Morning Fizz
"Just So You Don't Think I Was Trying to Pull a Fast One."
Follow-Up Friday:
Follow-up No. 1
In Andrew's story yesterday about the UW's attempt to get an exemption from the city's commercial parking tax, he landed on a touchy issue for our citizen legislature—what to make of bills that benefit the employer of a state rep or senator who's sponsoring the legislation. (In this instance, Sen. Ed Murray, D-43, Capitol Hill, who works for the UW , is sponsoring a bill that would give the UW a $3 million tax break.)
In the story, we noted, as a quaint example of the issue, that state Rep. Dave Upthegrove (D-33, Des Moines) works as an amateur basketball ref and passed a bill that would benefit his trade association, the Pacific Northwest Basketball Officials Association.
Upthegrove is not shy about his advocacy for the group. He followed-up on Andrew's story by sending us a playful email hyping his floor speech on the basketball refs bill.
Rep. Upthegrove emailed:
Follow-Up No. 2
In yesterday's Morning Fizz, we noted a conspiracy theory we'd heard after we reported that the Urban League—currently on the hot seat for questionable billings and contracts with Seattle Public Schools and the city—also had a half-a-million dollar contract with the Washington State Department of Transportation . (We have filed a public records request with WSDOT to find out if the Urban League fulfilled its contract.)
The conspiracy theory? The big bucks from WSDOT, $520,000 over two years, influenced former Urban League head James Kelly's outspoken support of WSDOT's tunnel project—and his outspoken criticism of Mayor Mike McGinn's antagonism toward the tunnel project.
While we did not hear back from Kelly, we did hear back from the Urban League's acting CEO, Tony Benjamin. He wouldn't address the WSDOT issue, but we did end up talking about the controversy over the Urban League's contract with the city to do youth violence prevention, which the Seattle Times reported had been "yanked" for "vague and inaccurate invoices."
Benjamin said the contract had not been canceled, but rather it had "expired," and when the city bid it out for renewal, the Urban League had lost out. He proudly noted that the outreach program "proposed, built up, and developed" by the league was still being used by the city, but acknowledged that there had been problems with "the administrative oversight of the accounting."
Follow-Up No. 3
At the top of the week, on Monday, Fizz noted a suspicious spike in Boeing's stock price several hours before the big tanker contract news was announced.
Did someone have inside info? Our sources on Wall Street (true) have since talked us down from our suspicions about insider trading, but our reporting did turn up a troubling detail .
Fizz has always been under the impression that information on stock market trading, particularly huge institutional buys like the one that's most certainly behind the pre-tanker-announcement spike, were public. Nope, our Wall Street source explained. Institutional investors, along with anyone who owns more than 10 percent, have to file quarterly reports of their holdings, but there's no way for the public to know who made that mad dash on Boeing stock as trading opened last Thursday.
So much for Wall Street reform.
Follow-Up No. 4
In Wednesday's Fizz, we belittled the state senate's version of the oil clean up bill, saying it wasn't as serious as the house version. The house version, sponsored by Rep. Christine Rolfes (D-23, Kitsap County), we noted, forces oil companies to go out and spend money now—upgrading their response preparedness, while the senate version, sponsored by Sen. Kevin Ranker (D-40, San Juan Island), simply added categories of liability.
A senate staffer contacted us afterward to point out that current law only holds companies responsible for the direct effects of the spill , but not for any effects of the cleanup. The staffer explained:
The staffer suggested that both the senate and house bills were "crucial to the future protection of the sound," but that they "did differnet stuff" and that Sen. Ranker would work with the house on both bills.
Follow-up No. 1
In Andrew's story yesterday about the UW's attempt to get an exemption from the city's commercial parking tax, he landed on a touchy issue for our citizen legislature—what to make of bills that benefit the employer of a state rep or senator who's sponsoring the legislation. (In this instance, Sen. Ed Murray, D-43, Capitol Hill, who works for the UW , is sponsoring a bill that would give the UW a $3 million tax break.)
In the story, we noted, as a quaint example of the issue, that state Rep. Dave Upthegrove (D-33, Des Moines) works as an amateur basketball ref and passed a bill that would benefit his trade association, the Pacific Northwest Basketball Officials Association.
Upthegrove is not shy about his advocacy for the group. He followed-up on Andrew's story by sending us a playful email hyping his floor speech on the basketball refs bill.
Rep. Upthegrove emailed:
Thanks (I think!) for the mention of the referee bill. Here is a video of my very eloquent floor speech … just so you don’t think I was trying to pull a fast one on people!
Follow-Up No. 2
In yesterday's Morning Fizz, we noted a conspiracy theory we'd heard after we reported that the Urban League—currently on the hot seat for questionable billings and contracts with Seattle Public Schools and the city—also had a half-a-million dollar contract with the Washington State Department of Transportation . (We have filed a public records request with WSDOT to find out if the Urban League fulfilled its contract.)
The conspiracy theory? The big bucks from WSDOT, $520,000 over two years, influenced former Urban League head James Kelly's outspoken support of WSDOT's tunnel project—and his outspoken criticism of Mayor Mike McGinn's antagonism toward the tunnel project.
While we did not hear back from Kelly, we did hear back from the Urban League's acting CEO, Tony Benjamin. He wouldn't address the WSDOT issue, but we did end up talking about the controversy over the Urban League's contract with the city to do youth violence prevention, which the Seattle Times reported had been "yanked" for "vague and inaccurate invoices."
Benjamin said the contract had not been canceled, but rather it had "expired," and when the city bid it out for renewal, the Urban League had lost out. He proudly noted that the outreach program "proposed, built up, and developed" by the league was still being used by the city, but acknowledged that there had been problems with "the administrative oversight of the accounting."
Follow-Up No. 3
At the top of the week, on Monday, Fizz noted a suspicious spike in Boeing's stock price several hours before the big tanker contract news was announced.
Did someone have inside info? Our sources on Wall Street (true) have since talked us down from our suspicions about insider trading, but our reporting did turn up a troubling detail .
Fizz has always been under the impression that information on stock market trading, particularly huge institutional buys like the one that's most certainly behind the pre-tanker-announcement spike, were public. Nope, our Wall Street source explained. Institutional investors, along with anyone who owns more than 10 percent, have to file quarterly reports of their holdings, but there's no way for the public to know who made that mad dash on Boeing stock as trading opened last Thursday.
So much for Wall Street reform.
Follow-Up No. 4
In Wednesday's Fizz, we belittled the state senate's version of the oil clean up bill, saying it wasn't as serious as the house version. The house version, sponsored by Rep. Christine Rolfes (D-23, Kitsap County), we noted, forces oil companies to go out and spend money now—upgrading their response preparedness, while the senate version, sponsored by Sen. Kevin Ranker (D-40, San Juan Island), simply added categories of liability.
A senate staffer contacted us afterward to point out that current law only holds companies responsible for the direct effects of the spill , but not for any effects of the cleanup. The staffer explained:
Spillers have an incentive to use unprecedented amounts of dispersant (which BP has done) in an effort to "clean-up" the spill faster since this is the only aspect for which they are liable. The future effects of these dispersants is unknown as they slink across the sea floor and make their way around the globe. Currently, if dispersants devastate a Washington fishery or local port community, there’s no financial recourse for those affected. Ranker’s bill fixes that.
The staffer suggested that both the senate and house bills were "crucial to the future protection of the sound," but that they "did differnet stuff" and that Sen. Ranker would work with the house on both bills.
