Ridenbaugh Press

Those mega-dairies have impacts way beyond what you might expect. This is from a letter in the Twin Falls Times News:

I live in Filer. We have only one public Laundromat. In the last two years, I have noticed two white-beige older vans sitting outside this Laundromat filled to the ceiling with duffel bags filled with towels and rags used on local dairies.

My concern, you ask? Simple. Why should our only public Laundromat in Filer be used for the dairies? When my own private washer and dryer went out of service to me, I tried to use the washers and dryers. They were in use from dawn to dusk. Then, from a sanitary point of view, they are not being sanitized or disinfected after each use.

My suggestion, you ask? Simple. With the cost of the washers and dryers at our coin Laundromat, why don’t the dairies purchase this Laundromat and have another Laundromat built for the human residents of Filer and/or build their own on their property and give us back our Laundromat but only after a total sanitizing and disinfecting of the Laundromat we now have.

So let’s hear again how the owners of dairy property have no impact on other people . . .

We’re likely going to see more of this on a national scale. But we’ll note here David Postman’s recent post that it’s turning up in the Northwest at present.

There are presidential campaigns, and then there are campaigns in support of (or opposition to) presidential campaigns. This fact is significant in the case of all, maybe most significant in the case of Democratic candidate John Edwards, who is taking federal matching money and thereby limiting his campaign funds. But what about other organizations that run their own ads and messages?

This is a sticky and uncertain area, legally and ethically - there’s supposed to be no coordination between the ins and outs, but what that means can be unclear. Postman is noting that one of Washington’s biggest and most influential unions, S.E.I.U. local 775, has been organizing support for Edwards. (The national organization has not endorsed in the Democratic contest.) One local leader told Postman, “At that point no one is really making any strategic decisions. It was just listing a number of things that are obvious that the union could do for Edwards. That includes things you could coordinate and things you couldn’t coordinate.”

As noted, there will be more of this.

There’s something symbolic, maybe, about the whole idea: Mike Fancher, the been-there-forever editor at the Seattle Times, writer for 16 years of the “Inside the Times” column . . . ending the column and turning blogger.

Sign of the Times.

So we’ve run through our three lists of races to watch in the legislatures of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, 10 races each; today, a quick overview of the top races in the region. Nothing especially obscure here, but a tad of perspective might be helpful in seeing how the year shapes up.

The numbering logic in similar to the legislative rundown: These are the contests which, from this viewpoint, seem to have the most significance or analytical interest as we look to where Northwest politics goes from here. It isn’t a list of which seats are most likely change parties (though we think there’s a good shot some may) or which incumbents are most endangered. Rather: Which contests stand to say the most about local and Northwest politics? Some of these races tell us something apart from what the partisan balance will be: They tell us something about how people see their community and their state.

One other highly cautionary note: Candidate filing deadlines are quite a ways off, in March for Oregon and Idaho and not until the first half of June for Washington, meaning that surprises in personnel doubtless will continue to unfold. What looks of interest may well change; but this is how it looks at the moment.

(The list is below the fold.) (more…)

Campaign finance reports for 2007 won’t be out for a while yet (the end of the year is, of course, generally a significant deadline not for filing but for end-of-period). An interesting note via e-mail from Steve Novick, one of the Oregon Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate: He says he’s at about the half-million-dollar mark. Will be interesting to see where his main primary competitor, House Speaker Jeff Merkley, lands on the end of year report.

From Novick’s mail: “We’ve now passed the $500,000 threshold for the history of the campaign, but to meet our target for midnight December 31 we’re counting on you to send us a few dollars more. In perspective, that’s more than Bill Bradbury had at this point in 2001 (almost more than he had in April right before the primary). More than Jon Tester had at this point in 2005, more than Ted Kulongoski had at this point in 2001 and way, way more than Paul Wellstone had at the end of 1989. We’re really in a great position to make our case to the voters next year.”

PROMO Novick picked up a favorable review/interview in an online Harper’s Magazine piece, “Watch Out for Left Hook: Six Questions for Oregon Senatorial Candidate Steve Novick.” It mentions, naturally, that he’s running to oust Republican Gordon Smith, but curiously fails to notice at all that Smith isn’t his current opposition: That would be fellow primary contenders Merkley and Eugene real estate broker Candy Neville.

Washington statehouse

The generic look for Washington legislative politics seems to be, will the Democrats solidify gains which in the last couple of cycles have put them in decisive and almost overwhelming control? An early look suggests that if on one hand they’ve pretty much picked off not only the low-hanging but even most of the reasonably accessible fruit, they’re still not necessarily done. And for all the Democratic targets out there, not a lot of them look especially vulnerable.

So. What we have here is the third of three lists covering the legislatures of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, with one covering major offices for the three states coming tomorrow; 10 races each. The numbering logic in similar for all: These are the contests which, from this viewpoint, seem to have the most significance or analytical interest as we look to where Northwest politics goes from here. It isn’t a list of which seats will change parties (though we think there’s a good shot some of them will) or which incumbents are most endangered (among other things, some of these are open seats). Rather: Which contests stand to say the most about local and Northwest politics?

There’s little chance, to be sure, that Republicans will be able to retake the Senate in 08, and odds are less than even (though closer than remote) for a recapture of the House. But the House margins are still close, and every one of those 60 contests will have some significance. And, as is often so, some of these races tell us something apart from what the partisan balance will be: They tell us something about how people see their community and their state.

One other highly cautionary note: Candidate filing doesn’t happen until early June, meaning that surprises in personnel doubtless will continue to unfold. However, we do have early filings with the Public Disclosure Commission to work with, and though those are mainly pro forma filings by incumbents, they are in some cases early indicators.

(The list is below the fold.) (more…)

The Seattle Times is reporting, but is not commenting on - did you get that? - a memo from Publisher Frank Blethen that next year will see the paper’s “most difficult and painful downsizing” ever.

That is in line with what other papers around the region have been doing. But it has to give the newsroom a bad case of the jitters.

Oregon statehouse

Or Oregon Legislative Assembly, if you prefer, in the second of four lists for the end of the year, of what now look like some of the most noteworthy and watchable political contests to come: Three lists covering the legislatures of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, then one covering major offices for the three states, with 10 races each. The numbering logic in similar for all: These are the contests which, from this viewpoint, seem to have the most significance or analytical interest as we look to where Northwest politics goes from here. It isn’t a list of which seats will change parties (though we think there’s a good shot some of them will) or which incumbents are most endangered (among other things, some of these are open seats). Rather: Which contests stand to say the most about local and Northwest politics?

There’s little chance, to be sure, that Republicans will be able to retake the Senate in 08, and odds are less than even (though closer than remote) for a recapture of the House. But the House margins are still close, and every one of those 60 contests will have some significance. And, as is often so, some of these races tell us something apart from what the partisan balance will be: They tell us something about how people see their community and their state.

One other highly cautionary note: Candidate filing is open until March 11. Surprises in personnel doubtless will continue to unfold. (Consider, for example, the recent presumed legislature departure of Brian Boquist from the House, except that he then opted into a race for the Senate, for a seat he likely will win.)

(The list is below the fold.) (more…)

ULI report

Salem gets discounted too much: It’s a good small city, with a stronger-than-usually-given-credit-for downtown and a bunch of other assets apart from its state capitol role. It has a number of parks too, but one aspect of the city that jumps out as unrealized potential is its Willamette River waterfront, the bisector (toward the west side) of the city.

There’s parkland there, sure, but not a great deal of it. (Boiseans would look at the river frontage and act superior.) What’s there is good, but there are key blockages. And one of the most important of those, just southwest of downtown and across the street from city hall and the main library, is an old industrial plant, the Boise Cascade (now Boise) wood factory. Very old - BC and the companies that preceded it have owned the property and used it for wood production since 1862. The buildings that occupy 13 acres of its property most recently have been used for packaging and distribution; about 100 people work there. It’s not wasteland, but it is something of an eyesore, and it diminishes the surrounding downtown core area.

Turns out, we learn in an announcement today, a win-win is possible here: A change in location for the Boise company (with the company evidently working very cooperatively on it) and a new redevelopment of the area to bring out some of its underlying potential. An important chunk of Salem may be transformed as a result.

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Idaho legislative building

It being that season again - yes, it’s the time of Lists - we have a few to close out the year. (Then we’ll have more lists next year. Gee.) Our point (excuse, if you insist) is that this is a reasonable point to pause and take stock of where we are or seem to be in Northwest politics - what it looks like as 07 slides into 08.

This is the first of four lists for the days upcoming, of what now look like some of the most noteworthy and watchable political contests to come: Three lists covering the legislatures of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, then one covering major offices for the three states, with 10 races each. The numbering logic in similar for all: These are the contests which, from this viewpoint, seem to have the most significance or analytical interest as we look to where Northwest politics goes from here. It isn’t a list of which seats will change parties (though we think there’s a good shot some of them will) or which incumbents are most endangered (among other things, some of these are open seats). Rather, it’s: Which contests stand to say the most about local and Northwest politics?

You may wonder if there are as many as 10 potentially significant Idaho legislative races for ‘08; after all, aren’t Republicans essentially a lock to maintain a solid grip on the Legislature regardless? Well, yeah, probably. But there are places of potential or actual change, and places where politics is getting redefined. These races could matter even if the overall partisan balance in the Statehouse doesn’t greatly change.

One other highly cautionary note: There’s no candidate filing until March 10 (deadline March 21), so we don’t yet know for sure who’s running for any legislative seat. Could be that some of the reasons for interest in some of these races goes away by then. Just sayin’.

(The list is below the fold.) (more…)

There’s dialup, DSL, cable, microwave, wifi, satellite - what Internet connection mechanisms does that miss? At least one: Clearwire, which sounds to be among the most interesting and maybe broadly useful.

Clearwire is a company based at Kirkland. An Associated Press review describes: “Instead of driving back to the office or hunting for a Wi-Fi hotspot, I booted up my laptop, plugged in a PC card, connected to the Internet and updated my story — all from a bench near the water, with a dreamy view of snowcapped mountains. Such a feat is no surprise to anyone with a wireless card from a cellular carrier, but I wasn’t connected to the networks of Verizon Wireless, Sprint or AT&T. Instead, I used an early version of the relatively new technology WiMax, which is being offered in Seattle by Clearwire Corp.”

Will Clearwire become an another major regional tech player? We may find out in 2008.

There’s gang activity spread out far from the metro areas - there are reliable reports of it in smaller communities far flung across the Northwest. Getting a handle on how large the problem is, though, is a little more difficult.

A swipe at this from Moses Lake turns up; there’s evidence of increasing gang activity in the Columbia Basin region, enough to prompt calls for hiring a couple of new prosecutors specifically to deal with it.

How major is it? There’s also this in a news story today: “Moses Lake School Superintendent Steven Chestnut disagreed, saying gang activity was not that big an issue. Wearing gang-associated colors and displaying gang symbols in schools is prohibited, and only 3 percent of the 171 suspensions and expulsions in the first quarter of the school year were gang-related, Chestnut said.”

Doesn’t mean there isn’t any, though.

Christmas snow

Not a great shock to see Christmas snow in the more elevated parts of the Northwest, but in the more populated lowlands, as around our base, snow on Christmas is unexpected.

It was unexpected today - saw no weather reports in our region predicting anything other than same-ole rain (same as almost every day for the last three weeks or so) but here it is. It isn’t much - just a skiff, and it likely won’t stick. But we can say Merry Christmas on a day that not only feels like the holiday, but looks the part too.

Aquick note here on why a graduation slogan for Basic Patrol Academy Class #156 is chilling. It’s not organizational; rather, it raises questions about the officers being sent out to patrol. (Good catch here, by the way, to Betsy Russell of the Spokesman-Review.)

The slogan was “Don’t suffer from PTSD, go out and cause it,” PTSD being Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. It appeared on a list of patrol academy graduates for this year.

The problem - and the issue here should be obvious enough - doesn’t seem to lie with the academy, which didn’t develop or choose the slogan. The slogan was chosen, by vote, by the class itself: This was the graduating class’ slogan for itself.

Does that say something disconcerting about the outgoing class? Whatever happened to, “Remember - let’s be careful out there”?

Nicole LeFavour

Let’s take two pieces of political information and see if there’s a way to mesh them. Warning: This will not be easy.

One is poll results released late last week by Idaho state Representative Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, partly on the subject of attitudes toward gay people and gay-related issues. (We should note here that LeFavour is Idaho’s one openly gay state legislator.) Her conclusion (this was in e-mail and not posted so far on her web site): “I think people have long assumed that a vast majority of Idahoans are anti-gay. Clearly that’s not the case. Most people know someone who is gay, as part of their family, as a friend, or from work or school. That was not true of a majority of Idahoans a decade ago. I think this has helped change attitudes and create greater understanding and respect for gay people all over the state.”

A reasonable interpretation of the numbers. Asked if “Homosexuality should be discouraged by society” the strongly agrees were 29% and somewhat agrees were 15% - 44%, less than half. Of the sample group, 20% (probably less than the percentage in the state overall) were listed as Mormon; of the self-identified Republicans 47% were in the strongly or somewhat categories. (Polling was done by Myers Research; 600 respondents statewide; no margin of error noted.)

So what do we make of the recent request by six Republican legislators for an attorney general’s opinion about a city’s health benefit policy?

That policy is the city of Moscow’s, noted here last week. The policy doesn’t refer directly to gay people but it does extend health insurance coverage (in a form fairly standard for its private insurer, Regence Blue Shield of Idaho) to “domestic partners,” which presumably would include gay couples.

That was enough to set off alarm bells for the six - Senators Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, Michael Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, and Representatives Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, Curtis Bowers, R-Caldwell, and Phil Hart, R-Athol. They pointed out that voters in 2006 passed a constitutional amendment that not only banned gay marriage (the subject of most of the attention) but also “to provide that a marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state”.

Resolution of the legal issue here (which comes to whether insurance coverage can only be extended to state-recognized domestic unions - are private corporations subject to this?) isn’t immediately obvious. What clear enough is the impetus behind the legislators’ action: A determination to swiftly quash anything remotely resembling a public acceptance of homosexuality. There was no pause, no hesitation, between the arrival of the issue in the news, and the legislators’ response.

So where do the people of the state come down on this? Did they lie to the pollster, and so quietly approve of six of their legislators doing this? Or not?

Russell Investment

While cities generally would rather keep than lose businesses, especially large highly profitable businesses that generate pretty much no civic negatives and hardly any costs, the top of today’s lead Tacoma News Tribune story sounded a bit excessive: “The City of Destiny has reached a tipping point. Whether it tips forward into greater prosperity or back into disappointment hangs on a fateful decision by Russell Investment Group.”

It’s an investment company, one that sounds not terribly different from lots of other investment firms around the country. What’s so special that Russell ought to generate that kind of lead (and equally strong-worded quotes from community people)?

Several things, as it turns out; this was a piece of the Northwest whose significance had passed us by. Russell, it seems, is not just any investment company. Founded in Tacoma 71 years ago as essentially a one-man operation (remember that this was an investment startup in the teeth of the Great Depression), it has grown. Quite a bit. It employs 2,100 people (in offices linked to Tacoma from Amsterdam, Auckland, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto) and manages more than $230 billion. It is a big international player, but more than half of its people (employees have increased almost 10-fold in the last 30 years or so) and the largest chunk of its operations remain in unlikely Tacoma.

Now those central offices, spread around town inconveniently, are giving cause for Russell to reconsider its physical situation. Simply finding new quarters in Tacoma might be a simple enough answer if the company were still locally owned, but it isn’t: The most recent Russell sold it in 1998 to the Milwaukee insurance company Northwestern Mutual. And, the News Tribune reports, the company’s major leases on space in Tacoma expire in 2013.

Tacoma clearly would like to keep Russell. And maybe it will. But the immediate question to ask and issue to watch is, what will it do, how far will it go, to try to make that happen?

Let’s pause a moment to review the sequence of events, as they have emerged, following the legal repositioning of cold medicine from last year.

Components of many cold medicines are often used in creating methamphetamine, so Oregon lawmakers decided to slap controls on them, taking them off shelves and keeping track of who buys them. To that was soon added a similar, but somewhat less sweeping, federal law. We were skeptical about how much good this would do.

On the plus side, there have been consistent reports that the number of local small-scale meth producers - the kind of places operating in houses and other small buildings - have declined considerably. Those places have been hazards, so this much is good news.

The rest of the story: Meth use has remained roughly constant, evidently not declining at all. And where they are getting the stuff? From the Oregonian (a major crusader on meth) today: “Those small-time dealers largely have been replaced, law enforcement officials say, by gangs who buy the drugs in large quantities and sell them in bulk to lower-level dealers.”

In other words, more larger-scale trafficking, more concentrated money involved, even more guns and even more violence. The state’s solution (understandable under the immediate narrow circumstances) - at least that of initiative developer Kevin Mannix and a growing number of state legislators - is to increase the allowable prison sentences for drug dealers. Hello more prisons and ever-ballooning ex-cons to come. And very little more done to actually reduce the number of meth users (although a number of efforts, from drug courts to other kinds of rehab, do show signs of promise).

Meth is a very real problem; there’s no making light of that. But we just keep doing such a wonderful job of dealing with it, you have to wonder when some new approaches will take root.

Jim Goller

The 2007 biography of former Idaho Senator Jim McClure contained a lot of references to a man probably few Idahoans - speaking generally, as opposed to the politically involved - knew much about: Jim Goller, operator of a small business until he hooked up with McClure and worked for him through his years in Congress. Such a quick description comes nowhere close to doing justice, though, or explaining why Goller was (rightly) so prominent in the story of McClure and in Idaho politics.

Goller, who died on Thursday at 81, was the political craft supporting McClure, one of the most successful Idaho politicians ever (three terms in the U.S. Senate, three in the U.S. House, three in the Idaho Senate, spanning 30 years). McClure was a skilled officeholder and a good candidate, but the political work underlying all that, getting McClure elected and keeping him in office, stemmed from Goller. The book (McClure of Idaho by William Smallwood, reviewed here in August) spelled this out pretty thoroughly, but the point works in reverse too: Writing a biography of McClure without Goller as a major player would be either dishonest or impossible, as McClure would be quick to say.

He was a nice guy and a fine conversationalist, but the point here is the effect he had on Idaho politics. Goller became an important figure in Idaho with McClure’s first campaign for Congress in 1966, and hindsight shows that to be an important campaign. With it, Goller and McClure set a pattern for Idaho Republican conservatism, a winning formula, that had not been nailed down before that, but that has come to dominate Idaho politics in the four decades since, and is overwhelmingly in political control at present. Goller, who never held elective office and just one substantial appointive one (a seat on the Northwest Power Planning Council, appointed there by Democrat Cecil Andrus), has been one of the most consequential Idaho people of the last couple of generations.

He was something else, too, something fading a bit in the political world around and without him: A tough partisan who never (and that is the right word) demonized the opposition. Which is why an Andrus would describe (in the Idaho Statesman) Goller this way: “a consummate political professional who was widely respected on both sides of the political aisle. He was tough, competent, smart and a worthy adversary and also a very dear friend of mine.”

We regularly pick up on fundraising letters, often these days by email, and so many of them are depressingly similar: Contribute now or the world as you know it will end. Yeah, this kind of scare stuff must work, but too much of it still represents an insult to most people’s intelligence.

However. This morning we got one in a mail from the Jeff Merkley campaign (U.S. Senate, Oregon, Democratic) that reads a little differently. It was structured as a “holiday wish list,” and included a list of potential “gifts” donors could give the campaign.

Roll of stamps ($41.00) Mailings are a key way for Team Merkley to notify Oregonians about upcoming events, recruit new volunteers and inform voters about Jeff’s message for progressive change. Your gift of $41 buys us a roll of stamps so we can tell others about our campaign. . . .

Computer for new Team Merkley staff ($800) Computers are a critical component for our campaign. Our new staff will need computers to email organizers in Roseburg or develop lists for canvassers in Lincoln City. Donate $800 today to get our new staff equipped with a computer.

New Team Merkley staffer ($2300)
We’re building a movement across the state and we’re continuing to build a highly talented staff. With your $2300 contribution we can hire an organizer in Bend or a researcher in our Portland HQ.

How about that . . . making the donations practical, showing the specific results of contributing a specific amount. Presumably this approach to fundraising will continue or not depending on whether it works. But you’d think enough partisans will be happy to see this approach, and react accordingly, so that it will.

Richard Stallings

The Idaho Democratic Party has its challenges, bigger than any one person; one wag on an Idaho Statesman comment board wrote today, “It’s not actually a party. Its kind of a get-together. If it turns into a real party, the Republicronies will have the police break it up.”

Former Representative Richard Stallings, who has been party chair for about the last three years, said today that he will resign almost immediately. (That comes only a few days after his resignation from the Pocatello city council, which he said then he was doing so he could devote more time to the party.)

As is the norm with these transitions, there’s call for people in the party to consider what to do next, to try to move toward serious competition with the Republicans in what is, at the moment, a blood-red state with a few scattered blue dots. As an provider of candidates for election, it is down: No congressional seats (out of four), no statewide offices (out of seven), nearly all its legislators confined to Boise, Pocatello and the Sun Valley area. And the party itself has not for ages been anything resembling a well-oiled machine; too many of its pieces keep flying apart.

On the other hand, dominance of square mileage isn’t especially important in politics - just ask the Republicans in Washington and Oregon who often win most of the counties and the bulk of the geography in their states, only to lose the actual elections. If Democrats in Idaho can figure out how to make inroads into suburbia the way their western counterparts have (Idaho Democrats showed some ability here in within Boise in 2006), they could become more competitive even if they never capture the hearts of Bear Lake, Fremont or Adams counties.

Do they head that way, or get a chance to? The next chair will have a central role in working out a direction.

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