Ridenbaugh Press

Why does this seem just, simply, natural? From an update on the Idaho Statesman web site:

“Canyon County Commissioner Dave Ferdinand thought he had prepped his bags for boarding an airplane Thursday, but he forgot one big thing – a loaded gun, county spokeswoman Angie Sillonis said. Ferdinand was headed to Washington, D.C., for a National Association of Counties conference when an airport X-ray discovered the weapon in a carry-on bag and alerted police. He was cited with a misdemeanor, then released to fly to D.C., said Sillonis, who talked to Ferdinand Friday afternoon.”

Wonder what they’d do if you’re not a county commissioner . . .

The ipoff here is is quiet - the way this bill, a bill substantive and with real practical effect on a subject of undenied importance, just quietly slid through the process. That it seems to have generated no news stories was of course beyond the realm of legislators, but the quiet and apparent lack of debate - so far as we can tell, the relevant committee minutes from weeks ago still not having been posted - constitute the tell.

The bill passed the House 61-4 and is poised (as of records on line today) for a final vote on the Senate floor.

The subject here is House Bill 465, sponsored by Representative Lynn Luker, R-Meridian, which expands local government planning and zoning authority. In the Idaho Legislature? Without hoo-rah about ever-encroaching socialism? Well, the deal in this case is that local governments essentially have been barred, under state law, from discriminating against setting up group homes for the handicapped, which in extended definition includes those suffering from addictions. A federal law which covers related territory doesn’t include that extended definition, so this bill is structured as a sort of “bring it in line with” type measure.

But that’s not why the easy acceptance, of course. Few people really want group homes for addicts set up in their neighborhoods, and this would be a nice, quiet way to keep that from happening. It’s a sweep-em-under the rug measure, the only catch being that addicts, including those released from behind bars, have to go somewhere. So the bill is almost designed to set up a circular problem - a snake that eats its tail.

The immediate impetus for the bill likely was the series of group homes which has been organized in the Boise area by Dennis Mansfield. (We toured some of his New Hope facilities last month.) The norm in this sort of legislation is that you bring together affected parties and work through a compromise position. But on his blog, here’s what Mansfield is saying has happened:

Neither I nor anyone in this recovery-based industry nor
( I believe) the Department of Corrections ever EVEN knew the bill was being drafted, ever read the RS, ever were invited to any discussion on anything about it….and only came to the Senate Committee to give comment on the bill after I vigorously requested from Rep. Luker that the bill presentation be delayed so he could hear our concerns, but was denied the chance.

Lynn, who’s been a friend of mine in the past, expressed to me that this was a “mild’ bill. Read it for yourself. The new section of the bill reads as follows:

(d) The limitations provided for in subsections (b) and (c) of this sec-tion shall not apply to tenancy or planned tenancy in a group residence, as defined in section 67-6531, Idaho Code, by persons who are under the supervision of the state board of correction pursuant to section 20-219, Idaho Code, or who are required to register pursuant to chapter 83 or 84, title 18, Idaho Code, or whose tenancy would otherwise constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals or whose tenancy would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others.

What this appears to mean is that any person who is an addict AND on proba-
tion or parole SHALL NOT be allowed the equal protection of the Americans
with Disabilities Act or the Fair Housing Act.

If anyone has an alternative take on how the measure was presented an information about it distributed, let us know and we’ll post it. Assuming Mansfield is correct, what’s happened is a breach of legislative norms.

And an attempt not to try solving a problem, but to sweep it away - dump it in the landfill. Somehow. Somewhere . . .

Mansfield quoted one of his clients this way: “As I sat and listened to Representative Lynn Luker’s remarks about House Bill 465, I couldn’t help but feel the overwhelming “division” between “us” and “them”. From my perspective, he painted the perfect picture of “us” as the exclusion from “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…” We were at one time included, but because we made mistakes in our lives, we have been deemed unworthy of the above aspects of the unalienable rights. It is as if to say that yes, they acknowledge that we are human beings, but just a lower level of human beings than they.”

Anybody considering their votes on the latest lock-em-up proposals on the Oregon ballot really owes it to read the just-released (released today) report on prison populations from the Pew Center on the States. The headline finding is that one out of every 99 adult Americans is now behind bars - an incredible thing in itself.

There’s a chart on page 14 showing, by state, how much of the state general funds corrections eats. Turns out the highest in the nation is Oregon, at 10.9% - and that was a 4.6% increase in portion of the general fund over the last 20 years.

All three Northwest states have something to learn and grimace at here, though. In Idaho, the percentage of general fund is 6.9% (up 3.8%), and in Washington 5.9% (up 2.4%). The national average is 6.8%. Nationally, over the last two decades, spending on prisons and corrections has risen 127%, while spending on higher education has risen 21%.

And Idaho has some of the most spendy trends: it incarcerates 784 of every 100,000 people in the states - 11th highest in the nation - to Oregon’s 531 and Washington’s 465.

Agood description of world views in conflict, in a legislative setting . . . something that happens daily at a legislature, but only occasionally perceived well.

Idaho Representative Nicole LeFavour makes clear her view of the legislation in this case, but gets to the view from within the opposition as well in this from her blog . . .

The committee was hearing two bills from the prosecutor’s association. Both allowed for a felony charge if a person is found guilty of breaking a domestic violence protection order or a no contact protective order for a third time.
In debate, Phil Hart was concerned that his ex wife’s own past behavior and accusations would land him a felony charge even if he did nothing wrong. Raul Labrador thought that it was too easy for people to get a protection order just to try to get custody of the kids in divorce proceedings. Lynn Luker moved to kill both bills because he says that judges can put people in jail enough already under the existing law.
None of these legislators I suspect has ever experienced domestic violence or stalking. None has spent long months with every day feeling like a dreaded test of your will to live. Every day a question of whether you can survive psychologically long enough until you are no longer followed, no longer haunted by phone calls, impersonated, no longer tired of having the police on auto-dial, filing report after report, no longer exhausted waiting for your stalker to maybe snap and kill you with a gun, a car or fist.

You’ve been reading no doubt about the heavy gas prices increases around the country. (And we’ve been grimacing on our recent road excursions around the region.) And the headlines about - uh - $4/gallon gas.

Sounds like a less than ideal moment for a gas tax increase.

As they’re finding out in Eugene. There, the city has had a three-cent local gas tax recently upped to five cents. Except that on Wednesday the Oregon Petroleum Association showed up with petitions bearing, it said, 11,084 signatures. Enough presumably to send the issue to the primary election ballot May 20, and halt the increase in the meantime. And costing city road repair funds an estimated $1.3 million a year.

Transportation is a tough one.

Coffee at the Washington statehouse coffee shop (Under the Dome) yesterday with a couple statehouse reporters - Adam Wilson of the Olympian and Rich Roesler of the Spokane Spokesman Review, both fine bloggers - led to a Wilson post, which may be of interest (the focus being the Obama-Clinton race).

The statehouse reporters at Olympia work generally out of a building about a block from the legislative building called the Blue House (it formerly being a house, and it still being painted blue). It appears that the journalists working there overwhelmingly are bloggers, Wilson and Roesler being two examples. But the number is large and growing. Walking out of the building, we chatted briefly with a reporter from the Yakima Herald-Republic, who we thought wasn’t a blogger. Turned out, she was.

Before long, there may not be many reporters who aren’t.

Interesting morning on the Washington Senate floor, as the members scrapped over amendments to House Bill 2878, a supplemental budget bill.

Which one got so much interest? This was the transportation funding bill.

Just now, a proposal to increase funding for improvements on Highway 2 over the Cascades, a road that, in our observation, could use it. Nobody really argued that improvements aren’t needed; the issue was that the limited available money is being pulled in so many different amendments.

Even the Snohomish County delegation was split on the matter, and so were the King Countians. After Senator Ed Murray, D-Seattle, ran through a strong argument against the spending, another senator, Cheryl Pflug, R-Maple Valley, rose to object to his use of the word “snide.” He withdrew it. (The proposal ultimately failed, 19-30.)

And so it went on, and on - proposal after proposal, some of them aimed broadly (one that had to do with encouraging car sharing and leases) and narrowly (very specific projects - can you say “earmark”?). Through it, Senator Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, rose repeatedly to keep the existing transport funding bill more or less intact (more successfully than not, it seemed).

Do you get the impression that transportation is right up there on the political front burner in Washington?

The mayor of Arlington, Oregon, has been recalled on a vote of 139-142, in large part because she once posted a picture - taken before she became mayor - dressed in what amounts to a swim suit.

Consider this another argument for reform of the recall law . . .

You hear about it with corporations - having a specific culture, in which things happen in part because they’re simply expected to, or not to. It’s true of other organizations too; patterns of thought become ingrained, and alternative ways of thinking just have a hard time taking root.

Consider the Idaho state Board of Education, recently hand-slapped, sort of, for “a non-knowing violation of the Open Meeting Law.” Today reporter Betsy Russell (of the Spokane Spokesman-Review), who filed the initial complaint leading to the AG’s action, blogged this:

“The state Board of Education has sent out its schedule for meetings this week, and it includes “open government training” this Wednesday at 3:30 p.m., followed immediately by – you guessed it – a closed-door, executive session at 5 p.m.”

Rick Dancer

Oregon has some back history of television newscasters running for public office, successfully. The most emblematic Oregon politician of recent decades, Tom McCall, a reporter and analyst at KATU in Portland for years, was one of them, until he ran successfully for secretary of state. He did, though, have some political experience, including staff work in the Oregon governor’s office and a failed run for Congress in 1954, as well as sundry Republican Party work, under his belt by that point.

Will lightning strike again? Oregon Republicans may be banking on it. On the 11 p.m. news program at KEZI in Eugene, anchor Rick Dancer announced he’s leaving his job and will run for secretary of state, as a Republican. He becomes the first Republican to specifically announce for any of the three constitutional offices (attorney general and treasurer are the others) up for election this year. Four Democrats are running for sec-state.

Dancer is well-known in the Eugene area; he has been a reporter or anchor at KEZI (which broadcasts north to Corvallis, south to Roseburg and west to the coast) since 1989. He’s a familiar figure, but not especially identified with specific issues. (His station does note on a descriptive page that he’s been “especially interested in children’s issues.”) In McCall’s day, in the late fifties to mid-sixties, local television was active in a wide range of issues, and long-form and even investigative reports - McCall did a number of those over the years - were an ordinary part of newscasting. Local television news, as anyone who watches it knows, is a lot different now. Dancer - for reasons certainly not his doing - has by necessity to enter the race as more of a cipher.

Politically, that could be good or bad. Dancer starts as a blank slate, so much can depend on how he defines himself.

But unlike McCall, who drew on political alliances and networks from early on, Dancer is starting from scratch. And Dancer evidently understands that; his announcement on his personal web site concludes, “Agreement on Dancer’s departure from KEZI-TV was not reached until last week. Because of his position as a TV journalist, Dancer has not been able to assemble his campaign team or make arrangements for organizing his campaign prior to Sunday night. Further details will be announced as they become available.” The four Democrats in the race have been organizing, campaigning and fundraising for months. That difference isn’t minor. (more…)

Our take on the policy argument is that Idaho’s Joint Finance-Appropriations (budget) Committee’s action restoring $10.7 million to the Office of Drug Policy - money that would be aimed at maintaining drug treatment services at existing levels, rather than being sliced to ribbons - was the right move. But it also had a secondary beneficial side effect: Exposing why the cut was proposed in the first place, and maybe revealing more even than that.

Last year Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter brought together several anti-drug state efforts under one roof, the ODP, and put former legislator Debbie Field in charge. The office handled significant funds, including a large $21 million federal grant. That money is going away, leaving the substance abuse treatment efforts with a measly $3 million. In preparing the proposed budget for this session, she proposed replacing much of it. In making his budget decisions, Otter eliminated the backfill, drastically cutting drug treatment programs.

Policy note here: He was doing that at the same time he was calling for major stat rampups on prison spending. That would suggest he’d rather spend vastly more money on warehousing people who have gotten deeper and deeper into trouble than spending fewer bucks working to keep them out of trouble and productive in the state’s society. But that wasn’t the argument he made. (more…)

We’ve held off rolling out poll results for a while, but the new University of Washington poll - its 5.6% margin of error notwithstanding - seems a fair spot to jump back in. It is, after all, an academic rather than a partisan poll. Detailed results and specs are in powerpoint. Of interest here are the numbers developed for presidential and gubernatorial races. It was conducted between the caucuses and primary this month.

In common with polling in a number of other places, this one said that Republican John McCain polls slightly ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton (48.6%-45.1%) but significantly behind Democrat Barack Obama (40.3%-54.9%). Where came the difference? Well, Clinton and Obama drew equally well among fellow Democrats, but while Clinton got no - literally zero - Republican crossovers, Obama got 9.7% - drawn straight out of McCain’s percentage. He also did better among independents.

In the gubernatorial, this poll showed a wider gap than some other polls in recent months. Most others have given Democratic incumbent Chris Gregoire a small edge, but within the margin of error, over Republican Dino Rossi. This one has a bigger margin for Gregoire - 53.7%-42.1%. What notable here is that the last time the UW polled on this, in October, the Gregoire lead was 42.4%-42.1% - essentially a tie. The change mainly reflected improved Gregoire numbers primarily among independents, and secondarily among her fellow Democrats. Rossi’s numbers remained close to the same from last fall.

We’ll be watching to see if other polling reflects the UW.

Just a pointer here to a fascinating precinct map of Spokane County on the Spokesman-Review web site. In last week’s Washington primary election (which was for Democrats, remember, a beauty contest only and not contested by the candidates), Spokane County split closely between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama apparently gained a thin lead in the most recent counting, but thin enough it could easily switch back.

The map shows where Obama and Clinton led. In Spokane itself, Obama did best on the south side (south of I-90, generally) and Clinton best to the north. Obama did well in most but not all of the rural areas. Clinton did well in many of the developing suburban communities such as Airway Heights, Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake. Have a look.

Not so very many years ago, a dozen maybe, Idaho had a state library, a solidly-staffed agency which managed a lot of books, documents and other resources. It served a while range of missions, from serving as a check-out and research library for the general public to providing information and reports for state agencies to serving as a repository for a official records from state agencies. And, on top of that, it served as a coordinating and assistance service for public libraries around the state.

Then, over a period of years, the Idaho State Library was gradually dismantled, and virtually destroyed. Comparatively little of it - mainly the library-assistance function and a few other things - is left. And so too has gone much of the reference and state recordkeeping function: Just gone. Poof.

We’ve made a few notes of this over the years. Today, a Betsy Russell article in the Spokesman-Review takes a more thorough look at some of the impacts. The eventual up side may be that agencies moving toward digital documentation may be able to easily develop storage in large databases; and that could resolve some of the ongoing problem. But the issue is too complicated for that as a simple resolution.

Not too often do you see a single donation that realistically could become a significant political game changer. But the Seattle Times has a story today about one such that could have real impact over time.

The background to that is the heated political battles over gay rights issues, from anti-discrimination to same-sex marriage to other matters - a hot political topic.

The news is a donation from Ric Weiland, who was one of the first five employees at Microsoft and consequently, wound up with a lot of money. After his suicide in 2006, most of his estate, $160 million, went to charities. (Most of the time since has been spent in sifting through the many legal details.) More than $19 million is going to a group based in Seattle called the Pride Foundation.

The Pride Foundation works in the Pacific Northwest, based around Washington, Oregon and Idaho (and somewhat beyond); its website says it “connects, inspires and strengthens the Pacific Northwest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in pursuit of equality. We accomplish this in rural and urban areas by awarding grants and scholarships and cultivating leaders.” It has done this actively, apparently, but on midest scale; it operates in part off a $3 million endowment. Up to now, that has made it not so different from a range of many other social interest organizations.

Weiland’s donation increases that endowment to $22 million - an order of magnitude at least. As for how the money will be used, the Times summarizes, “The money will support anti-discrimination campaigns and programs to help youths, develop future leaders and provide scholarships.”

This not a small deal. And it will have an effect on politics, gradually but clearly over time, all over the region.

Al Hanson

In mid-2006 we suggested some attention be paid to Oregon House District 24, a Republican-leaning area where the seat was held by apparently entrenched Republican Donna Nelson. Turned out she wasn’t quite so entrenched: In November she won, but only barely, her usual margin trimmed to a sliver.

Next cycle on, we’ll suggest again that attention be paid to this district: It looks to be up for grabs, though for reasons somewhat different. This time, Nelson apparently is not running for re-election. (She’s been less that completely conclusive on that, but her own caucus is presuming she’s out.) Instead, two little-known candidates have emerged on the Republican side: Ed Glad, a carpenter who has done some statehouse lobbying, and Jim Weidner, a restauranteur and software developer. Both come from the small community of Yamhill; neither is a local household name. Since their announcements of plan to run, neither has been especially visible. But either, presumably, would have a significant boost from their party’s nomination, since this central Yamhill County district is more Republican than Democratic.

However, the just-announced Democratic candidate could have the assets to counter that. He is Al Hanson, an attorney and an eight-year member of the city council at McMinnville, which is the district’s population center; people in about half of the district, in other words, have been voting for him. He also has a long list of civic activities, and in this tightly-connected community Hanson has the local establishment (including at least some of the local Republican business establishment) behind him. (more…)

Reading yesterday a few hours before the Oregon Legislature adjourned - late on Friday night - about what the session did and didn’t accomplish, a blunt assessment jumped out: “As the February session winds down, there is an emerging consensus that a month-long supplemental session doesn’t work.”

That showed up at the Conkling Fiskum & McCormick Insider blog, and carried the weight of opinions from some skeptical legislators about their experimental session. The second paragraph added, “To the relief of Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, and others who championed the experiment with annual sessions, the February session hasn’t been a disaster. But virtually no one thinks it has been very productive, either.”

Hmm. That would depend on your perspective, and if the perspective lies in comparing a session that ran 19 days - just two-thirds of the shortest month in the year - with the traditional half-year model, then no, it wasn’t very productive. But that’s not much of a comparison.

The suggestion in the Insider piece, and in blogging by the Oregonian’s Jeff Mapes, is not so much that the annual session idea is bad but that the experimental session may have been too short. There’s something to that. Washington state has a regular truncated election-year session but gives it about two months to do its work, and a tight series of deadlines are imposed through the process to help guide lawmakers to getting things done. Part of the problem with the one-month - pardons, three-week - Oregon session is that the time frame wasn’t institutionalized, so lawmakers and others probably weren’t well set up to handle the specific requirements of it. But two months, or maybe three, might be a better option. Mapes reports that he’s heard just this sort of things from legislators and others: “But I have been struck by how out-of-sorts many legislators and lobbyists feel. They’re used to certain rhythms and it’s hard for them to figure out something that is neither fish nor fowl. This is not a one- or two-day special session with a rigid agenda, nor is it a wide-open regular session where you have months to develop ideas.”

So some tinkering probably would be helpful. But before calling the experimental session a failure, it might be helpful to look at what Oregonians did get out of it. (more…)

Drive in Eugene from the University of Oregon area directly east over the Willamette River and you’ll soon land in the city of Springfield. But before you get there you will have passed over, and probably not even noticed, another community, called Glenwood.

Not often would a local daily newspaper call one of its home communities “problematic,” but the Eugene Register-Guard is using the word to describe the unincorporated Glenwood area, and it makes some of the case for the city of Springfield’s plan to annex the area. There are a number of reasons, but one of them is visible for those who take the look: A growing homeless community along the riverfront.

Just down the hill from the popular panhandling spot sit about 10 more men, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking beer at the base of the north bridge.

These are the men who pester passers-by for money. Who sometimes fight and go to jail after downing one too many underneath the bridge. And who have long posed a dilemma to local officials stymied over how to deal with the Eugene-Springfield area’s most visible homeless camp.

Springfield officials responsible for planning Glenwood’s future say the situation has dragged on long enough. Following years of watching county and state agencies struggle to keep the bridge area safe and clean, the city is now ready to take the lead.

That isn’t a fair description of all or most of Glenwood. Some of it is a long-running, traditional blue collar community with real traditions of its own. But as the article suggests, it may need some help.

The argument that Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith changes his voting pattern as re-election time approaches will find some support in a new round of online stats released by the League of Conservation Voters, which charts congressional environmental voting.

In the first two years of his current term, Smith pulled a 28% grade from the LCV, and 37% in the next two. For environmental votes last year, that jumped through the roof to 73%.

That wasn’t because of the issues on the table or ome other fluky factor. Oregon’s other senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, actually scored lower last year (87%) than in the four years previous, though his ratings throughout were quite close. Idaho’s two Republican senators (who scored low in in the LCV ratings) and Washington’s two Democrats (who scored high) all, like Wyden, stayed fairly consistent throughout that period in their ratings.

If the news stories you’ve seen so far about the bankruptcy filing by the owners of the Tamarack Resort near Donnelly have seemed a little . . . vague, you’re not alone. But if the subject is of interest and you want at least a framework for thinking about, help is available.

The Boise Guardian web site asked for some perspective from a bankruptcy attorney, Randy French, and wound up with a solid overview. You won’t find definitive answers about what the filing means, but that’s largely because too many pieces of the puzzle are not visible. But French does provide the legal and business framework that’ll help you make sense of whatever does come next.