Washblog

June 2, 2008: A hundred or so disgruntled HIghland Park neighbors assembled for Round Two of opposition to Seattle's proposal for a City Jail in either of two sites on the edge of our neighborhood. JAIL PROPOSAL COMMUNITY RESPONSE
Valient representatives from our County Council and Legislative District arrived ready to do battle with the city of Seattle.

More pictures and story below:

Hi all. Today I filed as the Democratic candidate for Washington's Secretary of State.  The Democratic Party has embraced me with open arms; I am honored.

Seattle Times' David Postman did a great write up.

My election integrity platform is simple and familiar:

 - Protect voter privacy

 - Ensure the public vote count

 - Open government

This is all new to me, and I have deadlines at my day job that cannot be ignored, so I beg everyone's forgiveness as I figure out how to get my campaign started.

Thank you to everyone, especially Noemie and Brian, for your support. WashBlog has been a great home.

For the duration, I'll retire my zappini name. That will be weird. I'll point to my new home page the moment it's ready.

Be the change that you want to see.

Originally posted here

Democracy for Snohomish County (DFSC) Vice-Chair and Peak Oil Advocate, Jackie Minchew, submitted the following letter (re-printed here at the request of the author) to the readership of the Everett Herald:

Published: Monday, June 2, 2008

"Since the first of the year, the price of crude oil has risen by more than 30 percent (after a 60 percent increase in 2007.) The question of how best to respond to this precipitous rise in energy costs is not a simple one. We could look for someone to blame, I suppose. (Big Oil? Congress?) There is surely some degree of market manipulation and exploitation taking place. But from an economic system that is driven by the twin demons of fear and greed, while completely lacking a moral compass to guide it, what should we expect?

More below the fold:

An interesting idea from Vermont

[Front paged: NM]

Thanks to Naomi for suggesting I post this.
Previously posted at DailyKos

I write this for the benefit of those who, by the good fortune of geography and decent Congressional representation, are spared exposure to the nakedness of "changing" Republicans in their mailboxes.

I knew I'd be seeing it up close and personal at some point, living, as I do, in the district that threw out Speaker Tom Foley, had the 5-term- term-limited-turned lobbyist, George Nethercutt, and currently enjoys the "service" of our very own cute (39 year old) Cathy McMorris Rodgers.  I have now received a fourth glossy  mailer from my misRep since the announcement of her re-election campaign around St. Patrick's Day 2008.  And with that the new "Agenda"!

So below the fold ...behold!

SHOWDOWN ON MAY 19th
About 70 Highland Park neighbors showed up at a community meeting, having heard tell of a new CITY JAIL planned on the gateway of their neighborhood.
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Highland Park is an unpretentious, obscure neighborhood in the southeast corner of West Seattle -- the OPPOSITE end of West Seattle from the upscale Admiral area where Mayor Nickels lives. Just on the other side of the city line is White Center, which is even LESS pretentious.

It is not without its charm to us residents, though. You may recall my previous diaries about last spring's HP Summit and HP Arts.

Highland Park Action Committee monthly meetings usually draw 5-10 core supporters and the occasional disgruntled resident who wants to gripe about neighborhood annoyances like graffiti and uprooted sidewalks.
But this was different!

Continued below...

[Front paged: NM]

Last night, I attended a meeting at the Northgate Community Center.  The city is considering changing the zoning in the Northgate area to allow taller buildings along 5th avenue and other areas.  Northgate has been going through a lot of changes lately, with the major development south of the Mall, and the new building going up at the corner of 5th and Northgate Way.  It's great to see.

I'm trying to find the information I saw last night online.  On Seattle.gov, the link to the Northgate plan from the main Neighborhood Planning page, www.seattle.gov/dpd/..., is a broken link.  It currently goes to www.seattle.gov/dclu/....  it is supposed to be going to www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/....

There is no mention of the meeting last night on the Northgate page.  In fact, there is no calendar at all.  I had to go to the Northgate Activist website to find out that the original comment period ended on May 16th, was extended to this meeting.  At the meeting, they extended the comment period again to June 17th.  Northgate Activist had a link to the EIS proposal.  Finally!

Atop one of the bookshelves in another room in my home sits the triangularly-folded American Flag given me at the gravesite of my father back in 1993.

Dad's death came upon us quite suddenly. We had long anticipated his passing as the years wore on - our unspoken suspicion that it would be liver failure that would get him.

We were right.

[Front paged, NM. This is an important resource. To use it, log in to M3047's Political Matchmaker. Create an account or, if you already have one, sign in. From homepage, click to Matchmaker and then click on "Most Recent Questions". A link there takes you to the selection set.]

Having now been collecting precinct-level election results (the canvass) in King County and publishing various products based on it as a public service since 2003, and additionally having added results for Snohomish County from the 2007 general election (with more hopefully to come)... there's a lot of data!

To help people tailor the products more to their needs and hopefully improve the signal-to-noise ratio (and load times, especially for those who are syndicating the products) I have implemented user-defined Selection Sets for precincts and races.

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Join The Visibility Project's rapid response - 1-4 notices/mo. Update: Made the DailyKos Recommended list!

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Hello, my name is David Conyers and I am a current 3 Striker residing at the Monroe Correctional Complex.

Back in 1994, 13 years ago, I was the youngest person in the state of Washington, a tender 21 years old, to be sentenced to life under 3 Strikes - charged and convicted of four counts of second degree robbery.

None of my prior convictions, nor my current offenses involved a weapon whatsoever, nor was anyone hurt or killed. I was a kid back then with no guidance or direction, just being reckless and foolish. I very much regret the things I did wrong to my victims, because they didn't deserve to be put in fear or have anything taken from them. I've grown up a lot and I now see life on a different perspective. However, I firmly believe that I shouldn't be spending the rest of my life in prison for a crime such as Robbery 2. Now I believe that any person, male or female, should be held accountable if he or she commits a crime. However, you cannot compare or place a second degree robbery with murder, rape, or child molestation.

[Front paged: NM]

Of Douglas County's 3,226,939 acres only 1560 acres are held in "Open" Open Space
Of this small amount....

In 1992, when Washington was about halfway through a three-decade long incarceration surge  -  from a rate of about 2 people out of every thousand behind bars in 1980 to today's 6 per thousand (1) - the Seattle PI reported a significant milestone: the number of people in state prisons had reached 10,000. (2) Fifteen years later, this number stands at more than 18,000. (3)  In total, approximately 29,000 Washingtonians are now incarcerated in federal, state, and local prisons and jails.  (4) More are held in immigration and military detention.  Our state is locking people up at a rate which is shown to have passed the point of diminishing returns  (5) and is thought to contribute to higher, rather than lower, crime rates. (6)

High as these numbers are, Washington's lock-up rate is below the national rate of more than one in one hundred. (7) While our state incarceration rate increased 217% between 1970 and 2002 -- the average state increase nationwide was 390%. (8). The national tough-on-crime wave that began in the 1970s has hit Washington too -- but with less force than many other states have experienced.

While the increase in our incarceration rate has been slower than the national trend since the early 1990s -- our crime rate has followed a significant and steady downward trend similar to that experienced nationwide. (9)

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Above: Eldon Vail, Secretary, Washington's Department of Corrections, April 2008

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[Front paged: NM -- On a Washingtonian originally from Iraq moving up in the delegate process. Good luck Majid Al-Bahadli!]

After an all-nighter, I just got back from the 7th CD convention.  Before passing out, I had to get the following delegate information posted.  I took a couple of photos of the only copy of the promotional material and scanned them.  Then it occured to me to use those internets tubes.

This is a really great story.  Hope he made it into the finals today, and that I can meet him at the state convention otherwise.

Cross-posted Here

So on Tuesday I came home to what I thought must have been a prank call on my answering machine. A man who identified himself as Rep. Rick Larsen (WA 2nd CD) left a message asking for my support at the upcoming 2nd CD "Nominating Convention" on Saturday. The reason I suspected a prank call was that most folks that know me, including (I assumed) Congressman Larsen know that, even if I were going to said convention, I certainly would not be voting to nominate Rick Larsen. In fact I had just voted against his endorsement at my 38th LD meeting on the previous Tuesday.

Then, today, I received an email from Congressman Larsen, via Brooke Davis at his re-election campaign, asking me again to attend the convention and vote to nominate him for his upcoming walk through election. I could not help but send Brooke/Rick some of my concerns:

"Brooke,

    We should all have Rick's job security. Odd isn't it that he fails to mention the single issue that holds this nation hostage to a failing economy and a generational debt that will be be a harsh burden for my children and my granddaughter. Rick's failure to take a strong leadership role (from his position on the Armed Forces Committee) to end our continuing occupation of Iraq; indeed his co-ownership of this travesty that he signed on to when he failed to support the only bill that has been offered to date to demand a draw down in American forces leaves me cold and resolute in my refusal to add my name in any way that might encourage support for him.

    Rick's refusal to support actions that would lead to the impeachment of George W Bush and Dick Cheney by claiming that he finds no evidence of lawlessness simply begs the question, "Which constitution did he swear an oath to protect?" The fact that he is even concerned about FISA is in direct realtionship to Bush's admission that he ordered warrentless wiretapping of American citizens. The fact that top administration officials devised and ordered specific torture techniques to be used against uncharged, untried, prisoners apparently is a justifiable violation of the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties to which the United States is a signee to Rep. Larsen.

    As I say, we should all have Rick's job security. He should be glad that he does not need my vote."

 And then, only moments later, the icing on the cake--- Below the fold

King County Council will hold a special Town Hall Meeting on Monday, May 19, at the Shoreline Conference Center, 18560 1st Avenue Northeast, in Shoreline, for a panel discussion and public comments on this subject. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m., with a reception beginning at 6:00 p.m.

Washington Public Campaigns has more info.

We need to pack the halls. Please show up. And bring a friend.