WEEK 4 REPORT ON THE 2008 SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE
FOR MAYOR, COUNCIL, DEPARTMENT HEADS, SENIOR STAFF
Doug Levy – 2/10/08
The budget cloud hanging over Olympia: There will be more than rain clouds hovering over Olympia this week. On Thursday, the Governor’s Office of Financial Management (OFM) will forward an updated revenue forecast for the state that is expected to be very gloomy.
Kari Kopnick shares her afternoon at the District 47 Democrat Caucus:
Oh man what a fantastic day! It was a good day to be a Washingtonian. It was a good day to be a Citizen. It was a good day to be here in these United States where we have so many ideals and so far to go to meet them.
I went to my neighborhood caucus Saturday afternoon. I had to park way across a busy street in a grocery store parking lot and trek over to the school where my neighbors were packed tight into a school gym.
Crammed in the stuffy little gym were old people, young people and middle aged people, people of lots of ethnic and racial groups and people of different physical abilities. From the looks of the cars in the parking lot there were even probably richer and less rich folks. It was very cool. We were all there doing the whole little “d” democracy thing.
And everyone was so respectful. People were streaming in the doors at least until 1:30, and since my precinct was located by the entrance, I got to see neighbors help their neighbors find the right precinct, navigate wheelchairs and walkers thru the crowd and keep the room not too hot and not too cold; all with kindness and respect.
I think every time an older person came in a chair was immediately offered to them.
And when it came time to divide up for our respective candidates, everyone was very careful to walk that line of respect for each other’s choice.
Is this what politics are always like?
OK, stop laughing.
At least for one day the politics were clean and high minded. It was a good day to be a Benson Hill neighbor.
…you have to have cool manhole covers!…
Here are the ones we’ll be using on new projects in Renton.
I shot this picture a couple hours ago, while taking some friends to the Space Needle. The lights were just turning on.
Bloggers are starting to assess that Barack Obama is the big winner in today’s democratic caucuses. Official results won’t be in for a while, but post caucus polling says it’s Obama.
And the Clinton campaign has issued a Statement to lower expectations… a little like conceding defeat in our state already.
With three candidates in town, and a virtual dead-heat on the democrat campaign trail, this will likely be our state’s biggest day of caucuses ever. Most of the state’s convention delegates are being assigned from these caucuses, so be sure you attend your caucus if you wish to be fully counted. Your primary vote will also help assign some of the delegates, but not the majority of them. (Democrats will assign about 80% of their delegates from the caucus, and Republicans will assign about half of theirs from the caucus; the remainder will come from the primary)
My friend Rebecca posted this, when she made the realization that 6 weeks of cabin fever (from all the cold and rain) has lead to people being short with one another in her online communities.
It’s so funny, you have to watch the video. While the muppets are complaining about cabin fever from being aboard ship for 6 weeks (five day without a breeze), and our problem is we have been stuck indoors too much, the outcome seems the same… here is Rebecca’s commentary, and the video. It’s cute:
Rebecca’s comment: “This is mostly aimed towards the LJ community I’m in, which has suffered from inappropriate snarky comments and entirely unnecessary snarky reply-posts lately. I think it’s because it’s February and we’re all suffering from cabin fever, which is demonstrated artfully by the Muppets in the following video.”
Kari attended the Barack Obama rally at Key Arena yesterday. Here are some of her photos. Continue reading
The new ballot system, that requires taking an oath, is simply not working.
The elections office reports that they are throwing away one out of every four ballots they receive because the voter did not execute the oath correctly.
My view is that if someone goes to the effort to register to vote, and then votes, we ought to count it. Heavens knows we already have a problem with people not bothering to vote.
California had a fine system three decades ago, when I registered to vote for the first time, and as far as I know the system still works. You register as a democrat, or republican, or independent at the time of voter registration, and they give you the right ballot for election day. If it’s a partisan primary, you chose a candidate from the party you identified when you registered. If it’s a general election, you chose whoever you want….the best candidate. It’s understood that millions of voters in the general election often chose a candidate from a different party than they registered with. That’s why the candidates have to campaign so hard. This system is simple, and everyone who votes gets their vote counted.
Our state has been struggling with voting for too long… if we keep this up, no one will have confidence in our elections office anymore.
I hope the legislature takes a hard look at this process.
Photo from the Seattle Times
Obama wowed an overflowing crowd at Key Arena today.
Governor Gregoire extended her endorsement to him this morning. This race is really creating a tug-of-war for democrats in our state, but I predict Obama will ultimately win more of our state’s delegates.
As for me, I’ve decided I’ll be supporting Barack Obama at tomorrow’s caucus. I really like him, and I think he will make a great president.
Someone pointed out some familiar faces in the background of this picture from today’s Seattle PI
(This case of alleged animal cruelty is outside of our city limits, but inside our potential annexation area.)
We are currently making updates to our animal keeping ordinance, but all versions, old and new, require proper housing and good nutrition for animals being kept.
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KIRO TV
Horses Seized From Farm Near Renton
King County Animal Control said they received a report a week ago that 16 horses living on a farm in the 13400 block of 156th Street Southeast were not getting enough to eat and were living in dangerous conditions.
Prior to the Missouri shooting, the First Amendment Center had written and published this article about Charles Lee Thornton (the Missouri gunman who just killed 5 officials at city hall), after his lawsuit against the city was rejected.
[As an aside, this article also includes some judicial interpretations of how the public -comment portion of a city council meeting fits into laws concerning freedom-of-speech. (The audience comment section is a limited designated public forum — a subclass of a designated public forum –in which restrictions on speech must be reasonable and viewpoint-neutral.)]
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Here are the pictures I promised from Monday Night’s swearing-in ceremony. Rich had a great first meeting.
After all the campaign victory cakes, the city council retirement cakes, and the oath of office cakes, I’ve now eaten enough cake to last me a year. 🙂
City crews had to take down some cottonwood trees today that were at risk of damaging the Cedar River flood wall, as well as a road and electrical wires down by the river.
The reason…. a busy beaver had damaged the trees so badly they were ready to fall over in the next high wind.
