Kari attended the Barack Obama rally at Key Arena yesterday. Here are some of her photos. Continue reading
Tens of thousands of Washington votes will be thrown out…. something is wrong here!
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.
Barack Obama’s visit to Seattle; Governor Gregoire gives him her endorsement
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.
Hillary Clinton visits Washington
Someone pointed out some familiar faces in the background of this picture from today’s Seattle PI
KIRO TV Reports on case of alleged animal cruelty just outside our city limits
(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.
Background on the Missouri city hall shooter…this article described his earlier behavior
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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Rich Zwicker takes his oath of office!
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. 🙂
Beaver damage
The tall tree on the other side of the wall is one that had to be removed
Here is the reason it was unsafe
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.
Missouri coucil meeting shot up; six killed (5 victims and the gunman)
Such a sad story from Kirkwood, Missouri. Thank you Rentonites for handling your controversial and heated issues with letters, petitions, debate, diplomacy, endorsements, passionate words, campaigns, and the ballot box, instead of physical violence. Many families were destroyed by this, and a community will require many years of healing.
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6 Dead After Gunfire at Mo. Meeting
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, AP
KIRKWOOD, Mo. — A gunman with a history of acrimony against civic leaders stormed City Hall during a council meeting Thursday night, killing two police officers and three city officials before law enforcers fatally shot him, authorities said. The mayor was critically injured in the rampage.
We had a 500 year flood!
Scientists say that the December flooding was not a 20 year flood, or a 100 year flood, but a 500 YEAR FLOOD! See the story here.
To understand how bad this is, the scale looks something like this:
Winter flood
5 year flood
20 year flood
100 year flood
500 YEAR FLOOD
1000 year flood
Noah’s flood
As a reminder of the rainfall, here is a video from 180th down by IKEA
People working together to draft helicopter rules
Mark Hancock, who adminsters nojets.org, and Charlie Conner, Kennydale lakefront resident with a helicopter, have been working productively to reach a mutually acceptable aggreement on lakefront heliports. (This has been a huge topic of discussion on earlier blog entries)
The city will look seriously at their joint recommendation. I’m delighted to see that a solution may be at hand.
Here are some of the emails on the topic.
A great chef in the making
My nine year old makes a pizza from scratch. She has completed some pretty complicated recipes.
Graphic Images displayed where motorists and children can see them
The speaker acknowledged that the pro-life activists have a right to present such images to adults in an effort to illustrate the controversy of abortion, but that the use of the street corner also exposed the images to children who could be confused, stunned, and/or traumatized by such pictures.
The speaker asked the city to look into options for protecting kids from the images. The council referred the topic to the administration (mayor, city attorney, and staff) for a recommedation.
The speaker chose not to show the images to the public last night (because kids may be watching the TV broadcast, but the images can easily be found on the internet with a google Image search on the term “anti-abortion”. Here is a link to such a search, but before you click be prepared that the images might upset you. (link )
I think the city may be able to partially manage the size and placement of the signs, to the degree that they are an obstruction or a traffic hazzard, but we are unlikely to be able to do anything about the content because of first ammendment protections.
What do you readers think about this?
To get you thinking, here is an article from the Redwood City Daily News, about the City of San Mateo California mulling this issue.
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Apr 29, 2007
Graphic photos spur city response
Parents say shocking anti-abortion images in San Mateo are traumatizing children
San Mateo City Attorney Shawn Mason is exploring what the city can do to address people’s concerns about anti-abortion activist Ross Foti’s habit of displaying graphic pictures near St. Matthew Catholic School.
Foti uses poster-size images of aborted babies, Jesus and other religious symbols to protest five days a week at San Mateo Planned Parenthood on Palm Avenue. The posters are mounted on his truck, which he parks outside the church most Thursdays when he goes there to pray. Children see the graphic pictures when their parents drop them off for school at the parish.
Mason said the parents have lobbied the city to intervene.
“I’ve been candid with the parents that his activity certainly involves significant issues regarding the First Amendment and free speech,” Mason said. “We are concerned. We share the concerns of parents about the impact these images have on children.
“I would not recommend that the city take any action unless we were very comfortable and confident that we were not violating his First Amendment rights.”
Mason said he expects to have a better idea about the city’s options within the next month.
Parents say the pictures have traumatized their children. They met with Foti and St. Matthew officials earlier this week in an effort to resolve their differences. They have asked him to at least cover the truck-mounted posters.
“We really want this resolved and obviously he is not going to do this on his own accord,” said Jan Brown, a parent of a fourth-grader at St. Matthew. “We thought he would have a change of heart and he is not going to, so we need to find other options.”
Brown said her son dreads going to school on Thursdays because of the posters.
Foti has said he would cover his posters if the church’s clergy agreed to talk about abortion at least once a month during Sunday Mass. He said he would also like his fellow parishioners to protest with him, but that would not be a condition of covering up the posters.
“It’s something that should be done,” Foti said of his request that abortion be discussed at Mass. “It’s not blackmail.”
Rev. Anthony McGuire said abortion is something the church talks about and he does not believe it is appropriate to invite the parishioners to protest with Foti.
“We certainly are against abortion,” said Ken Boegel, the principal at St. Matthew Catholic School. “It really comes down to the effect those poster have on the children.”
But Foti has successfully defended his protesting practices in other cities, and he parks his truck in a public area by the church. In 1998, a federal court ruled in his favor when Menlo Park tried to quash his anti-abortion tactics at a clinic.
“A lot of people use these posters and we get complaints, and we deal with them,” said Katie Short, Foti’s attorney with the nonprofit Life Legal Defense Foundation. “You could ban obscenity, defamation or something like that, but just the idea of (banning) something that is graphic or upsetting is not going to work.”
http://www.redwoodcitydailynews.com/article/2007-4-29-sm-foti-folo
Issaquah pan-handler ban
Issaquah is talking about banning pan-handling…and threatening a $1000 fine.
Why do I think they won’t collect much of the fine?
“Brother, can you spare a dime to help me pay my fine?”
Seriously, Issaquah is going to have a hard time legally distinguishing homeless who sell overpriced “newspapers” from girl scouts selling cookies.
I am pretty sure they will find that the only thing they can really ban is aggressive pan-handling…i.e. altercations with passers by.
Meanwhile, they will pay $109 per pan-handler per day to house the pan-handlers in their jail, plus hundereds more per night for each one requiring medical, dental, or psych assistance….while waiting to collect on the $1000 fine.
This will continue until the ACLU gets an injunction and files civil rights violations against the city….yikes!
It will be interesting to watch….
Great meeting tonight!
I have a few different topics I want to cover from tonight’s meeting in some upcoming journal entries; (1) Rich Zwicker’s oath of office (I’ll get a picture);(2) new ordinances for the keeping of animals (more people will be allowed laying hens, miniature goats, and things like this, and large property owners will have more clarity on how many horses, goats, etc that they can keep);(3) and protest signs with highly offensive content (I’ll post the examples that were given to us tonight, that were not shown on television). I’m anxious to your input/ideas on this last topic, as it will come down to first amendment issues vs. protecting our children from being harmed by shocking content.
Also, I want to share some insight about our need for a new jail for misdemeanor offenders in the 2012 time frame.
Overall, I am really enjoying the new mayor and new council. Denis Law is already up to speed, and getting much done as our new mayor. the staff seem comfortable and productive, and everything is moving forwards. We are seeing a huge amount of work being accomplished in preparation for Benson Hill joining our city…but everyone seems upbeat even though they are busy.