Morning Fizz
Mostly Bad News
1. Hundreds of protesters marched from downtown up Pine St. around 7 pm last night to protest King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg's decision
not to prosecute SPD officer Ian Birk in the August shooting death of Native American woodcarver John T. Williams.
Photos, Copyright Sean Balch 2011
2. Spotted in Olympia yesterday: Former mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan.
3. The state house and senate have reached a budget deal to address the $1.1 billion shortfall for the final two quarters of the 2009-2011 biennium. (Next up the $5 billion shortfall for the 2011-13 biennium.)
By tightening eligibility requirements and scaling back stipends respectively, the deal preserves the Basic Health Plan (subsidized health care for the poor) and the Disability Life Line (help for people who can't work due to disabilities), although at diminished levels.
While the budget is mostly bad news—a $25 million cut to K-4 class size reduction funds and tightening eligibility to the children's health care program—there was some good news for Seattle: The $700,000 in state liquor revenue that helps the city cover things like the winter shelter, crime prevention, and domestic-violence prevention programs was restored. The money, $6 million overall for cities statewide, had originally been swept out of the dedicated fund and shifted back to the state patch up the rest of the budget.
4. At a briefing for the city council's public safety committee yesterday afternoon, officials with the Seattle Police Department and the city attorney's office said that SPD took actions against just two properties under the city's new chronic nuisance property law, which allows the city to abate properties with a high number of nuisances like drug dealing, prostitution, assaults, and robbery, last year, but plans to step up the program in 2011.
The two properties were a motel on Aurora that was ultimately shut down and sold at auction, and a Belltown apartment building where SPD required the building owners to increase security.
The reason the city pursued so few cases in 2010, according to a report on the first year of the ordinance, was that SPD decided a property would have to have twice as many nuisance violations as the ordinance stipulates "to ensure that if the abatement actions went to court, there would be ample evidence to support the nuisance declaration even if some of the nuisance activities could not be proven by a preponderance of the evidence," the standard for criminal prosecution. This year, the city will go back to the lower bar, and is expected to take action against more properties.
5. U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA, 1) couldn't have been too happy about yesterday's surprising news that former state GOP chair Luke Esser got a gig lobbying for the lefty Service Employees International Union 775.
The SEIU traditionally does heavy lifting (and spending) for Democrats in the governor's race . Inslee is expected to run for governor in 2012 against Republican Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna. Esser is a longtime ally and confidant of McKenna.
Nothing for Inslee to worry about. The SEIU tells PubliCola that Esser has a small contract to lobby Republicans in the state legislature on home care issues. (The SEIU represents home care workers.)
The SEIU has worked with Republicans before, including GOP consultant Brett Bader, to lobby state legislators (such as then-senator Esser) back in 2004.
"Obviously that didn't affect our aggressive support for Gregoire," SEIU spokesman Adam Glickman says.
6. As we reported yesterday, state Rep. Eric Pettigrew's (D-37, S. Seattle) bill to prioritize teacher evaluations over seniority when it comes to layoffs is not going to make it out of committee. (Today is the cut off in the house for policy bills and Pettigrew's bill, the subject of a testy hearing on Tuesday , isn't even going to come up for a vote.)
"There was a choice to be made and the Democrats decided to stay with the status quo instead of doing what's best for students," says Shannon Campion, Executive Director of Stand for Children, a group that backs Obama-style education reforms such as tying teacher evaluations to student testing. "We were having conversations with Republicans [about compromise amendments] and they supported them, but the Democrats are in control, and they decided not to bring it to a vote."
A Republican cosponsor, Rep. Cathy Dahlquist (R-31, Enumclaw) said she was disappointed: "We need the best teachers in front of students and anything that would facilitate that is a good thing."
The main compromise amendment was actually proposed by a Democrat, Rep. Tim Probst (D-17, Vancouver). We have a call in to Probst.
The bill had 10 cosponsors including seven Democrats and three Republicans.
Photos, Copyright Sean Balch 2011
2. Spotted in Olympia yesterday: Former mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan.
3. The state house and senate have reached a budget deal to address the $1.1 billion shortfall for the final two quarters of the 2009-2011 biennium. (Next up the $5 billion shortfall for the 2011-13 biennium.)
By tightening eligibility requirements and scaling back stipends respectively, the deal preserves the Basic Health Plan (subsidized health care for the poor) and the Disability Life Line (help for people who can't work due to disabilities), although at diminished levels.
While the budget is mostly bad news—a $25 million cut to K-4 class size reduction funds and tightening eligibility to the children's health care program—there was some good news for Seattle: The $700,000 in state liquor revenue that helps the city cover things like the winter shelter, crime prevention, and domestic-violence prevention programs was restored. The money, $6 million overall for cities statewide, had originally been swept out of the dedicated fund and shifted back to the state patch up the rest of the budget.
4. At a briefing for the city council's public safety committee yesterday afternoon, officials with the Seattle Police Department and the city attorney's office said that SPD took actions against just two properties under the city's new chronic nuisance property law, which allows the city to abate properties with a high number of nuisances like drug dealing, prostitution, assaults, and robbery, last year, but plans to step up the program in 2011.
The two properties were a motel on Aurora that was ultimately shut down and sold at auction, and a Belltown apartment building where SPD required the building owners to increase security.
The reason the city pursued so few cases in 2010, according to a report on the first year of the ordinance, was that SPD decided a property would have to have twice as many nuisance violations as the ordinance stipulates "to ensure that if the abatement actions went to court, there would be ample evidence to support the nuisance declaration even if some of the nuisance activities could not be proven by a preponderance of the evidence," the standard for criminal prosecution. This year, the city will go back to the lower bar, and is expected to take action against more properties.
5. U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA, 1) couldn't have been too happy about yesterday's surprising news that former state GOP chair Luke Esser got a gig lobbying for the lefty Service Employees International Union 775.
The SEIU traditionally does heavy lifting (and spending) for Democrats in the governor's race . Inslee is expected to run for governor in 2012 against Republican Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna. Esser is a longtime ally and confidant of McKenna.
Nothing for Inslee to worry about. The SEIU tells PubliCola that Esser has a small contract to lobby Republicans in the state legislature on home care issues. (The SEIU represents home care workers.)
The SEIU has worked with Republicans before, including GOP consultant Brett Bader, to lobby state legislators (such as then-senator Esser) back in 2004.
"Obviously that didn't affect our aggressive support for Gregoire," SEIU spokesman Adam Glickman says.
6. As we reported yesterday, state Rep. Eric Pettigrew's (D-37, S. Seattle) bill to prioritize teacher evaluations over seniority when it comes to layoffs is not going to make it out of committee. (Today is the cut off in the house for policy bills and Pettigrew's bill, the subject of a testy hearing on Tuesday , isn't even going to come up for a vote.)
"There was a choice to be made and the Democrats decided to stay with the status quo instead of doing what's best for students," says Shannon Campion, Executive Director of Stand for Children, a group that backs Obama-style education reforms such as tying teacher evaluations to student testing. "We were having conversations with Republicans [about compromise amendments] and they supported them, but the Democrats are in control, and they decided not to bring it to a vote."
A Republican cosponsor, Rep. Cathy Dahlquist (R-31, Enumclaw) said she was disappointed: "We need the best teachers in front of students and anything that would facilitate that is a good thing."
The main compromise amendment was actually proposed by a Democrat, Rep. Tim Probst (D-17, Vancouver). We have a call in to Probst.
The bill had 10 cosponsors including seven Democrats and three Republicans.
