Morning Fizz
An Unexpected Ally
Caffeinated News & Gossip. Your daily Morning Fizz.
1. Seattle's apparent Sonics deus ex machina, San Francisco hedge fund manager Chris Hansen, made a rare media appearance yesterday at the city's first meeting of the arena review panel. Erica's report is here .[pullquote]The Washington Education Association may be getting help from unexpected allies: a handful of Republicans.[/pullquote]
2. The state teachers' union, the Washington Education Association, may be getting a little help from unexpected allies: a handful of state senate Republicans.
Yesterday, we reported that a bipartisan bill to put teachers in a state-run pool for health care insurance inexplicably stalled. (The bill revamps the existing model, favored by the WEA and big insurers such as Premera Blue Cross, in which the union bargains for coverage district by district on the free market and can choose to be part of the WEA's statewide pooled plan with Premera.)
The reason for the delay, Fizz is told: A batch of Republicans who had initially supported the bill in their ongoing effort to scale back WEA power changed their position after Premera went into "full court press lobbying mode."
3. File this one under the "gossip" part of your daily caffeinated news and gossip, but to follow up on yesterday's hot rumor in Olympia (at least among the justifiably paranoid Democrats) that the senate Republicans had another coup up their sleeve—this time to displace Democratic budget leader Sen. Ed Murray (D-43, Seattle)—Fizz hears the effort got nowhere because moderate Republican Sen. Cheryl Pflug (R-5, Maple Valley) wouldn't go along with it.[pullquote]A new report on police staffing in Seattle shows that the Seattle Police Department continues to be understaffed, with SPD hiring numbers still failing to meet projections.[/pullquote]
We have a message in to Sen. Pflug.
4. A new report on police staffing in Seattle shows that the Seattle Police Department continues to be understaffed, with SPD hiring numbers still failing to meet projections made before the recession, and with more police officers leaving SPD each year than initially projected.
The upshot, the city's public safety committee was told yesterday, is there will be just 1,235 officers in service (that is, not in training or on leave)---down from a high of 1,296 at the beginning of 2010. In 2013, deputy chief Clark Kimerer told the committee, SPD expects that number to decline to about 1,225.
5. Update: DeBell confirms that he isn't running for the legislature in the 36th District. He says, however, that he "would be announcing my candidacy right now" if his home, where he's lived for 22 years, hadn't been redistricted into the 43rd. "I would really like to tackle full funding for education," DeBell says, adding that he may consider moving into the 36th in the future "if i get to move at my own pace."
As we reported yesterday , among the long list of rumored potential candidates for the open 36th District state house seat being vacated by Mary Lou Dickerson is Seattle School Board member Michael DeBell.
Although DeBell hasn't returned an email asking if he plans to run, it turns out that---thanks to redistricting---he now lives in the 43rd District, meaning he would have to move to run in the 36th. If he did run, though, there would be an even bigger ramification: DeBell would have to resign his school board seat, leaving the unpopular school board majority (in a recent poll , just 30 percent of respondents said they approved of the board's performance) to appoint a successor.
6. Who will think of the horses?[pullquote]We were alerted to this new Twitter feed: @Jay_Insleep, apparently set up by a disgruntled Democrat. [/pullquote]
That was the question on the minds of members of the city council's government performance and finance committee yesterday morning, when they discussed legislation that would increase regulations on horse-drawn carriages. The new rules, aimed at protecting horses that live outside city limits but work in the city, would give the city the ability to inspect horses and their living conditions regardless of where they live.
According to the city's office of Finance and Administrative Services, the city gets about 10 complaints related to horse-drawn carriages every year---in most cases, animal cruelty allegations. In one case, FAS spokeswoman Denise Movius said, they found horses that had only been fed "moldy bread---they were chewing the bark off trees." The legislation has at least one more hearing before it goes to the full council.
7. We're not sure if was inspired by yesterday's Fizz comment thread debate among US Rep. Jay Inslee supporters about Inslee's (underwhelming?) campaign for governor, but we were alerted to this new Twitter feed: @Jay_Insleep, apparently set up by a disgruntled Democrat.
8. Josh will be on KUOW 94.9 this morning at 9 to talk about the opinion piece he wrote yesterday about the "pretty impressive" and "justified" GOP coup.
1. Seattle's apparent Sonics deus ex machina, San Francisco hedge fund manager Chris Hansen, made a rare media appearance yesterday at the city's first meeting of the arena review panel. Erica's report is here .[pullquote]The Washington Education Association may be getting help from unexpected allies: a handful of Republicans.[/pullquote]
2. The state teachers' union, the Washington Education Association, may be getting a little help from unexpected allies: a handful of state senate Republicans.
Yesterday, we reported that a bipartisan bill to put teachers in a state-run pool for health care insurance inexplicably stalled. (The bill revamps the existing model, favored by the WEA and big insurers such as Premera Blue Cross, in which the union bargains for coverage district by district on the free market and can choose to be part of the WEA's statewide pooled plan with Premera.)
The reason for the delay, Fizz is told: A batch of Republicans who had initially supported the bill in their ongoing effort to scale back WEA power changed their position after Premera went into "full court press lobbying mode."
3. File this one under the "gossip" part of your daily caffeinated news and gossip, but to follow up on yesterday's hot rumor in Olympia (at least among the justifiably paranoid Democrats) that the senate Republicans had another coup up their sleeve—this time to displace Democratic budget leader Sen. Ed Murray (D-43, Seattle)—Fizz hears the effort got nowhere because moderate Republican Sen. Cheryl Pflug (R-5, Maple Valley) wouldn't go along with it.[pullquote]A new report on police staffing in Seattle shows that the Seattle Police Department continues to be understaffed, with SPD hiring numbers still failing to meet projections.[/pullquote]
We have a message in to Sen. Pflug.
4. A new report on police staffing in Seattle shows that the Seattle Police Department continues to be understaffed, with SPD hiring numbers still failing to meet projections made before the recession, and with more police officers leaving SPD each year than initially projected.
The upshot, the city's public safety committee was told yesterday, is there will be just 1,235 officers in service (that is, not in training or on leave)---down from a high of 1,296 at the beginning of 2010. In 2013, deputy chief Clark Kimerer told the committee, SPD expects that number to decline to about 1,225.
5. Update: DeBell confirms that he isn't running for the legislature in the 36th District. He says, however, that he "would be announcing my candidacy right now" if his home, where he's lived for 22 years, hadn't been redistricted into the 43rd. "I would really like to tackle full funding for education," DeBell says, adding that he may consider moving into the 36th in the future "if i get to move at my own pace."
As we reported yesterday , among the long list of rumored potential candidates for the open 36th District state house seat being vacated by Mary Lou Dickerson is Seattle School Board member Michael DeBell.
Although DeBell hasn't returned an email asking if he plans to run, it turns out that---thanks to redistricting---he now lives in the 43rd District, meaning he would have to move to run in the 36th. If he did run, though, there would be an even bigger ramification: DeBell would have to resign his school board seat, leaving the unpopular school board majority (in a recent poll , just 30 percent of respondents said they approved of the board's performance) to appoint a successor.
6. Who will think of the horses?[pullquote]We were alerted to this new Twitter feed: @Jay_Insleep, apparently set up by a disgruntled Democrat. [/pullquote]
That was the question on the minds of members of the city council's government performance and finance committee yesterday morning, when they discussed legislation that would increase regulations on horse-drawn carriages. The new rules, aimed at protecting horses that live outside city limits but work in the city, would give the city the ability to inspect horses and their living conditions regardless of where they live.
According to the city's office of Finance and Administrative Services, the city gets about 10 complaints related to horse-drawn carriages every year---in most cases, animal cruelty allegations. In one case, FAS spokeswoman Denise Movius said, they found horses that had only been fed "moldy bread---they were chewing the bark off trees." The legislation has at least one more hearing before it goes to the full council.
7. We're not sure if was inspired by yesterday's Fizz comment thread debate among US Rep. Jay Inslee supporters about Inslee's (underwhelming?) campaign for governor, but we were alerted to this new Twitter feed: @Jay_Insleep, apparently set up by a disgruntled Democrat.
8. Josh will be on KUOW 94.9 this morning at 9 to talk about the opinion piece he wrote yesterday about the "pretty impressive" and "justified" GOP coup.
Filed under
Share
Show Comments
