretext for censorship.

"The city may not restrict speech it merely dislikes," Ford said.

Here that Mayor Bill Baarsma? How 'bout you, Council chairman Roger Bush?

I just got a copy of the AG opinion.

The state auditor’s office will decide in the next week whether it will investigate skipped property inspections in Pierce County.

Auditor spokeswoman Mindy Chambers said representatives of the office are meeting today with the county council’s performance audit staff, which produced a report this week suggesting there is no reason to believe individual taxpayers were harmed because of the missed inspections.

“We haven’t made a decision about how we’re proceeding,” Chambers said.

The state auditor’s office is responding to a request by Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam, who last month announced the office had skipped tens of thousands of property inspections under his predecessor, Ken Madsen.

Most years the assessor’s office uses real estate sales data and statistical methods to determine the value properties for tax purposes. But state law requires assessor’s to physically inspect every property at least once every six years.

Assessor’s office employees and documents indicate the office skipped inspections on tens of thousands of properties over at least six years.

Washam asked the state auditor and the attorney general to investigate whether the office violated the state law by skipping the inspections and filing reports with the state claiming they had been done. (Here's a PDF copy of the auditor letter)

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said it had received Washam’s request but hadn’t drafted a response.

It’s not the first time Washam has requested an investigation on the matter. In 2005 he asked the state auditor, attorney general and Department of Revenue to investigate Madsen’s actions related to property inspections. He raised the same issue in an unsuccessful recall petition against Madsen.

Washam said none of the agencies responded to his 2005 requests.

A spokesman for the Department of Revenue recently issued a statement saying the agency is “dismayed” that the assessor’s office submitted inaccurate reports about property inspections.

But the spokesman said “there are no statutory penalties for failing to meet physical inspection requirements. Rather, following the law is the obligation of the elected county official.”

The Weekly Volcano weighs in on Pierce County budget cuts in an article today.

Writer Matt Driscoll's take on the unpleasant task facing the county's elected officials: "...even if I still toiled in the world of cracked knuckles, busting my ass Monday through Friday doing manual labor, chances are I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of anyone on the Pierce County Council these days. Chances are, if someone found me on the street and offered me County Executive Pat McCarthy’s job, I’d point at him with a gaping look of befuddlement and roll in laughter, cackling “You want me to do what?”

You can read the full article here.

After all the talk about bills that propose an income tax for Washington state -- on millionaires and-or others -- Gov. Chris Gregoire was prompted to chime in.

"I do not support a state income tax," she said. "The new proposal will undoubtedly raise constitutional and legal challenges and probably wouldn’t bring in new revenue in time to address the economic crisis we face."

(Of course, if the Legislature did put such a measure on the ballot, it would bypass the governor. But that doesn't mean the guv can't have an opinion on it.)

She's right about the timing. I've been told it would take at least a year just to set up a collection system for taxes on income. Moreover, the "millionaire's tax" that Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells, D-Seattle, and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, made reference to in blogs and e-mails earlier this week would raise only $100 million over a two-year period.

See earlier posts here, and here.

That wouldn't even make a dent in the $9 billion budget problem. But stay tuned. There will be more talk about taxes before the end of session.

Gov. Gregoire’s statement on the Senate’s income tax proposal

OLYMPIA – Gov. Chris Gregoire released the following statement today on the Senate’s income tax proposal:

=> Read more!

I just got off the phone with state Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland, who called to assure me that he is very much alive.

This is one of those really embarrassing moments for a reporter. I wrote in my blog yesterday that the House finally had a full complement of members at 98 because the final vacancy had been filled. I mistakenly said the Haler had died (I meant to write 'Hailey').

My post was up for only 3 or 4 minutes when I got a call from former TriCity Herald reporter and current Senate staffer Chris Mulick, who naturally is much more familiar with Eastern Washington than I am.

"Joe, Haler didn't die," Mulick said.

I rushed to make the correction, but saw that 5 people had clicked on that blog posting before I could make my fix -- Mulick and four others.

Well, one of the four apparently was a lobbyist. Because today that lobbyist greeted Haler with the "I heard you were dead" line, Haler said.

OK. My bad.

TriCity Herald reporter Michelle Dupler said I wasn't far off with my original report. Haler broke his neck last summer and almost died, she said.

Haler confirmed that to me today. Now, he can't take a nap at home for very long before he has family members checking on his welfare.

Well, it's actually a 3-minute rule. From today and until the end of session -- the final 25 days -- state senators may speak no more than 1 time on any bill and for no longer than 3 minutes. Exceptions are made for the maker of a parliamentary motion.

Which brings me to my 4th (?) nominee for Quote of the Session. It was just a matter of time before Sen. Bob McCaslin, R-Spokane, made the list. McCaslin wanted to set the limit on speechifying to 2 minutes.

"If you can't explain it in 2 minutes, you don't know the English language," McCaslin said.

This is McCaslin's 29th year in the Senate, so he's pretty much heard it all by now.

Democratic Floor Leader, Sen. Tracey Eide, D-Federal Way, said she would take McCaslin's suggestion under advisement, but for now, the limit will remain at 3 minutes.

As a journalist and a local resident, an experience I had today trying to obtain some of the most basic public records from the town of Ruston has left me, well, flabbergasted.

I called the Town Hall this morning and explained that I wanted to come down and look at the town council agendas from March because they hadn't been posted on their Web site yet. I was told that was fine.

Then I said I also wanted to a copy of the 2009 town budget, which was approved by the council in January. There was a long pause -- maybe five or 10 seconds. "You'll have to fill out a public records request," I was told. I agreed and said I'd be down shortly.

When I arrived, I was asked to fill out a public records request to even look at the March council agendas. I filled out the form and was told I would be contacted when my request was ready -- the woman who was helping me was informed by another woman in the office that they legally had five days to respond to my request.

Under the law, that may be true. But as a journalist I've never before encountered such a delay for such a basic request.

Where does that leave a citizen who wants to know what's going to be happening at the next council meeting?

Has anyone else out there run into similar issues with Ruston?

Update: I've received a couple e-mails responding to my post directing me to a couple of the Ruston blogs where details from council meetings are posted. My response has been that in fact, I wanted to look at the meeting agendas (and if need be the minutes) in an effort to verify some of what appears on the blogs, where anyone can write anything and present it as official.

And to clarify, it struck me (both as a local resident and a journalist trying to do my job) that to ask citizens to automatically wait five days to even look at the previous month's agendas from council meetings -- documents which the woman who was initially helping me seemed to be printing out and holding in her hand while I was at the counter -- was completely unnecessary.

Update 2: My copy of the 2009 budget was ready first thing Monday morning. By that time, I'd already confirmed the item I was looking for from the March agenda.

They were asking for $43 million.

The school district got money in the last budget to buy the old Safeway store and do some pre-design work.

Sen. Karen Fraser, D-Olympia, chairwoman of the Senate capital budget subcommittee, was apologetic yesterday, but said there still is no money in the next two-year capital budget for any of the skills centers.

Here's the story written by my colleague, Kris Sherman. It gives a lot more detail on the project.

As I've said many times, I rely heavily on other sets of eyes to look at the state budget and figure out what's going on. To me, this is where lobbyists -- say what you will about them -- show their mettle. Each of them knows how a budget will affect his or her particular clients

Naturally, they bring their own point of view to an issue, but their observations are valuable, nonetheless.

Jerry Reilly, chairman of the Elder Care Alliance, doesn't like what lawmakers are proposing to do in the area of long-term care and the use of additional Medicaid money from the feds.

His point about cutting $1 in service to free up 42 cents to use elsewhere is based on the Medicaid formula. For every $1 spent on eligible services, 58 cents comes from the federal government and 42 cents comes from the state. So, if the state wants to spend that 42 cents in state money on something other than programs that are eligible for federal funding, it gives up 58 cents from the feds that it otherwise would collect.

So, Reilly wants to maximize the amount of federal funds by spending as much as possible on health care and other programs.

The problem with that is, (and I'm playing devil's advocate here) the state can't spend federal Medicaid money to run the state prison system, for instance. So, lawmakers are foregoing some federal funds to spend their 42 cents elsewhere.

Dear Journalists,

The budget approach thus far being taken of drastically cutting Medicaid Eligible services to move supplanted dollars to other state services that do not qualify for federal match will result in Washington leaving many millions in federal funds on the table.

=> Read more!

It took a little time, but Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy won the County Council’s support for her plan to boost staffing in her office.

In a revised budget plan approved Tuesday, the council authorized

McCarthy to use about $261,000 from vacant positions in the communications and human resources departments to help pay for her new administrative structure.

McCarthy already has hired three executive directors to oversee various county departments. They include Kevin Phelps, deputy executive and executive director of operations; Al Rose, executive director of justice services; and Lyle Quasim, interim executive director of public health.

Previous County Executive John Ladenburg had a single chief of staff – Quasim – who oversaw county departments.

In a March 24 letter to the council, McCarthy billed the plan as a means to “create an efficient, flexible, customer service-oriented operation in order to best serve the citizens of Pierce County” (download a PDF copy of the letter here It also includes the Snohomish County executive's organizational chart for comparison purposes).

She said the new structure “aligns departments in a logical fashion that creates a more efficient and proactive government enterprise.” She said it would improve communication between departments and with external groups.

McCarthy said the structure is similar to the organization of several former executives. And because she’s relying on money from vacant positions, she said her plan won’t require an increase in county spending.

=> Read more!

My colleague at the Olympian, Adam Wilson, covered this issue a couple days ago, and his story appears below.

Further down is the blog post by Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center and even further down is the testimony of state Auditor Brian Sonntag before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

All of this brought to your (and my) attention by Tim Eyman, who was prime sponsor of Initiative 900, the 2005 measure approved by vote to authorize performance audits.

I-900 has a formula for calculating how much money Sonntag should get each year for conduct his performance audits. It generates about $30 million every two years and the Legislature wants to make the auditor do some of their work and the governor's work with part of that money.

Sonntag blasts "assault" on performance auditing

BY ADAM WILSON
THE OLYMPIAN

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Both the House and Senate budget proposals this week would take a chunk out of the State Auditor’s Office performance audits, which measure the bang-for-the-buck worth of government programs.

"To take more than half of the revenue that voters permanently designated for performance audits and use it to fund other programs undercuts the performance audit authority that citizens directly gave to their independent state auditor," Brian Sonntag, that auditor, told senators this afternoon. "That change . . .and the precedent it sets is absolutely unacceptable."

He said the plan to move $15 million in performance audit money from his office to auditing programs in the Legislature and the governor’s office as "nothing short of an assault on what citizens expect the state to do."

=> Read more!

I think this might be the last of the dominos -- for a while.

House Democrats elect Rep. Deb Eddy as new caucus vice-chair

For immediate release – April 1, 2009

Olympia – Washington’s House Democrats today elected Rep. Deb Eddy (D-Kirkland) to serve as its new caucus vice-chair.

Eddy will provide support to Rep. Dawn Morrell (D-Puyallup) who was elected Chair last week.

“I thank my colleagues for the honor and privilege of serving the caucus in this role,” says Eddy. “I believe strongly in the power of collaboration and the power of groups. Rep. Morrell and I are going to make sure that our caucus achieves its goals and continues to make Washington a safe, healthy and prosperous state.”

I caught only a portion of the testimony on the legislative budget proposals this week, but I did happen to be in the room when Mary Lindquist, president of the 82,000-member Washington Education Association, was maker the union's case on the budget.

"Allow voters to approve higher levies in these tough times," she asked members of a House budget committee.

Right now, the state imposes a limit on how much money local school districts can raise from their own property tax levies for school maintenance and operations. For most of the 296 school districts, the limit is 24 percent. That is, no more than 24 percent of the total money a district gets can come from the local levy. (Schools get most of their money from the state, some from the feds and a tiny bit from local fees.)

(There are about 30 exceptions to that limit, by the way. One is for Tacoma, which has a limit somewhere around 30 to 33 percent, I think.)

I wrote a story a couple years ago about a bill sponsored by then-state Sen. Brian Weinstein, D-Mercer Island, that would have let all school districts get as much as 36 percent of their money from local levies.

It didn't pass then, because the focus then was on the constitutional amendment that would let school districts pass M&O levies with a simple majority instead of meeting the 60 percent threshold.

Voters did, indeed, change the constitution so now it's much easier to pass school levies, most of them the first time around. (Except for the most recent round in Pierce County, but the big one that failed in Tacoma was a construction levy. Those still need 60 percent approval.)

Sounds as if Lindquist wants lawmakers to approve something like Weinstein was proposing. I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet about specifics.

But if the state cuts around $900 million from K-12 for the next two school years -- not counting the $380 million that isn't being allocated for 4.2 percent pay raises this year -- the teachers' union wants a chance to make up some of those cuts through bigger local property tax levies.

They are called "title only" bills. They are blank because details of the bills have not yet been worked out.

Two of them were submitted on Tuesday by Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. At this point they say only, "This act shall be known as the revenue and taxation act of 2009. END."

But, this is not THE END.

Another round of voter polling and focus groups is wrapping up this week and pretty soon the labor unions and hospitals and health-care organizations that are pressing lawmakers to raise more money and cut less will have more info on what stands the best chance of passing muster among voters.

Stay tuned.

Here's a link to Senate Bill 6144, in all its brevity. It's identical to SB 6143.