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Posts published in May 2007

Roady’s and Taco Bell

May 31, 2007
Humanitarian Bowl

Humanitarian Bowl

Considering all the name changes it's gone through already, the new name addition of Roady's Truck Stops to the Boise State Humanitarian Bowl may not be a very big deal.

After all, consider the names the game already has had: Humanitarian Bowl (1997-98), Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl (1999-2002), [plain old] Humanitarian Bowl (January 2004) and MPC Computers Bowl (Dec. 2004-2006 - no "Humanitarian" at all).

In the context, the new Roady's Humanitarian Bowl doesn't really sound like a big stretch. And the naming rights were duly paid for.

(Never heard of Roady's Truck Stops? That may be because, though it's currently a large outfit in the industry, it was created only this year by the merger of two differently-named companies. The company list says the only Roady's in Idaho at present is the Mayfield stop east of Boise on I-84; there is one in Oregon, at Baker, and two in Washington, at Spokane and Toledo. Roady's corporate offices are located in New Plymouth, however.)

Not everyone's happy about it. Remarked one commenter on an Idaho Statesman comment board (the whole long thing, well over 100 comments so far, really is worth scanning) offered: "I never thought I could ever stop laughing at the Taco Bell Arena... Today I finally got over it. Can't wait to find out who will have naming rights for Bronco Stadium so that I can stop laughing at the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl."

Strike?

May 31, 2007
NW carpenters

NW carpenters

Haven't seen much about this, but could it be that a labor-union settlement in one part of the Northwest might prompt a massive strike in other parts of the region?

Carpenters unions around the Northwest have been pushing in recent months for pay increases. In western Washington (mainly the Puget Sound area) this week, they reached a deal with the Wall and Ceiling Contractors Association involving an increase of about $7.20 an hour at the journeyman level.

No such deal yet, though, for Oregon or others in Washington. An e-mail from the carpenters notes that "The last and final offer from the Wall and Ceiling Contractors Association was only about 70% of the increase that the Association agreed to in Seattle." A spokesman was quoted: “In Western Washington, the same worker will be receiving a 30% larger raise than he or she would in Oregon or in Southwest Washington. [He said] In Oregon alone, construction accounts for at least $9.9 Billion to the economy annually. It’s not just 1,300 families negotiating here; if they fail, Oregon and Southwest Washington lose economically when the contractors disrupt the operations of their own jobsites."

So, the mail said: "With only hours before the contracts expire at midnight on May 31st, members of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters (PNWRCC) in Washington and Oregon may be forced to walk off dozens of active construction sites; the strike is imminent since the contractors continually failed to offer an acceptable increase to workers’ wages and benefits. Already, 97.5% of the affected carpenters have voted in favor of striking as a last resort."

Pickets tomorrow, all over the region?

Money back, no guarantees

May 30, 2007

Has to be said that, over the years, the Northwest congressional delegation has been ace at protecting the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency probably most responsible for the low electric power rates in the region.

How will it do now in a case where an action of the BPA may shoot up power rates across much of the region by about a tenth?

The region's six senators, three from each party, today shipped a joint letter to BPA Administrator Steven Wright on the situation and (a little more vaguely) their suggestion.

On May 3rd, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a case regarding how utilities and their customers in our three states share in the economic benefits of the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) under the Northwest Power Act (NWPA). The court's decision appears to cast a legal shadow on BPA's authority to adopt the "Regional Dialogue" proposal and to enter into power supply contracts with its public agency customers next year as hoped. This week, seven Northwest investor-owned utilities announced residential ratepayers could see rate increases as much as 25 percent at a time when other energy costs, notably gasoline, are sky high.

We know BPA is trying to implement the court's decision, and that it is difficult to navigate through these complex issues. However, everyone in the region has an interest in reaching a legally sustainable compromise that fulfills the public policy goals of the NWPA and allows BPA to enter into new power supply contracts with public agencies before the current contracts expire. This requires that all stakeholders - public and private utilities, BPA and consumers, states and public utility commissions - join together in good faith in an effort to negotiate a mutually agreeable and legally sustainable compromise. We believe that such a compromise is best forged in the region, and are pleased that BPA is committed to a regionally developed solution.

The point is reasonable; the specifics are less visible, at least in this letter. The evidence of success, or not, should be forthcoming soon.

Will a Sonics-less Seattle be different?

May 29, 2007

Okay, sometimes we wonder if we're being a little blase about the possibility of the Seattle Sonics blowing town for (as so many now expect) either Oklahoma City or at least some place well to the south and east of Puget Sound. Might the loss, in fact, be a real blow to Seattle?

Our core thought has been that, while the Sonics are an asset to Seattle, their departure would not likely hurt much. So we were more than a little hooked by the headline in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "A city with no Sonics: How life will change if NBA leaves Seattle," by reporter Mike Lewis.

How life will change . . . okay, let's discuss that. How would life change?

Conclusion: Not much, except that there wouldn't be the Sonics to talk about around the water cooler. Maybe some marginal loss of civic pride, though even that point is uncertain, Seattle having, shall we say, a variety of other components of civic pride as well. But read the piece for yourself. (And check out the wonderful graphic with the deflated basketball and the keeled-over Space Needle, even though it doesn't quite match the article's conclusions.)

A purchase in Boise

May 29, 2007

Washington Group InternationalAnother headquarters move making Boise the location of another division of a corporation: The purchase of Washington Group International (formerly, roughly, Morrison-Knudsen) by URS Corporation of San Francisco, for $2.6 billion.

URS describes itself as "the largest global engineering design firm and a leading U.S. federal government contractor". It has said there's little overlap between itself and Washington Group (URS is apparently much more heavily invested in Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security projects), but presumably there's not a lot of distance either between their operations. One statement said "there may be some duplication in corporate operations such as in the two companies information technology departments, but he said they company hasn’t yet identified where any additional duplication may be occurring." Boiseans may want to watch that territory closely.

Washington Group's CEO, Steve Hanks, was quoted as saying that "the sale isn’t expected to have much of an impact on the company’s Boise headquarters." Maybe. Headquarters for what has been WGI are slated to remain in Boise, at least for now.

But so, Boiseans might bear in mind, are some of the central offices for what remains of Albertsons.

Release ’em all

May 29, 2007
Pierce annex

Pierce elections

Those involved deeply in politics, professionally and otherwise, will pay attention next year to Pierce County's county races, not so much because of their inherent interest - which may be substantial anyway, Pierce being an important swing county - as because of the way the votes are counted.

For its county offices - only those offices - Pierce will be using the "instant runoff" or candidate ranking method of vote-counting. If you think there's only one way to count votes in political races, welcome to the new world: There are in fact many possible ways to vote and to count. Pierce (and are there any other jurisdictions in the Northwest doing this? We've not seen reports of any, though San Francisco has some experience with it) will be trying out one of the more heavily touted in recent years.

Roughly, here's how it works (in this variation on the theme).

All candidates who file for the county offices up for election - executive, council (four seats), assessor/treasurer and sheriff - will be on the November general election ballot; there will be no primary for them. So might someone win the office with a plurality of 15%? No: This system requires a simple majority to win. Here's how you get to 50% + 1 in a field of, say, eight candidates:

Voters can vote for more than one candidate - a first choice, a second and a third. (Or, if they want, just one or two.) You start by looking at the first-place votes. If you have eight candidates and the leader gets 30% of the first-place votes, then the last-place candidate drops out. Election officials then look at the ballots on which he was picked for first place, and extract the choices for second-place and add them to the totals for those candidates. If this still yields no candidate with 50% +1 of the vote, the new lowest-total candidate is booted, his voters' second-place choices distributed, and so on.

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Losing the lines

May 28, 2007

The managing editor of the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Gary Graham, notes in his most recent blog post the issues and balancing act in deciding what to run, and how to play, news from two states when his newspaper circulates widely in both (Washington and Idaho).

The point struck a chord here, since we watch over a three-state area ourselves.

Graham: "For starters, we’ve been placing the coverage of the Moscow shootings on the front page each day in all of our Washington and Idaho editions. That’s been a no-brainer. Although the news happened in an Idaho community, it’s the kind of event that is certainly of interest and concern to people in Washington. Underscoring that point is the fact that the New York Times published staff-written coverage on the first two days, while CNN and the major broadcast news programs all carried brief coverage on Sunday."

True; the Moscow shooting story was played substantially in many places, including southern Idaho and western Washington. (Less so, as it happens, in Oregon.)

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A Memorial Day count

May 28, 2007

Today, as we pay special attention to those who died in our nation's service, seems an appropriate time to note again the numbers from the Northwest of casualties in Iraq.

As of the end of last month (and yes, the actual numbers today are higher):

State wounded deaths
Idaho 230 26
Oregon 409 55
Washington 752 70

Fatalities in Afghanistan: none from Idaho, but nine from Oregon and nine from Washington.

A vote

May 27, 2007

Someone really ought to be keeping track of these things. But we'll note here an addition to the long list of cases where a single vote really did matter.

It's located (for now) on the cover page of the Wallowa County Chieftain:

"Wallowa school levy defeated by only one vote: 'Obviously we're disappointed, but it was very close,' said Wallowa school district superintendent Marc Thielman about the fate of the levy that the district put on last Tuesday's ballot."