Ridenbaugh Press

READING Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who a year ago last summer said he would resign promptly but instead has stayed, at this point, nearly through his term, has lost again in court. The case, of course, concerns that arrest in the Minneapolis airport men’s room in August 2007. From the local level he has appealed to the state Court of Appeals, but today that court has rejected his arguments.

Craig (in a news release): “I am extremely disappointed by the action of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. I disagree with their conclusion and remain steadfast in my belief that nothing criminal or improper occurred at the Minneapolis airport. I maintain my innocence, and currently my attorneys and I are reviewing the decision and looking into the possibility of appealing. I would like to thank all of those who have continued to support me and my family throughout this difficult time.”

He could appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. But at this point, with his Senate tenure nearly done, and the main effect of appeal being to keep the case alive in the public mind, would there be any point? Guess here is that this decision today puts an end to the case.

Spokane’s ad

REPORT Combine one part local government badly in need of more revenue, with a consumer willingness to buy - it would seem - damn near anything, and the city of Spokane has come up with a natural:

Ever wanted to charge your teen-age son for parking on your sofa all day? How about that co-worker who parks in front of your desk when you’re on a deadline? Or, your spouse who continually parks his or her junk on the kitchen counter?

The City of Spokane has the answer: A parking meter.

Just in time for holiday shopping, the City is surplusing old mechanical crank-style parking meter heads. For the low price of $35 including tax, you can get your own parking meter to set up on your desk or next to the living room couch. It’s also a great gift for the person who has everything—or for your favorite college student.

“These gems are going to go quickly,” says Dave Shaw, who heads up the City’s parking meter operations. “We’ve already gotten some orders from the public, and we are anxious to hear how citizens plan to display these classic artifacts.”

The City has been replacing old parking meter heads throughout downtown over the last several years with digital ones. The City has a total of approximately 2,800 parking meters installed in downtown, around the County Courthouse, and around the hospitals.

To purchase a parking meter, citizens should go to the City’s Street Operations Building, 901 N. Nelson, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Available are meters ranging in time periods of 30 minutes to 10 hours. They are sold as-is and in the same condition they were in when removed from the street. City employees can show buyers how to mount them to a steel or plastic pipe for display purposes. The City can accept check, money order, or cash in the exact amount of $35.

And they’re selling fast; the Spokesman-Review says that two-thirds or so are sold already . . .

READING Last Monday, you could pick up the rumbling readership about the restructured and slightly diminished Oregonian - a local news section folded into the front world/national news section. But that was only for Monday editions; the rest of the week has remained the same. (Can we point out here that today’s Oregonian was notably strong, with lots of readable stuff?)

They should get a load of what the Seattle Times is doing: Major changes paperwide, essentially throughout the week. They seem to be good choices, seemingly aimed at preserving local journalism, which ought to be top priority. But Executive Editor David Boardman said he isn’t trying to make the argument, as a fictional editor in the cable show The Wire did, that “Less is more.”

He launched his column about the changes with an anecdote about a thanksgiving parade in which the Times participated. At one point, he said, someone in the crowd yelled out, “Please stay in business!”

Boardman responded in the column, “We’re working on it, sir. We are working on it.”

INDICATOR An uneasy guessing game in the last couple of weeks: How long until gas prices zoom back up, by another dollar, or two, or more? No one knows exactly, of course; for now, most of us are just enjoying the lower numbers while they last.

In our runs around the Portland area in the last week, we’ve tended to see prices ranging from the low $1.70s to the mid-$1.80s. But there’s a little more variation than that, and the gas price map and charts the Oregonian has begun to post make some of that clear.

What remains curious are some of the variations within the region. The charts along with the maps list the lowest gas prices found in certain specific areas around the metro area, and what you find in these charts are substantial differences in places just a few miles apart. In Portland itself, it makes a difference whether you gas up on the east side or the west side - the range of the “best 10″ goes from $1.65-$1.69 on the east side, but $1.75 to $1.99 on the west side. Elsewhere, the differences can be greater. In the Hillsboro-Forest Grove area, the range is from $1.61 to $1.71, while in Vancouver you pay $1.77 to $1.83.

The Tacoma News Tribune decided to editorialize in its news section with a headline (in its online edition at least) out today, about the squabble over religious-related signage at the Washington statehouse: “What hath atheism wrought? A mess“.

There’s a mess, all right. But (a) the editor might want to rethink who created it, and (b) whether it’s a mess that really constitutes a problem.

The whole story is too long for recapitulation here; either the TNT or AP version offer straightforward rundowns of the facts. For many years a Christmas tree (now officially a “holiday tree”) has been placed at the Statehouse by the Association of Washington business. One year a Jewish group, noting the presence of the essentially Christian display at the public building, sought to provide a presentation reflecting its seasonal holidays as well. Thereafter the door was essentially opened - presumably under the sound principle that if you allow one private interest, you shouldn’t discriminate against others - to whoever wanted to deliver a display. This year, an atheist display (provided by an organization based at Madison, Wisconsin, but petitioned for by a Mason County woman) was set up as well, saying among other things “Religion is but myth and superstition.” Which has led to counterpoints from the Christians.

This modest local tempest went much bigger once it arrived at the notice of cable gasbag Bill O’Reilly, he of the war-on-Christmas fantasy: “There is no reason whatsoever to allow an anti-religious sign to be posted alongside a Christmas display.” (How about this: Is there any reason the non-religious people of Washington state should be required to provide support and protect for a religious display but explicitly not for others?) By the way, notice in this clip how O’Reilly specifically takes after Governor Chris Gregoire, a Democrat, but not Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, who alongside Gregoire said that the atheist display should be allowed if the religious displays are.

(Shorter O’Reilly: Your civil rights in this country are on a sliding scale, depending on how much of a minority you are in. Atheists poll as a small minority=Far fewer rights than Christians, who poll in larger numbers.)

That, of course, resulted in increased visiting to the site of the controversy (a political Lourdes?) and eventually theft of the atheist display. Which was eventually dropped off, by persons unknown, at a radio station. Throughout, the whole deal has become quite the hot story - far outpacing the massive state budget cuts or other, you know, substantive developments - in Olympia.

How much of the hoorah is the doing of the atheists? Suppose for a moment that they had delivered their sign, and no one from the opposition said anything about it. Result: No (or very little) coverage, no crowds, no Bill O’Reilly. (Remember: The Statehouse in Wisconsin has had a similar display on display for more than a decade, to little attention.) Suppose someone - presumably though we don’t know for sure one of the Christian activists - hadn’t walked off with the display? Far less media attention and coverage. The uproar isn’t what the atheists, or atheism, wrought: It evolved courtesy of the other side of the fence.

Beyond all that . . . what’s the harm in the discussion? Apart from the (temporary) theft, no damage seems to be done here. Some discussion is being engendered, and maybe some educating is going on. Nothing harmful in that.

And last we checked, Christmas is still scheduled to arrive on the 25th.

The tough-on-crime, lock-em-up crowd has a lot to explain when it comes to what should be done with convicts after they’re released, as almost all of them eventually will be. Because of the ways the system operates, some geographic places have had to come to grips with that more directly than others. At Pierce County, it’s an issue: The Tacoma News Tribune today runs an editorial about “a state prison system that has made Pierce County a dumping ground for ex-cons for far too long.”

Washington work release centers

Pierce County was, until not long ago, one of the select places around the state where prisoners were released, about a fifth of all prisoners in a county with about a seventh of the state’s population. That’s been amended, but prison activity still weighs heavy on the Tacoma rather than Everett side, since Snohomish County north of Seattle has no work release centers, while Pierce has two. (The News Tribune’s point is that Snohomish is overdue for a work release center, whether it wants one or not. Which apparently it doesn’t.)

Remarked a commenter on the TNT’s web site: “Just take a window survey of who’s leasing office space in or near downtown these days & the DOC could very easily be termed an occupying force.” Look a little closer, and check out the prisoner population alongside . . .

The post today by David Frazier on his Boise Guardian site about Boise and the special winter Olympics is the kind of provocation likely to ruffle any number of people locally.

But a number of long-timers may find they identify with a number of attitudes Frazier isolates. And as a 38-year resident, Frazier have the standing to talk about them . . .

Our analysis of the 2008 governor’s race in Washington would be a little different from that of former state Republican chair (and former elected official) Chris Vance, who has delivered his take on it at Crosscut. We’d throw in several additional reasons that Democratic incumbent Chris Gregoire did much better this time against Republican Dino Rossi - the power of incumbent and image reshaping (on both sides) among them. The qualitative differences in the 04 and 08 Democratic campaigns would be useful to mention too.

But this bit at the end really seems worth highlighting and absorbing:

Rossi’s numbers were down all across the state, but it is the results in King County that Republicans must focus on. John McCain received an incredible 28 percent of the vote in King County. Rossi received 36 percent, down from 40 percent in 2004. In 2004, Rossi lost King County by 18 percent; this time he lost by 28 percent — the biggest change of any of the large counties. Republicans will never elect a Governor or U.S. Senator, or regain legislative majorities in Olympia, if this trend in King County continues.

It wasn’t new voters that made this difference; it was a continuation of the long-term erosion of Republican support among suburbanites. This key shift is the most important factor Republicans must address going forward.

Google “Port of Seattle fraud” and Google says they can find “about 119,000″ hits . . . which, yes, isn’t a very precise measurement, but sure feels about right. Which more or less suggests why today’s release of an internal investigative report about fraud at the port, which indeed points to some fraud at the port, doesn’t seem especially jaw-dropping.

The new report does, however, get very specific in detailing some of the problem areas. Here are some examples from its summary section: (more…)

Sterling Bank

Wondering where exactly that mass of financial bailout money is going? The online journalists at ProPublica have some answers, and Northwesterners may be surprised, maybe troubled, by some of them.

Their research finds that as of midday today, $242.02 billion has been designated to 129 financial institutions around the country, to buy senior preferred shares of the various companies. Eight of them are based in the Northwest, six in Washington state, one each in Oregon and Idaho. They are (in order of size): Sterling Financial Corp in Spokane (WA), $303 million; Umpqua in Portland (OR), $214.2 million; Washington Federal in Seattle (WA), $200 million; Banner Corp in Walla Walla (WA), $124 million; Columbia Banking System in Tacoma (WA), $76.9 million; Cascade Financial Corp in Everett (WA), $39 million; Intermountain Community Bancorp in Sandpoint (ID), $27 million; Heritage Financial in Olympia (WA), $24 million.

Unlike the federal bank takeovers, this is a voluntary program, and banks (or banking companies) apply to participate - to sell shares of stock.

Another that should be of regional interest is Wells Fargo - one of the top banking operations in the Northwest - in San Francisco, getting $25 billion. It is in fact one of the biggest dollar recipients, tied for third place overall; first and second go to Citigroup and AIG, respectively. Wells seems on its face a puzzler, since it was praised (and rightly) for avoiding much of the bad-mortgage financial garbage that sank so many others. But Wells is buying Wachovia Corporation, which did make a mass of bad loans, so at least some of that funding is understandable.

But what of the others? Some curious questions start to arise, including the question of how many of these federal stock buys are really needed. At least one Northwest bank CEO says explicitly, in a press release, that his bank didn’t need it at all. (more…)

The group Ski Area Citizens Coalition has out an environmental impact report on ski areas around the west, with some results Northwesterns may find of interest. (See the site for a description of how the scores were arrived at; individual report cards are posted as well.)

There were 10 best and 10 worst lists. Westwide, the best was said to be Aspent Mountain Ski Report. Bogus Basin Mountain Resort near Boise was listed eighth best, and Mount Bachelor Ski Area near Bend was ninth. Both did well on conservation and effective use of existing ski territory.

The worst overall was said to be Copper Mountain Ski Resort in Colorado. But all but two of the other’s in the worst 10 were in the northwest: No. 2 Sun Valley Resort near Ketchum, No. 3 Tamarack Resort near McCall, No. 5 Mount Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park near Spokane, No. 7 49 Degree North Resort in Washington, No. 8 White Pass Ski Area in Washington, No. 9 Brundage Mountain Resort near McCall, and No. 10 Crystal Mountain Ski Area in Washington.

Effective use of land - as opposed to grabbing more and more - was a substantial consideration in the rankings. Take a look at this paragraph from their report:

Since the 1978/1979-ski season, skier numbers nationally have increased less than 2% over 23 seasons, or less than 1/10th of 1% per year. Yet many ski area terrain expansions are being undertaken in an effort to attract the limited pool of skier dollars nationwide. Doing so fuels a cycle whereby other ski areas feel pressure to expand in order to retain their market share and/or lure the limited number of skiers from other resorts. Ninety percent of ski areas in the western United States are on public lands administered by the Forest Service. It is not sound public policy for the Forest Service to continue to approve terrain expansions, which feed this cycle encouraging ski area expansions without regard for public recreation needs. In the White River NF for instance, home to ski resort icons such as Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, and Copper Mountain, skier numbers have increased 28% since 1985, yet skier acreage has more than doubled (a 107% increase).

Bill Sizemore

The premier Oregon initiative monger of the last decade and more, Bill Sizemore, has had to rely to some extent - in his campaigns for initiatives - on the idea of being on the virtuous side of the things. That’s the whole undergirding of initiatives, conceptually anyway: That these are the good things that the people have to do themselves because their elected officials won’t.

To that extent, Sizemore’s efforts - and he has continued to be busy on the initiative front up through this year - may increasingly be hamstrung. That process was hurried along considerably during the campaign season when forces opposed to Sizemore’s initiatives beat up on him as much as his ideas - he became the bad guy. Now, there’s the inconvenient matter of his going to jail.

The reason stems from Sizemore’s campaign filings, and what a judge has ruled as their inadequacy, and his management of campaign funds. Sizemore has been in court a number of times on these issues, but today Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Janice R. Wilson had enough, throwing him into jail for contempt of court.

There have been movement leaders over the years who have gained stature from time spent in jail. But you have to suspect that Sizemore won’t be one of them.

There can’t be, at this point, very many elective governing boards that never have elected a woman to the group.

We now know of at least one - at least, that has applied until now. Last week, Helen Price Johnson was sworn in as a member of the Island County Commission, the first woman in its 155 years of existence. Owing to an election still unresolved, she may actually be joined by a second before long.

How many other such groups are there out there?

Travel around small towns in the Northwest and it’ll seem half of them have something designated as an industrial or business park - a place where businesses, especially but not exclusively manufacturers, are given encouragement to take root. It often seems a good idea but so often fails to pick up steam. A lot of them look sadly underpopulated.

So, an interesting piece in the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce about an industrial park success story at Estacada, a hidden-away (in a pretty area in the Cascade foothills) little town, not long ago a post-timbertown depression story, which seems of late to be finding its economic footing. In 2003, only one person worked on the 25-acre tract. Now: “. . . the once paltry property has exploded, morphing into the Estacada Industrial Park. The new center of all things industrial – typically steel fabrication and mechanical work – now employees more than 100 people at 12 locally owned companies.”

There seems to have been no single silver bullet, more a confluence of good fortune. (And locals are talking about finding ways to accelerate further.) But it’s a story worth considering as businesses, and people, hunt for answers in tougher days.

Heavy traffic on Main Street, Carlton, Oregon, on Thanksgiving/Stapilus

Talk in news reports about substantial crowds (reflecting lower gas prices) but low-level shopping (reflecting the general economic troubles) on this post-Thanksgiving weekend found reflection in smaller locales as well as larger.

Carlton wine shops

In Oregon wine country, there are two especially large-scale weekend events, one on Memorial Day weekend, the other on Thanksgiving weekend. Mass crowds run through the wine towns, and wine tasting rooms are packed. In our small town of Carlton (population about 1,800 people, 20+ wineries or tasting rooms) this weekend is as busy as the year gets. So what was business like?

The story from place to place was consistent. The number of visitors was comparable to last year, maybe down a little. The number of cars was fewer, the traffic jams a little less jammed, because of a shuttle bus program recently established (a wise move, in intensive wine-tasting country), but the number of people seemed similar. But the number of buyers was definitely down. After a strong Friday, the number of buyers on Saturday was definitely down.

Not much disagreement from what we heard: The economy is definitely putting a crimp in things. For whatever it’s worth, wine country isn’t immune. And may be a good indicator.

In the going-away department, we checked in on the congressional web sites for Idaho Senator Larry Craig and Representative Bill Sali, both leaving office soon but not yet through with their terms of office, or work for constituents.

Craig’s web site seems to be unavailable - drawing error messages. (Let me know if you find otherwise.)

Sali’s is up, but it hasn’t been updated since October. (Craig’s has been.)

UPDATE We may need to amend the report on Craig’s site - some other Senate sites seem to be down also.

Oregonians know that come this weekend is the mighty Civil War: The annual football game between the University of Oregon (at Eugene) and Oregon State (at Corvallis). It’s a hot deal. Word is that tickets are going for $1,000 and more on eBay.

Someone, naturally, has pulled a political perspective (the one from the right) out of this. There is no escaping politics any more . . .

Awhole lot of politics, like a lot of the rest of life, gets determined by whoever it is that makes the effort to, you know, show up. As in this case from Seattle (on an issue expanding rapidly all over the west coast). From the Stranger’s Slog:

“The anti-bag-fee ‘coalition’ — AKA, the American Chemistry Council, which advocates against regulation on plastics and toxic chemicals — has collected more than $227,000, according to Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission reports, for its campaign to repeal the 20-cent fee on disposable grocery bags. Fully $217,000 of that came directly from the chemical-industry lobby group. At the moment, there is no pro-bag-fee campaign. For this and other reasons, I’m certain that the well-intentioned bag fee—a voluntary charge for those who choose not to carry their groceries in a backpack or reusable 99-cent canvas bag—will be overturned by voters when it’s on the ballot next year.”

And if you’re not a Seattlite, coming to your community next . . .

Ron Sims

He’s been mentioned as a prospect for the Obama Administration, and maybe he is. But first maybe a look back at the administration of King County Executive Ron Sims would be worth while.

The Seattle Weekly does just that this week, in prickly fashion. It’s detailed and expansive enough to b be worth the extended read.

Core quote, from Rollin Fatland, who worked on two Sins executive campaigns: “Somewhere along the line, the county lost its focus, its mission of providing basic services like jail, Metro [buses], and elections. It ran into trouble straying and getting into areas that may not be a county mandate. On a personal level, I have affection for Ron. He’s a nice man, but somewhere along the line he got off track.”

Per arrival of the holiday season - drinking season, for a lot of people - a recommend for reading - a nicely-focused and detailed piece in the Idaho Statesman following a DUI-tasked state trooper, as he watches for and eventually arrests a string of drunk drivers.

Several points jump out among the details. One is the sheer level of drunkenness: Assuming the machine readings were right, these people ranged between .12 and .20 blood alcohol level. That isn’t a little tipsy: That is seriously, raging blotto. And while some acknowledge that situation (one, who said “I can’t stop drinking - it makes everything go away”, said he’d probably just had 36 cans of beer to drink) another (who was upward of .12) remarked, “I don’t feel drunk.” Probably didn’t feel much at all . . .

A hat tip for the pointer by Dennis Mansfield, whose own blog entry on the subject also is worth reading.