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Trench warfare

Two years ago conventional wisdom settled early and accurately on the likely results in the election to decide control of the then-evenly split Oregon Senate. The strong feeling was that Democrats woudl prevail, based largely on the idea that most of the seats up for election would not change but that three seats held by Republicans - in all of which strong incumbents were departing - were at very high risk. And in the event, all three of those seats went to Democrats.

This year, so far, no comparable situations have developed, though there's plenty of time for that to happen. As last cycle, when more Republican than Democratic seats were up for grabs, there is a partisan imbalance this time - a strong one, with 11 seats up for election held by Democrats, and just four by Republicans. Certainly, that means more places where things can go wrong for Democrats. And may.

As of the summer before, however, neither side has any especially easy gets.

That's based in part on the notion that there will be few important retirements. So far, the most likely is that of Democrat Vicki Walker (who may run for governor) from a strongly Democratic district; open seats are always danger spots but fhe background of this district suggests it will be a tough take for Republicans. (Not impossible, though.)

This is the more striking because all 15 of these seats are in the often-competitive west (or southwest) of the Cascades area. There are no seats up either from the hard-core Republican east-of-Cascade area or from the hard-core Democratic central Portland area.

And some of the districts are marginal, such as District 3 in the Medford/Ashland area, and the District 19, in the Tualatin/West Linn/Lake Oswego area, both represented by Democrats. And yet some strong players are situated in some of these marginal places (a Republican example is Frank Morse in the Albany/Corvallis districf), and very few of these seats look easily taken.

In a number of cases, as in 2004, key retirements could change that, and still may. From this starting point, however, the Oregon Senate doesn't look to change partisan balance by more than a seat (in either direction), or two at the outside. Keep watch. 08/30/05 15:26 [comment / reprint]

In the race

A Democrat has joined the crowded and colorful contest for the 1st congressional district, a point notable for at least a couple of reasons: This is unusually early for a Democrat to announce; and, unlike everyone else in the race to this point, this candidate is likely to stay the campaign course all the way to November of next year. Only one of the many Republicans entered so far will do so - and no one right now has a good clue who that might be.

Larry Grant, the retired Micron Technology attorney who has announced, wisely described himself as a Fruitland resident, avoiding the "Boise lawyer" stigma of so many candidates past. And he had some fairly pungent things to say: "Jobs, education, taxes and health care are what people want addressed. Instead they have to worry about war, debt and high gasoline prices.”... If we are ever going to get some fiscal responsibility back in government, it won’t happen by sending another Republican to Washington."

Did you catch that last? - an argument not that Idaho needs two political parties, but - astonishing - that the one currently in power isn't doing a good job. It's a statement farther than most Democrats have been willing to go in the Gem State.

There remains The Catch, of course. The Catch is: Leaving aside questions of money, organization, message and the like, how do you get the working majority of Idahoans who have been effectively programmed to vote against any Democrat, to listen? For more than a decade, words coming out of the mouths of Democrats in Idaho have simply bounced off, un-absorbed. Grant's challenge, like that of all Democrats running in Idaho, will involve finding a solution to The Catch.

The early start on his fresh candidacy may give him a little larger than normal chance. 08/29/05 16:42 [comment / reprint]

Handover

Today's the day three Northwest papers - the Idaho Statesman at Boise, the Olympian at Olympia and the Herald at Bellingham - swtich ownership from Gannett to Knight Ridder.

What difference will it make? None apparent today, but then nothing would be expected that fast. Watch over the next few weeks and months for the answer.

One note in the Herald's story on the transitioin: "Knight Ridder paid Gannett $239 million for the newspapers." That gives you some kind of idea of the money involved in the newspaper business, and an indication of why it's so difficult to start a new daily paper from scratch - an idea still floated in various communities from time to time. As the history of the Portland Tribune has shown, even the deep pockets of a billionaire may not be enough anymore. 08/29/05 09:23 [comment / reprint]

Monotoned Seattle

In considering which is the most monolithically Democratic large population base in the Northwest, the tendency here has been to see Portland as edging Seattle. But the point is debatable, and a solid argument emerges from a Seattle Times piece today on non-partisan (officially) Seattle City Council.

Yes, that means Seattle is not particularly diverse when it comes to partisan politics: About four votes out of five in the Emerald City went to John Kerry rather than George W. Bush last year. Bush won only two precincts in the city of Seattle, which compares (by an analysis we ran a few months back) to zero or two for Portland, depending on where an unclear part of the city line runs.

This carries over. As the Times noted, "Because every council position is elected citywide, rather than by district, successful candidates generally must appeal to the same coalition of Democratic activists, environmentalists, unions and downtown business interests." And "Come election season, while council candidates scrap over the endorsement of Democratic district groups, they shun the city's Republican organizations."

On the council, "There are shades of difference on the council. Some members, such as Nick Licata and Peter Steinbrueck, form the most liberal wing and often clash with Mayor Greg Nickels. Others, such as Drago and Richard McIver, have a reputation as being more business-friendly."

You see much the same in Portland, but the "business-friendly" aspect of politics in the cities is stronger in Seattle, which seems generally to have a business-oriented city hall. 08/28/05 11:15 [comment / reprint]

Where it's coming from

Some hiring at least is going on in what is proclaimed as a planned new newspaper in the Portland area.

As to whether it will be regarded as a general-purpose newspaper, well, that's yet be seen.

Its backing organization is unknown (that's not gone public), but the announced name is the Northwest Meridian. (The largest city in the Northwest by that name is very strongly Republican. Coincidence?) You can however find word about it, and its presumed ideological slant, at its site on line. Word there: "By this fall, Portland-area residents will have an additional choice for their news about events in the Pacific Northwest. Called the Northwest Meridian, it will be published every two weeks, and will be distributed throughout the metropolitan region."

An employment call at Craig's List site adds this: "Northwest Meridian Media is bringing to market Oregon’s only mass market newspaper targeted at readers who are tired of the media being monopolized by liberal and socialist ideologues that laud any misguided plan by government as progressive and apologize on their behalf for their miserable failures. If you feel the same, please consider joining our team! We will be circulating in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Marion and Yamhill counties with a target circulation of 20,000 issues. The first issue will be published in October. Our target audience is individuals who want their news and political coverage with an entertaining and satirical edge, with a pro-liberty pro-capitalist editorial slant."

Sounds like right-wing talk radio in print. 08/26/05 15:41 [comment / reprint]

An international resort?

The people at Tamarack Resort certainly couldn't have asked for much better endorsement: A visit by the president - any president - is something any resort would be pleased to trumpet for years to come.

(And this sort of thing doesn't just happen, as Idaho Statesman columnist Dan Popkey noted. There's no coincidence in the fact that Scott Turlington, a former top aide to Governor Dirk Kempthorne, is now an executive at Tamarack. Or, probably, that the governor's expansive new highway plan includes a major new roadway cut over the mountaintops directly to Tamarack. Or - but we digress.)

Now that President George W. Bush has left Idaho, though, will come to question of how it can be followed up. And whether it will be.

News coverage of the visit itself showed off the attractiveness of the Long Valley, which has for ages been one of Idaho's less heralded beauty spots. Some of that consciousness may remain.

But Bush visited in a time of intense controversy, and attention to his travels may have been tied in the minds of many viewers to his responses on Iraq, more than to his recreating.

And there was little immediate effect locally, since Tamarack was shut off from regular citizens during the presidential visit, and quiet Donnelly looks about the same same as it always does.

Tamarack's future will depend, as ever, on such basics as marketplace, planning, financial management and so on - the basics. And anyone evaluating it should remember that.

But the Bush visit does provide a bit of a boost, and it certainly puts on the larger map a part of Idaho that hadn't much been there. 08/24/05 16:01 [comment / reprint]

Recall is on

This decision certainly didn't take long - a couple of hours maybe. It was a quick slam dunk, no difficult call: The Washington Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the recall attempt against Spokane Mayor James West can go forward.

This is not likely to be a substanceless ruling; it is likely to have specific and emphatic effect. The assumption here is that the petition requirements for recall will be met quickly, and that - if West does not resign first - he will be recalled. The main question now is whether that is likely to happen at the November general election (the process would have to move fast to make that ballot) or later in the winter.

Washington has a complex and difficult process for recalling public officials, a process Oregon and Idaho (and other states) would do well to consider putting into effect. Unlike most other states, Washington does not allow citizens to pursue recall of an elected official for any reason, or no reason, at all. It has to be specific and concrete reason, rising somewhere near the vicinity (not necessarily at the exact address) of a significant violation of law - you can't simply disagree with a decision on a rezone. That's as it should be: Once we elect people to office, we should have to live with the consequences of that decision in all but extreme cases.

The West case is relatively extreme; the mayor elected by the voters of Spokane is not the same one many of them thought they were getting, a point reaching well beyond sexual orientation to the way the mayor has handled his job. The outrage in the community seems clear, and for reasons apart from bigotry or partisanship.

Will West recognize the game is up, and leave? Or will he insist on running this through to the last stage? We should know shortly. 08/24/05 17:05 [comment / reprint]

A sudden crowd

There may be an indication of the direction of the Oregon governor's race for 2006 from the amount of activity that immediately followed an unofficial declaration from one figure in it.

That figure is the incumbent, Democrat Ted Kulongoski. Rumors have circulated in the last few months that the first term governor might decide to call it quits. The rumors were accelerating in early August, which may be why word was carefully leaked from a state department heads meeting at which Kulongoski said he would run again. He said, as he had before, that he will wait until September for a formal public announcement. Not bad poltics here, actually: He stomps on the no-run rumors quite effectively, while picking up a double-shot of publicity for his re-elect run. Not that he got much credit for the maneuver.

Kulongoski has been, ahem, misunderestimated for a while now. His polling numbers, to be sure, are far below impressive. But the shape of the campaign to come is just beginning to come into view, and as a poor legislative session (albeit one from which he's drawing some pluses) recedes, he's apt to look better. Voters usually have to work up a head of steam of aggravation to throw out an incumbent, and Kulongoski is both fairly well liked, and difficult to actively dislike (as a general matter). The number of Oregonians really eager to take him out probably isn't very large.

He gets the knock of being less than a political colossus, which is accurate enough. But he has enough handle on the politics of the state that a fast batch of announcements and semi-announcements on governorship races immediately followed Kulongoski's. It was an indication that he is driving the politcal agenda more than others are.

So, with a few days to let the dust descend, things look like this.

He has certain primary opponent in Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson, who argues Kulongoski should be running more to the left. He probably - this is not certain - will have another in state Senator Vicki Walker, also (remarkably) of Eugene, who has a variety of specific bones to pick with him. Walker would certainly make the campaign interesting; she was, recall, a key figure in unearthing the Neil Goldscmidt scandal story earlier this year. But as matters stand, barring some stunning explosion, Kulongoski should win his primary easily. If he still has a contested one, next year.

The interest level is higher on the Republican side. There, the lead figure is Kevin Mannix, chair until recently of the state Republican Party and the Republican nominee for governor in 2002. He has won elections as a state legislator (back when he was a Democrat), but lost every time he's been on a statewide ballot, and he's a good example of the kind of conservative Oregon Republicans often nominate but can't elect statewide. He's a serious and significant candidate, but could he beat the incumbent he lost to last time running for the open seat? Seems unlikely.

In 2002 Mannix was the conservative running in the primary against two moderates, one of whom was Portland lawyer Ron Saxton. Now Saxton is running again, and this time he may have an advantage he didn't then: Running as the sole moderate against two conservatives, Mannix and - it now appears - state Senator Jason Atkinson of Central Point. Saxton is widely billed as the kind of Hatfield/McCall Republican Oregonians (as a group) would most like to elect. But can he negotiate the primary (in today's Republican Party) and general both? And how would be fare running against an incumbent?

And there's one more new wild card emergent: state Senator Ben Westlund of Bend, a Republican with some moderate inclinations who is being approached to run as an independent. Westlund says any decision is still a ways off - but if he does run, he would force a recalculation of the race.

Bottom line here? Kulongoski still looks like probable to win a second term. But it's not a lock. And with the so many figures, and some of them attractive, in this field, it certainly bears watching. 08/21/05 16:12 [comment / reprint]

Agreement severance

Considering the growing number of homeowner associations and their impact on local planning (and containment of sprawl), a Washington Supreme Court decision today is worth some consideration.

Viking Properties v. Oscar Holm concerns a subdivision in the city of Shoreline (just north of Seattle). This subdivision is governed in considerable part, as many are, by a homeowners' agreement and covenant, which among other things limits property density to a dwelling per half-acre. Enter Viking Properties, which asked the association to release it from the terms of the covenant, so it could develop property in the area it had purchased. The association refused. Viking sued, partly on grounds that local land use rules encourage more intensive development and should trump the agreement and - at least as interestingly - the idea that the whole covenant should be trashed because of another provision in it: A ban on selling properties in the subdivision to racial minorities.

That latter provision clearly is unenforceable. But does it kill the rest of the covenant by its presence?

The Supreme Court summarized: "On summary judgment, the trial court invalidated the entire covenant on the following grounds: (1) the racial restriction was unenforceable and not severable from the remainder of the covenant; (2) the density limitation violated public policy as set forth in the Growth Management Act (GMA), chapter 36.70A RCW, the City's comprehensive plan, and the City's zoning regulations; and (3) judicial enforcement of the covenant would violate Viking's substantive due process rights. We reverse and remand, severing the racial provision and upholding the density limitation as enforceable."

For some time, local housing covenant have been seen as legally superior to almost everything else, to the point of severely restricting civil liberties. Is this Supreme Court decision a move in the other direction? 08/18/05 10:03 [comment / reprint]

Bush numbers

As the Bush White House plans its first visit to Idaho next week, it can comfort that it will be moving to the most receptive part of the country.

A new SurveyUSA poll says that Idaho at this point is the most Bush-supportive state in the union, with 59%. That's up a bit from May and June but down from 62% in July.

Bush approval in Oregon is 41%, and in Washington 40%. The overal national level is the same as Washington's, 41%. 08/17/05 16:53 [comment / reprint]

New on the map

We won't get into the details of President Bush's first visit to Idaho, and - interestingly - to the small community of Donnelly, where he will spend two nights. Presumably, that will be at the new Tamarack Resort (maybe giving it a push), though no details have been released.

We did however want to post the give and take from this morning's gaggle - the White House press briefing - on the Idaho visit; the text is courtesy of Senator Larry Craig's office. . It follows:

For next week, a couple of you have asked for some specifics. On Monday, August 22nd, the President will make remarks to the Veterans of foreign Wars National Convention that's being held in Salt Lake City, Utah; open press. He will remain overnight in Donnelly, Idaho.

Tuesday, there are no public events, still he will be in Donnelly, Idaho. And Wednesday, August 24th, the President will make remarks on the war on terror, and that's in Nampa, Idaho. And then he'll return to the ranch that night.

With that, I'll happily take your questions.

Q: What's in Donnelly? What's he doing in Donnelly?

MS. PERINO: I'll see if I can get some more on that. I don't know.

Q: Is that a recreational stop, Donnelly?

MS. PERINO: I'll see what I can find for you. I don't have it right now...


...Q Dana, can you tell -- I'm sorry, the overnight is Donnelly, Idaho, on Tuesday night, or Monday night?

MS. PERINO: On Monday and Tuesday night.

Q In the same place, Donnelly, Idaho. Do you know how far that is from Boise?

MS. PERINO: I don't know how far that is from Boise, but I can -- we can look at a map and try to figure it out.

Q I am, I can't find it. Okay. And Tuesday, he has no public schedule in Donnelly?

MS. PERINO: No, ma'am.

Q Well, he must be doing something. Is he fishing with the Vice President?

MS. PERINO: This is all the information I have right now, and I can see if I can get you some more.

Donnelly may be a lot better known in another week. 08/15/05 12:31 [comment / reprint]

Liberalness, conservativeness

What do those political terms liberal and conservative mean anymore, anyway? In a day when rock solid conservatives are more properly labeled radical, and liberals are more defenders of a status quo - making them definitionally conservative - the language is in serious danger of warp.

That suggests any criteria for labeling a person, or a place, as "liberal" or "conservative" is dodgy at best, and more than likely a little misleading.

So while there's some kind of evident appropriateness to the roster of places on the the new survey by the Bay Area Center for Voting Research, it ought to come with a user's manual. Mainly: Don't read too much into it - or expect all of it to make sense.

Would've been interesting to know exactly how the criteria were selected and used, but the closest the Center gets to outlining methodology is to say, "the BACVR researchers examined voting patterns of 237 American cities with populations of over 100,000 and ranked them each on liberal and conservative scales." Great.

So what they came up with was that the two most "liberal" muncipalities in the country are Detroit, Michigan and Gary, Indiana. (A note: Only cities with populations over 100,000 were reviewed.) These are Democratic voting bases, no doubt - but are these places the far end of liberalism in America? More so than Berkeley, California, which trailed them?

In that context, the ranking of Seattle at 16 and Portland at 29 does not surprise, but doesn't bear really close inspection either. Portland's political culture, in particular, is pretty much on the left edge of the mainstream; it has a mayor who embraced the left-most candidates for president last year, as did his opponent. Even in Seattle that wouldn't have gone over well.

Still, the list makes some relative sense within the region. Here are the Washington, Oregon and Idaho cities on the roster. (Bear in mind the list contains 237 cities; the most "conservative" is Provo, Utah, a selection which will get no argument here, and Lubbock, Texas, ranks second in that regard.)

These do make a sort of sense: Boise as the most conservative of the region's larger cities, though we'd have swapped Spokane as more conservative than Vancouver.

But again, what does "liberal" mean when the two of these cities ranked most closely together - Tacoma and Bellevue - are such drastically different cities, with just drastically different political cultures? 08/12/05 12:31 [comment / reprint]

Tacoma radicalism

In its headline on the subject the Tacoma News Tribune called it "radical." And damned if it isn't.

And from a city manager on the job for less than a month.

Eric Anderson, hired to manage the troubled City of Destiny, has delivered a budget presentation which suggests things are a lot worse than most people have suspected - in an unsuspected area, as opposed to the police, personnel and contracting type areas which have bedeviled city management for so long.

No, this is, on the budget side. Anderson i's suggesting that city expenses are fast outstripping revenue, and the path ahead carries the marker "backruptcy."

But that's not the half of it. Anderson's proposed solution at first sounds par:

1.Budget: Balance fiscal year 2006 & 2007-08 biennium budget -without cuts to services

2.Manage benefitsin context of total compensation

3.Fiscal discipline: Live with budget

But those point beg the question. Here's his basic prescription:

1.Maintain fiscal discipline

2.Establish fees for Fire, Police and Library services

3.Eliminatecity Property Tax entirely

4.Eliminate city B&O Tax entirely

5.Reduce city Utility (Gross Earnings) Tax

In other words, a massive - dramatic, radical - shift over to user fees. To continue this, here is Anderson's rationale for user fees: "Why User Fees?1.Everyone pays2.You pay less than with Property Tax (‘cause everyone pays)3.Easy to understand 4.You can see exactly what you’re paying for"

And for getting rid of the property tax? "Why Eliminate City Property Tax?1.Not everyone pays2.Few know how much they pay3.Fewer know who they are paying4.Even fewer know how it is used5.No one can judge the value of the service they are buying"

One immediate response is that, in terms of taxation, this ia extraordinarily regressive. On the other hand, it could undercut a whole lot of the tax protestation going on out there, and may force a lot of people to rethink tax policy.

Expect this shot to reverberate widely around local government circles. 08/10/05 13:08 [comment / reprint]

Starting line

This didn't take long - less than a week after the end of the 2005 Oregon legislature, and already at least one primary is surfacing.

For this we look to House District 16 in the periodically competitive area of Benton and Linn Counties, to Democratic Representative Kelly Wirth. The challenge is underway.

It was announced on Blue Oregon by activist T.A. Barnhart, in these terms: "We have a problem here, a legislator who may well have set a two-session record for most unexcused absences. Our incumbent Democrat has not shown up for us in Salem, and what was clear to many of us last year when we voted for her opponent in the primary has become unmistakeable to even more people this year: We have to do better than this."

He is a supporter of Sara Gelser, who opposed Wirth in the primary last time and apparently will again. 08/10/05 11:03 [comment / reprint]

Enumclaw mutuality

We really weren't going to say anything about Enumclaw. But when the way people think about a piece of Northwest geography undergoes a sea change, well, here we are.

Up to this year when most of us heard the word "Enumclaw" - as in the small Washington city - most of us probably associated it with an insurance company. Mutual of Enumclaw. An ordinary, uncontroversial, insurance company, of a piece with the small, rural city out in the hills 45 miles southeast of Seattle, of around 11,100 people.

But there may have been something prescient in the Native American meaning of the word: One of the derivations is "thundering noise." So.

In July, an emergency medical team was called to a farm located near Enumclaw (though some local residents would rather it be described as "west of Auburn"). Here is Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Robert Jamieson's description of what happened: "He was in flagrante delicto with a horse, leading to injuries so grievous that the man succumbed. Investigators were shocked to learn that people had been stampeding to the farm for the purpose of having their way with critters." A cathouse with a full range of species?

Okay, freeze-frame - you can see right there why Enumclaw is in the process of rapidly getting stuck with a new reputation. Writers just can't leave this one alone.

And similarly important: Neither, for that matter, can the inimitable state Senator Pam Roach, whose legislative district includes - wait for it - Enumclaw.

Her proposed legislation, which would make bestiality a low-grade felony, is not unusual; many states have had and still have similar laws on the books (though animal cruelty statutes presumably would be enough).. But this is Pam Roach pushing the measure, and so unnaturally pungent sound bites emerge. In Jamieson's column, for instance: "This is not something a stallion wants to be involved with."

Poor Enumclaw. Such a nice town. 08/09/05 12:14 [comment / reprint]

Punishing all

Reflecting on the new Boise policy of enforcing the alcohol ban on the Boise River - no more enjoying a beer while floating down the river - Idaho Statesman letter writer Benjamin Gibson put his finger on the larger issue, and - very shrewdly - the bigger one still that connects to it.

"With today's punish-one, punish-all societal mentality," he writes, "it comes as no surprise that a couple of random miscreants with a penchant for normal unruly youthful behavior can collectively and effectively ruin it for the rest of us. I can't blame them though. You won't change the way kids behave by passing codes that punish everyone else. They'll move on to some other medium where they can cause their trouble. Whatever that is, our bumbling leaders will likely outlaw it, too. (See beer at the fair). This type of blanket solution is just plain laziness on the part of our elected officials. It's yet another one-size-fits-all deal quickly enacted to stifle the few bothersome complaints being made. Remember the Ten Commandments? Wait and see what will happen with the fireworks next year."

That's a larger and realistic concern, all right. Then Gibson adds the related bigger picture:

"Is it just me or does this city get more boring every year?" 08/09/05 09:36 [comment / reprint]

City Hall rewind: Sage counsel

On hearing that former Boise City Attorney Susan Mimura has filed paperwork preparatory to suing the city for half a million dollars, as followup for her dismissal in connection with the city hall scandal of three years back, Boise observer Dave Frazier has on good advice on his site:

"When you are the center of attention and everyone around you goes to jail, the smartest thing two years later is keep your finger off the rewind button."

She might want to consider that sage counsel before matters go to the next step.

Or, not, and the rest of us can sit back and watch in ongoing fascination. 08/07/05 21:12 [comment / reprint]

Better days

On the last day of the 2005 session of the Oregon Legislature, I gave up watching relatively early, at a good moment.

The Senate had just done something that might help, in powerful and practical ways, some of the most defenseless people in the state. These people are the elderly residents of mobile home parks, people who in many places live there because they can afford nowhere else. Many of them live in homes too old to sell or move, but may be forced to move when park owners sell out to developers. (That's one frequent scenario; there are many variations.)

The bill in question on this last day of the session, House Bill 2389, would provide a variety of assistance. It would provide some direct aid and tax help for the residents and park owners and ease passage for waiting some rules for moving homes from one place to another where local land use rules are prohibitory. (This is a much more narrow kind of exemption than Measure 37.)

The bill was advocated with spirit, voted for overwhelmingly, and left some happy activists walking out.

Would be nice to report that this late scene of the session were typical. Alas. That last day of the session continued on into the evening, into the early morning, on to sun rise. Little good was likely to come from such exhaustion, and little did.

It's sad; there's a lot of talent here, and no little civility, and yet it all came to so little. The bulk of the important subjects on which the lawmakers really should have acted, were left on the table. The big item on which it did act, the budget, was developed largely through secret maneuvers - in a series of meetings so tightly held one wonders if the legislature might have actually run afoul of the state constitutional requirement that the legislature act openly.

The most encouraging sign may be the apparently starting effort for considering alternatives to the legislature as we know it. Shorter or annual sessions? Nonpartisan legislators?

We'll return to this. But, the occasional success notwithstanding - since those successes were all too few - the problem is serious.08/06/05 09:56 [comment / reprint]

Community level

You may not think of the sexiness quotient as being a big deal when it comes to governmental budgeting, but it easily can. That point came up dramatically in the Oregon House, when one of the final education budgets came up for discussion.

The budget (Senate Bill 5514A) included funds for a range of educational facilities, but the discussion zeroed in on bonding funds for community college. The bill as developed was generally bipartisan (though pushed by House Republican leaders), but the blasts came as well from both parties.

Representatives Vicki Berger, R-Salem, and Robert Ackerman, D-Eugene, both complained that the legislature has not provided state funding for capital expenses for the community colleges in 26 years. They noted that in past years, the colleges each played against each other, each petitioning legislators to provide for individual needs - and did better than this year, when they worked together to developed a comprehensive proposal for fulfilling needs. (That effort was called "the unity pledge.") That proposal, amounting to just over $110 million, was slice by a quarter by Governor Ted Kulongoski, and then sliced to only about a third of the original amount by lawmakers - and then reshuffled so that only a few colleges got much substantial help.

At least, Berger said, the new bill will allow Tillamook Bay Community College to move out of the only home it has ever had: a former mortuary.

They suffer from legislative neglect, Ackerman said. And Representativbe Bob Jensen, R-Pendleton, delivered a long, passionate (he seemed about to tearing up) talk on how underfunded they colleges were.

One of the points most of these people made was that community colleges tend to fly under the radar. They don't have the local visibility of K-12 schools, but also lack the "sexiness" of the major colleges and universities. But they are critical for a lot of people; in Oregon, community colleges educate more people in any given year than the major colleges and universities do. And those people are relying on them for skills to earn a living; without them, they'd be in a world of hurt.

Well. It was the session's last day, and House Majority Leader Wayne Scott said the bill wouldn't be reconsidered in any revised form. It was this or nothing.

So that it was. 08/04/05 17:51 [comment / reprint]

Papers wheeled & dealt

For about three decades the Idaho Statesman at Boise has been a Gannett paper, and it looked like it would stay that way forever.

In the modern corporate world, nothing is forever.

And something like the Statesman is more afterthought than anything else. The big news - from the corporate perspective - of what just happened between Gannett Corporation, the nation's largest newspaper chain, and Knight-Ridder (by some measures) the second largest, and fellow big operator Media News Group of Denver had to do with the shifts in control and publication in the two long-battling papers at Detroit.

The swaps of smaller papers - including the dailies at Boise, Olympia (the Olympian), Bellingham (the Herald) and Tallahassee (Florida, the Democrat) were side issues, probably rolled into the deal to make the numbers come out right.

From the Northwest perspective, though, there's this.

Gannett is suddenly a far smaller player in the region. It still has the Statesman-Journal in Salem, but that's its sole remaining substantial media property in the area; pre-deal, it owned the newspapers in the capital cities in Washington and Idaho as well as Oregon. The Olympian and the Herald will see Knight-Ridder management. (Tallahassee goes to Gannett.)

Knight-Ridder has been only a minor player in the region, importaint mainly as minority owner of the Seattle Times, where the local Blethen family has the majority share. (Did the Seattle situation play a role on their takeover at Olympia and Bellingham?) Abruptly, K-R is a significant deal in the region.

Gannett has had a long reputation for being money-hungry, wringing big profits out of local papers, and shorting local budgets. Traditionally, Knight-Ridder has had a somewhat less bottom-line orientation, though that has shifted in the last decade. Reporting on the swaps, the newspaper magazine Editor & Publisher notes this: "... reporters believed the transactions with Gannett -- which also involved papers in Florida, Idaho, and Washington -- had "nothing to do with making Knight Ridder stronger journalistically and everything to do with increasing our value on Wall Street."

From Gannett, on personnel:

Boise, ID: Leslie Hurst becomes president and publisher of Gannett’s Lansing State Journal. She was president and publisher of The Idaho Statesman. Michael G. Kane, who was president and publisher of the Lansing State Journal, will become president and publisher of the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle.

Bellingham, WA: Christine Chin will join the staff of The Arizona Republic. She was president and Publisher of The Bellingham Herald.

Olympia, WA: Bob Ritter will remain with Gannett in a position to be announced later. He was president and publisher of The Olympian.

And at Knight-Ridder:

Knight Ridder said that the Boise newspaper will report to Senior Vice President Hilary Schneider. The two Washington state newspapers will report to Paula Ellis, vice president/operations. At the same time, Knight Ridder announced these executive changes at the papers:

Mike Petrak, Knight Ridder vice president/marketing, will become president and publisher in Boise. John Winn Miller, senior vice president/marketing in Tallahassee, will become president and publisher in Olympia. And Glen Nardi, senior vice president/operations at the San Jose Mercury News, will become president and publisher in Bellingham.

More developments coming on this front, soon. 08/03/05 16:34 [comment / reprint]

- Randy Stapilus