At Home in the Storm

Yes, there was some flooding. We're doing OK. Thanks for asking. 

 I don't talk that much about my neighborhood in the blog these days. Grubb Street is located on the East Hill of Kent, in the most northernly part near Panther Lake. When we moved in (years and years ago), the area was a mix of small farms, orchards, and houses with big yards and a lot of trees. Since then we've seen much more development. The horse farm at the corner became a huge development, and smaller developments have shown up on a lot of the side roads. Next door was when we moved in a wooded lot with a small cottage, but that plot is being developed into 13 huge houses with very small yards.

And despite the neighborhood disruptions, that development has been doing generally OK by us. We have a lot more sunlight in the yard for the gardens. The developers hooked up to our water main badly and we got some nasty water bills (which they offered to cover, which is nice). And at one point they cut my internet connection (Wire from the house across the street to a main line) with a backhoe as they were re-digging the sewer line, and again, put it back in working order by the end of the day. They did take down two huge pine trees on the properly line, which provided shade for the house during the summer. Those, I really miss. 

Anyway,

We have a horseshoe driveway in the front of the house, which is good for access and parking when friends come over. And in the center of that horseshoe, we have a couple more big pines and a dead/dying maple. The maple has been dead/dying for years, had split into two large trunks, and one of the two looks like it had be struck by lightning somewhere along the way. At the base we have a number of rhododendrons (the property two lots over was a rhododendron garden, and these are descendants). But we like the level of separation between the house and that street the maple and the other trees in the front provides. 

Cue the atmospheric river. 

The atmospheric river (A term that thrown around a lot out here these days) is a steady, heavy stream of water-laden air that starts in the Philippines, crosses Hawaii (gaining another title of "Pineapple Express") and then makes landfall between Alaska and California. Usually we don't get hit that hard. This past month, the Seattle area got hit hard. Our rivers in King County tend to be short and shallow, and our valleys steep and narrow, so that when we get hit with rains, the rivers swell quickly, to flood stage and beyond.

You've seen the pictures. The Skagit and Snoqualmie Rivers in the northern parts of the county overtopped their banks with the first wave of storms, swamping farms and communities.  Then the Cedar River, which runs down Maple Valley and through Renton itself, hit well over flood stage. And then the Green and White Rivers, which broke levees and flooded entire housing developments and warehouses. Pumpkins from an inundated farm upstream have been spotted floating down the Green. Roads through the passes have been closed due the flooded streams undercutting and collapsing the road surfaces. So, yeah, that's pretty bad.

As I say, we're OK from the flooding, being on a hill. The nearby Panther lake overflowed, flooding the local fields but not coming up over the road (there was work on the drainage system there about ten years back). But we were hammered by the wind coming through with the variety of storm fronts. 

And one of the massive trunks of the dead/dying maple snapped about 20 feet up and toppled. The good news is that it did not take out the power line. The bad news is that it blocked one of the entrances to the horseshoe driveway and took out our Internet connection and the mailboxes.

Oh, I haven't mentioned the mailboxes. We had three mailboxes out front, which, like everything else out here, have a history. The original post was put in by the neighbor's father-in-law in the 60s, and was fashioned by convicts guilty of drunk and disorderly charges (the neighbor's father-in-law was a local sheriff). When we moved in, we had to adjust it, and the Lovely Bride and the neighbor built a flower box support for the three boxes, using tools the neighbor had gotten under the GI Bill. Like I said, everything here has a story. And this is what was splintered and crushed by the falling tree, the mailboxes smashed and buried under a tangle of branches.

And we recovered. I managed to hack away most of the medium-sized branches, and was pleased to discover that my electric chainsaw worked after all these years, and that I had enough extension cords to reach from the garage to the front. We called a tree service that hauled away the huge main trunk and got a bid to take down the rest of the dying/dead maple. I spent a week cyber-crashing at a friend's house, mooching his Internet to do the day job. Eventually we got the Internet service restored (after long discussions about which corner of the house they needed to hook it up to). The Lovely Bride purchased new mailboxes, built a new support for the boxes (using a perfectly good piece of cedar planking we had in the garage), and restored the mail service (which will need to be adjusted and cemented in once the rain finally stops). 

And like I said, we're doing OK. It was a bit more eventful than we would have liked, but a way to end the old year and begin the new. And we're just waiting for the next big storm.

More later, 

The Political Desk: Here Comes the Election

So, we have an election coming up. And since I've had a bit to say about the primary, it behooves me to follow through and comment on the upcoming votes.

The first and most important thing, of course, is that you vote. In elections such as these, there is usually a reduced voter turnout, so your votes really do count for more than normal. Plus, we're a mail-in ballot state, so it really is not an inconvenience, other than, you know, doing the research and drawing pictures on the back of the forms.

And that's where we help, here at Grubb Street. Not only by offering our own ill-considered opinions, but giving you the links to OTHER PEOPLE'S ill-considered. opinions. Because we want you to get a more opinions than you can shake a stick at (if shaking a stick at opinions is something you are wont to do)..

So, here's the now-bi-weekly Stranger's recommendations, whose staff loads up on drugs before offering their endorsements. And here's the opinions of the Seattle Times, whose staff loads up on the REALLY GOOD drugs before wading in (How good? They've already conceded the 2018 House of Representative seat to three-time loser Dino Rossi). On the more rational end of the spectrum, here's the Progressive Voter's Guide, the Municipal League's input (though you have to wade through their primary listing) and Voting for Judges, which does a very good job of analyzing the judgeship that are up for election (yeah, in Washington State, we elect our judges. It seems to have worked out). The Seattle Weekly has finally returned to talking about politics just in time for it to be transformed from an alt-weekly to a Penny-Saver-style broadsheet. So enjoy them while they're still around. And the blog Crosscut has shown up with its recommendations. And finally here's King County and the State of Washington's Voter's Guides, so you can see the candidates' statements yourself.

So you really don't suffer from a lack of options, here. And if more get added, I will add to this entry. For my own part, I will try to collapse this as much as possible into bite-sized bits.

The ballot arrived this afternoon. So, let's turn over the test papers and begin ....

{UPDATE: The C is for Crank also weighs in on Seattle-based stuff]

The Case of the Missing Dragon

I don't often talk about what happens at a personal level here at Grubb Street, and when I do its about the positive things (holidays, parties and gatherings). But in this case I'm making an exception.

Lockheed, in happier times.

You see, someone has stolen our dragon.

We had a dragon gargoyle, about two feet tall and about 60 pounds heavy, that for several years has guarded our front stoop. And right before Christmas, the Lovely Bride went out with a Santa hat to put on the dragon, and found it gone.

And it was very concern-making, in part because we don't know exactly WHEN the statue disappeared. It was there for Thanksgiving, but in the rainstorms that followed we were not paying attention and it could have happened up to a few days previously. 

Possible means and motive are equally wonky. Our driveway isn't particularly obvious to people driving by, and someone stealing it on-foot would have to lug off a sixty-pound concrete statue. In could have been a prank, but there was an uncarved pumpkin right next to it, a remnant of Halloween kept on to T-Giving, that was unscathed. Stealing it for sale it is equally wonky, since there were other things in the area that could have been scarpered just as easily that were untouched.

It is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. Our area is rural turning to suburban, but we have had thefts over the years. The gargoyle itself was a replacement for a light-weight lawn ornament sea serpent that mysteriously vanished one afternoon (AFTER we were visited by Mormon Missionaries, who probably were not at fault, but could have just been Stalking Horses, I suppose). We were outright burgled many years ago (they got old computers, a TV, our CDs, and a skull-shaped pin made from a prop of the Terminator movie; We responded by getting a security system and training the cats in Akido). And in a case that continues to confound me to this day, someone stole our garbage one year (for what, information? Sorry, we shred).

The LB and I are concerned and little uncomfortable that someone came up to the house and pirated our dragon off. On one hand, it is just stuff, but on the other it is stuff that we had a direct connection with (it was named Lockheed. Now you can feel REALLY bad). We reported it, of course, not because we expect an APB on a concrete dragon, but in case there has been a spate of lawn ornament thefts, and if, after long investigation, the Kent police find it with a thousand garden gnomes down in a warehouse in the valley.

Well, there's hope at least.

More later,

Political Desk: Kent Advisory Proposal

So this is an advisory vote that I can get behind, if nothing else because it is asking the voters' advise BEFORE making the decision (as opposed to all those state advisory referendums this year). In this cast, the mouth-filling Advisory Proposition No. 1: Sale, Possession, and Discharge of Consumer Fireworks in the City of Kent is asking what the people think before taking action.

And I favor this proposition, which will remove the bulk of skyrockets and boomers, confining them to local shows and licensed affairs. I find it interesting that the bulk of the candidates not only support the concept of a ban, but have horror stories about pets, family, and neighborhoods freaked out by the noise and trash from such private operations.

When we first moved into Panther Lake, it was part of unorganized King County, one of the many bits and pieces of territory that didn't belong to nearby municipalities. As a result, the Fourth (and New Years. And Flag Day. And anything else) was an excuse for an excess of fireworks. Not just setting a few off in the school parking lot - I'm talking navigating the street like you were on patrol in the Mideast to avoid running over any caltrop-like bases while cordite-scented fumes drifted through the vehicle. This dropped off severely when the neighborhood became part of a community that was not as overtaxed with responding vehicles, though it is still loud, proud, and potentially dangerous. With a solid ban, I expect it to drop off even more.

So yeah, I'm going to vote YES on this one, and recommend others do as well.

More later,

A Political Desk Addendum

One of the things that bother me about politics is how things stop being a scandal after the election. The terrible accusations, true or otherwise, suddenly stop on election day. Sadly, what was criminal on the first Tuesday of November should be equally criminal on the first Wednesday, and we should not declare such matters irrelevant just because we've pried the suspect's fingers off the levers of power.

To that point, I have been following the matter of Kent's briefly-tenured City Councilman Ken Sharp. During the election, he was accused of stealing large sums of money from his own mother. Mr. Sharp protested his innocence, won the seat, but then resigned after two weeks because the impending court case from his arrest would be too much of a distraction. Now he is pleading guilty to the charges against him. The Kent Reporter provides a very dry, factual and troubling summary of the entire issue here.

Now the maximum punishment sought by the state (which includes prison time) can be mitigated by Mr. Sharp paying back some of the funds to his mom. That would be a good thing. And it may well be that he serves no time at all, within the judgement of the court (no minimum sentence requirements that I see in the article). But the entire proceedings is a blemish against the community, the council, and the local Chamber of Commerce, which was his last big organizational position before running. It is a distraction, indeed, and one that begs closer examination of candidates in the future.

Which of course makes things tougher for me, since I'll have to do that examination, and won't be able to sail through approvals of local candidates on the mere assumption of innocence. And that, ultimately, is what bothers me most of all. Honest people make my job both easier and more boring, and I like it that way. No, really. :)

More later,

The Political Desk Is In Apparent Need of an Upgrade

When I was wading through the Voter's Guide earlier this month, I was pretty comfortable that I could understand the choices with the material as presented - candidate statements, supplemented by their own web sites and endorsements and comments from other blogs and services such as the Muni League. Easy-Peasey.

But I've hit a snag once I started talking about the Kent area (my new home town), since the reach of the Muni League, or the larger papers or blogs, doesn't reach this far south. I didn't do as much digging and in not digging further I missed a whopper.

I mean, it sounds weird that in making my recommendations I should have paid attention to arrest reports, but apparently such is the case.

Here's the story: I looked at the candidates for Kent City Council, and went pretty much from their statements and what I could dig up from their own sites. Which was pretty thin on the ground, since only one of them, Bailey Stober, had a functioning website up. So I recommended Mr. Stober, and figured I would learn more about the others (Ken Sharp and Barbara Phillips) later.

And I did learn more about Mr. Sharp I found THIS in the Times this past Saturday morning:

A candidate for the Kent City Council was charged this week with seven counts of first-degree theft for allegedly draining nearly $300,000 from his mother’s bank account and using the money to shore up his failing printing business, according to King County prosecutors.

This is the local equivalent of coming home to find the "60 Minutes" crew setting up in your driveway. There is absolutely no joy for a political candidate in that opening lede. Then it just gets worse:

Charging documents filed Tuesday also suggest that Ken Sharp, 66, used his mother’s money to purchase a $12,000 diamond ring for his third wife and to go on trips to Mazatlan, Mexico, Dubai and Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also accused of taking out a reverse mortgage for nearly $475,000 on his mother’s Tacoma house, the papers say.

The whole Times article is here And while I'd love to ascribe to the local media a hand in covering things up, not rocking the boat, and maintaining the status quo, you can find their much more detailed and slightly less colorful account in the Kent Reporter here, and an article on the initial arrest and investigation from back in July here.

Apparently local politics is a lot more colorful than I had first thought it would be, and this bears further watching. And, sadly, a lot more research on this end.

More later,

Election Day Cleanup

So here we are, about a week after election day and I finally get around to reporting the results. Part of it is the result of not having a machine over the weekend (another story) but part of is because of the nature of Washington State Elections. We vote by mail, and the ballots must be postmarked by election day (In California, they have to have arrived by election day). So the result is that close elections will hang fire for a couple days before the near-final results are known. Oddly enough, I'm good with this, but this is why people in the business of shaping a narration for this election thought our Senate race would make us the "New Florida" (Spoiler Alert - It didn't).

So, how did things go?

Some things surprised me. Some things saddened me. Only one did both.

I-1053 (Tim Eyeman hearts the oil companies) PASSES - This is the one that both surprised and saddened me. Really, really bad idea that will come back to haunt people (Heck, in the time since the election, Eyeman has already challenged a fare increase for the ferries fares as a "tax").
I-1082 (BIAW hearts big insurance) FAILS
I-1098 (Bill Gates and his Dad want to pay taxes) FAILS
I-1100 (Costco wants to keep the Stranger staff drunk) FAILS
I-1105 (Smaller distributors want to keep the Stranger staff drunk) FAILS
I-1107 (Beverage companies want to avoid taxes) PASSES - this is what happens when you put a candy tax on the ballot so close to Halloween.

R-52 (Cute Puppy wants to repair schools) FAILS
Amendment 8225 (Redefine interest calculation to let the state take advantage of Federal loans) - PASSES (which is surprising because it is a relatively complex issue, which voters supposedly would not understand)
Amendment 4220 (Allow judges to deny bail under narrow conditions) PASSES Handily.

And what have we learned? The people have pretty much sent a message that new taxes, new fees, and closing loopholes are off the table. Get ready for deep and painful cuts in services, since that's the only option you've got left.

King County Amendment 1 - (Revise charter's preamble to put business on same level as environment) - PASSES
King County Amendment 2 - (Remove duplication of effort in Public Disclosures) - PASSES
King County Amendment 3 - (Allow Sheriff to negotiate collective bargaining, but not for important stuff like wages or benefits ) - PASSES
King Count Proposition 1 (Cute Puppy wants to keep cops, firemen, and rest of the government) - FAILS

US Senator - Patty Murray (the media hesitated long and hard even though more King County votes piled up in her favor - finally, denied of their promised narrative)
US REP, 8th District - Dave Reichert

State Senator, 47th District - Joe Fain, who out-hustled Claudia Kauffman (and I just found out he's brother to a local sports radio host - the stuff you don't learn until later).

Representative, 47th District, Position 1 - Mike Hargrove (Two-Thirds majority to raise any tax, plus Representative who has pledged never to raise a tax = what could go wrong?)

Representative, 47th District, Position 2 - Pat Sullivan.

State Supreme Court Justice Position #6 - This is, oddly, the one that is hanging fire, refusing to resolve. When the ballots first went out, Sanders had a comfortable incumbent's lead. Since then, though, a lot of stuff that happened recently (racially-tinged statements made alongside fellow Justice Jim Johnson, who, alas, was running unopposed on this ballots), combined with articles from the Stranger and Times on past questionable behavior has resulted in late ballots breaking towards challenger Wiggins. At this point, things are so close that Sanders is already claiming fraud.

Position #3 - David Meyer
Position #6 - Matt Williams (I'm O-for-2 on this one).

And what is the larger picture? Well, pretty good considering that the recent election was supposed to be such a massive rejection of the current administration that time and space would be ruptured, Bush would be put back into office for a third term, and the Rangers would retroactively win the World's Series on a 5-4 decision. Instead, a populace frustrated with the economy turned the more volatile House over to the party out of power. Sounds about right (In the state house, the Dem majorities are reduced by not overturned).

Actually, what is interesting is that most of the US House Dem losses occurred in areas where conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats were running AWAY from the achievements of their party, Of the thirty+ Dems who voted against Health Care Reform, less then a dozen are coming back. Meanwhile, the "progressive wing" of the party held its own, with a couple notable exceptions.

But as noted above, the state government is charged with covering anticipated shortfalls without increasing taxes, raising fees, or closing any loopholes. So buckle down for a slew of "local Cute Puppy lacks funds, must be tossed into shredder" stories. Because that is now the new narrative.

More later,

Theatre: Lovecraft at Play

H.P.Lovecraft's Pickman's Model, Adapted by Vincent Kovar, John McKenna, Dustin Engstrom, and Ron Sandahl, Peon Circle Theater. through Nov. 13, 2010.

Dying=easy. Comedy=hard. Horror=Really tough in live theater.

Horror lurks best in the mind, so its champion media is the printed page, equaled perhaps by the glory days of radio, when the eldritch horrors are conjured in the mind. Even movie-making, whether it is the shadow of the knife or the Grand Guignol, has more tools available to it to chill the blood and disturb the soul. Live theater, in particular small live theater like the Open Circle, now in Belltown, has a greater challenge. Yet every Halloween they unearth Lovecraft's cadaver and make the bloody best of the media.

Pickman's Model is a mash-up of the title piece, broken into two acts and adapted to Seattle, and The Music of Erich Zann which is played pretty straight and inserted into Act One as a piece of performance art. The construction is by a small horde of adapters, and does not hang together as neatly as one would like. There is info about the connection the Malicious Dr. Reid and the artist Pickman in the first act that is forgotten in the second, and the Malicious Dr. R starts promising and villainous in the first act but recedes to an afterthought in the second.

Let me back up to the main frame of this picture. Act One is a gallery opening for Richard Upton Pickman's latest work, and while attempting to present a backstage look at a gallery show gives us a bit of a jumble. The proceedings include a dance performance of Music which really works in and of itself, though attempts to link the music and the paintings are a bit strained. The latest portrait is revealed (all pictures are blank canvases to us, a very good move as we fill in the unpleasant details), and everything goes to hell. Pickman's former artistic agent Thurber (Marianna De Fazio) and news photog Eliot (Kenna Kettrick) decide to go off and confront Pickman about what he's really up to.

Act II is that confrontation, with Simon Astor creating an amused, definitely plummy Pickman, too clever for his own good and delighted by the chaos he creates. Many hints are dropped, and the history of Seattle's Underground is rewritten to good effect, before the nasty devils below come to take their due, leaving the protagonists slamming around in the dark for a while, firing off camera flashes, while we the audience, are led to imagine the worse. It goes on for a bit too long, and I seemed to be always facing the flash when it went off.

Act II holds together much better than Act I, and shifting two of the protagonists to female characters works nicely, and it made the old story set in the East quite at home on the west coast. Lacking the mighty special effects of a Seattle Rep, the small theater does its best with blank paintings (good), flash cameras in the dark (irritating and silly in places) and unearthly tones (which went from irritating to creepy and back to irritating). The connection between Zahn's music and Pickman's paintings through the lizard-brain is well-researched, but still feels tenuous, a ghost that vaporizes if considered too long.

Adaptions do not need to lockstep into their original forms, and this one actually manages to deliver both straight and evolved versions of Lovecraft's tales. Worth checking out, even if we are past the due-date on that Halloween pumpkin.

More later,

1098

So this is the only initiative I can get behind, even in a tentative way. But I have to point out, that like all the others, it is backed by individuals with deep pockets, and I will give it the same warts and all fisking that you're used to.

Initiative 1098 places an income tax on natives of Washington State. EVERYBODY PANIC!

OK, wait a minute. The initiative puts an income tax of 4% on folk making $200,000 ($400,000 filing jointly). And it reduces the odious B&O tax to the point of nonexistence for small businesses. And it reduces property taxes by 20%. And the money is earmarked for education and health care. So ... everybody panic in a more measured, reasonable fashion.

When I first moved out here to Washington State, one sell point I heard a number of times was "We don't have an income tax". Now, I never thought the PA or WI income taxes were particularly horrible in the first place, but hey, it was a sell point. What I wasn't told that was we DID have nasty sales taxes in place, along with tough property taxes. I guess it pays to read the fine print.

In fact, our sales tax is one of the most regressive ones around - and by regressive, I mean it hits the poor harder than the wealthy. A bigger percentage of the middle class paycheck goes into taxes as opposed to higher income brackets. In addition, the sales and property taxes are tied deeply into the market - the fact that so many government services are being cut is not a reflection on government waste (They've been pretty good at handling that) but the mere fact that there are less sales, and therefore less sales tax, to pay people with.

So I'm good with an income tax. If fact, if you come up with one that reduces the sales tax, I'd even sign on for one that affects all Washingtonians, not just the wealthiest. But until that bit of enlightened lunacy shows up, I'll have to support the one that is on the ballot. So consider this a Yes on the initiative.

But I said that the initiative system is invested with people with money, and 1098 is no different. In this case, the moneybags are centered on - Bill Gates Sr.

Say what? The guy pushing us to tax the rich is the father of one of the wealthiest men on the planet, and no slouch on his own. And he's got his son on board as well (Paul Allen and Microsoft itself are against the plan, which should make for some frosty moments at the next company picnic).

But still, Bill Gates, father and son. It is hard to call it a class war when some of the upper class is providing artillery support for the poor folk.

This initiative has produced some interesting commercials at least. The pro-side puts the elder Gates in a dunk tank. The anti-side lumbers in with a riff on the Mor furniture ads "TIRED of not paying enough taxes?" with enough scare quotes for a Halloween haunted mansion. In fact, the Seattle Times, which doesn't like its rich owners to pay taxes, pretty much went morally bankrupt trying to say nice things about the advert, and then only after extreme contortions could they get it to "half-true" (alas, the paper's examination of the political ads so far have been pretty horrible, even when I agree with their conclusions).

Now I know some Washington State natives who WOULD be affected by this tax, and in general I have found them to be open, progressive, and as concerned about education (where this funding is going) as anyone else. But even so, I'd understand if they voted against this at the ballot box. But I will note that if this goes down in flames, they're buying the drinks from here on out.

More later,

Dammed If You Do ...

Given that this story is unspooling right at the bottom of the hill beneath Grubb Street, I'm going to stay with it. And the story is the partial failure of the Hanson Dam and the resulting risk of flooding along the Green River valley this winter, which includes Auburn, Kent, and Renton.

Here's the short version - the ground around the dam is seeping water, weakening the dam. The Army Corps of Engineers is working on a patch, but in the meantime they cannot hold as much water back, which means that in case of a major rainstorm, they will have to pass the water along, flooding the valley.

Last time we checked in, I applauded the local leaders for recommending flood insurance, and getting it sooner as opposed to later. Now simultaneous to that, a lot of insurance companies have determined the risk in the valley was too great (meaning they would have to pay out if something went wrong), and both stopped writing business policies and tried to terminate existing policies.

Hmm. Insurance companies trying to retroactively cancel policies once they realize they may have to pay out. That seems vaguely familiar. If only there was some sort of option, perhaps a public one, that people could turn to. We could call it a "public option". Yeah, that would work.

Actually, as far as flood insurance, there is such an option from the government. That's the good news. The bad news is that while it will help, it won't cover enough for the businesses that have shown up in droves in the valley over the past forty years or so, which have a lot of expensive and generally immobile equipment. The whole story, with a particular eye towards the effects on the business in the valley, is found here in the Seattle Times. And while it states that most of the residences would be OK with government insurance (And if you have flood insurance, double-check - regular home-owners insurance doesn't cover this type of flooding), a lot of the immobile resources of the businesses, large and small, outstrip that coverage.

I expect the various leaders in the valley, from local to national, are trying to address this, and there will likely be more to this as we move forward. The article notes that the advanced warning provided for this potential flood has contributed to the insurance companies bailing. If the dam just broke suddenly, they wouldn't have the chance to get to higher financial ground in time. How fortunate for them.

On an unrelated note, there is another matter that's crossed my mind. The Hanson Dam is in the Tacoma watershed. If they can't hold as much water back, what kind of challenge does that present to them? Has that subject been brought up yet?

Yeah, this is going to be ongoing.

More later,

Strike

So the Kent School District teachers have been on strike for the past two weeks. This has had its most notable affect on Grubbstreet only in that we haven't heard school bells in the morning (while not in Kent proper (yet), we are part of the Kent School District, and our property backs on an KSD elementary school, and we contribute to the millage for support thereof.).

The strike has been first and foremost about class size (number of meetings and salaries are secondary issues, but it is class size that is apparently sticking in everyone's craw at the moment). The average size of an elementary school class is 33 kids, mandated by a previous contract. That number swells up to 45 students in high school, where no such cap exists.

That's a lot of kids to a classroom, so I can see the teachers pushing for reduced headcount. The Kent School District has been less accommodating, such that they've gone to court to fine the teachers heavily for walking out. Then they stopped negotiating. Then they started negotiating, but declared that school will reopen, no matter what, on Tuesday. No pressure, mind you.

Oh, and the teachers brought to the table a proposal costing less than what the school district was demanding of it. And the school district rejected it. I think we're just moved into the realm of union-busting here.

You'd think the parents, whose kids are being deprived of an education, and in addition are around the house for an additional two weeks, would be on the school board's side. Some are, but it seems like the bulk of them are supporting the teachers, to the point of movements to toss out the school board. Strange times indeed.

Now most of my data comes from the Seattle Times which is interesting in that it is providing both sides of the issue in an unusual way. When I read the reporting, I would say that it is pro-teachers (pointing out stuff like the fact that Kent SD has a $21 million budget right now). But the editorials are rock-solid pro-management - the teachers should quit all this silliness and get back to the cattle pens to instruct their kids. If they have to buy a megaphone, its coming out of their own pockets.

Now I have a modest proposal. Well, not a Modest Proposal because that would note that we have a surplus of students so we should start building additional schools out of them. Instead, here's this - no more development in Kent until we can provide the infrastructure to support that development. Seriously. We don't build another house in the area until we have schools that can service the additional population.

Kent has been a sprawling, expanding exurb, and dealing with that growth has been a major challenge to its elected officials. And to be honest, they haven't done too shabby a job, revitalizing their downtown and paying attention to growth and environmental issues. But the simple fact is that we have teachers working with huge classes and every school has a outpost of "temporary classrooms" that have become permanent. We're at the limits, so we need to stop taking more people in.

(And yeah, I could say "no more kids", but that's just unfair to prevent people from living somewhere just because they have children, so I'm willing to bite the bullet on behalf of the non-marrieds and childless couples and ban everybody).

It would solve a problem, and allow the school board to spend the money they're saving on bringing up the quality of the local education (already high, so thanks to both sides on this - I like smart kids). OR the school district could get serious about the talks and stop jerking the teachers, parents, and kids around to get the show back on the road and the kids back in school.

I offer this simply as a choice. No pressure.

More later,

Update: Strike settled as of Monday AM. Class size reduced for lower grades (good), but still uncapped for high school (good luck, kids!). Reduced meetings to 8/month and modest (very) pay raises. Teachers saw a lot of support from the community in all this despite the inconvenience for their kids. Still think we need to consider school capacity as a basic infrastructure concern for new development, but then, that's just me.

The Jeff Recommends

So, to summarize:

ST/RTID Proposition 1 (Roads and Transit) - Here's the deal - if we don't pass it, I don't want to see any of you on 405 northbound between 9 and 10, because that's when I need to get to work. Vote YES.

R-67 (Insurance Accountability) - So $10 million has been dumped into this campaign to defeat it, in the name of protecting consumers. How much has come from actual consumers? $700. Vote YES.

I-960 (Supermajority Taxation) - We say government doesn't work, and we want to make sure it doesn't! Another "Give me a pony!" initiative. Vote NO.

ESSJR 8206 (Supermajority Rainy Day Fund) - Let's push some cash away for an emergency, but then make sure we can't get to it. Sometimes I feel that way about the Girl Scout thin mints in the freezer. Vote NO.

SJR 8212(Prison Labor for Profit) - Prison should have to worry about punishment versus rehabilitation, not whether Bennie the Shiv and C-Block has made their fourth quarter numbers. Vote NO.

EHJR 4204 (REMOVE Supermajority for school funds) - Vote YES.

SHJR-4215 (University plays the Stock Market) - This I was wavering on. Do I really doubt the intelligence of a UNIVERSITY to invest in stocks wisely? Um, yes. Yes, I do doubt it. Vote NO.

King County Initiative 25 (Make the County Director of Electors a political race) - Yeah, THAT will make things move much smoother. Vote NO.

King County Proposition No. 1 (Medic One) - Why yes, when I'm have heart pangs, I'd like to have an ambulance. Hell, I'd like to have a transporter. Vote YES.

King County Prosecutor - Both men have good resumes and will likely do a good job, but the GOP candidate keeps trying to hide that he's Republican, stressing non-partisanship while at the same time taking gobs of money from the state party and doing fundraising for other GOP candidate. Vote BILL SHERMAN

Port of Seattle Position #2 - Go for GAEL TARLETON and keep an eye on her.

Port of Seattle Position #5- Keep reformer ALEC FISKEN and give him some support.

King County Assessor - OK, Scott Noble actually made a pun in his Voter's Pamphlet - he's the singular choice. Get it? SINGULAR? Because his opponent is named NOBLES? And they say Assessors have no sense of humor. Vote SCOTT NOBLE.

Public Hospital District #1 - Snake Pit. The incumbents have done poorly with their task, but their opposition is suspect. The foe of my foe is not necessarily my friend. Split the difference with CAROLE ANDERSON and SUE BOWMAN, and get a new CEO, stat!

And on the ones I cannot vote on:

King County Commissioner District Six: Jane Hague. Yep, flawed vessel, the weakness that flesh is heir to, yadayada. But that doesn't make her opponent obviously better (though he does have a Myspace page).

Renton Annexation: Oh, and now we have a City Council dustup where a religious stealth candidate running against King Parker (of King and Bunny's Appliances, up in the highlands) is striking back against a web site targeting her on how most of her support is coming from outside Renton. OK guys, on Annexation, you're on your own here, but you should know what you're getting into.

Feel free to print this out.

More later,

Make Levees, Not War

So I have been very, very busy of late, both in the office and on my own time, and haven't done a lot of posting. But I came across this, first on the Pittsburgh Press site, then at the P-I (though nothing from the Seattle Times). In short, it says that a lot of levees need repaired.

The article, pretty much identical in the Press and the P-I, makes a passing reference to the fact that a lot of the sites are located in Washington State, though this seems to just be passed on without much comment by our local press. This is particularly interesting since, if you check out the pdfed list, you find that a lot of the areas of concern, where maintenance of the levees has been turned over to local authorities and since lapsed, are along the Cedar and Green Rivers.

These rivers are very close to here, like just down the hill from us. And indeed, both are rivers that had historically different and often random paths before the authorities channeled and leveed them into submission. The Green is particular was known for frequent flooding, and the region now occupied by WotC, the big Southcenter Mall, and the upcoming Federal Reserve Bank, were all regularly flooded (there was a racetrack in this area once, and I have seen pictures of it underwater).

But just because the local waterway was once tamed does not mean it stays tamed, and the heavy rains of the past few years have given concern. Now the feds are voicing the same concern, to the tune that the locals either have to get on the ball, or those in the floodplains will have to pony up for flood plain insurance.

Given that a lot of large businesses (commercial and light industry) are now in the path of the Green, I have a feeling that we will be hearing about this again in the near future.

More later,

More Snow Madness

So this morning Steve Miller, who writes nifty reviews on unreviewable movies here, slipped on the ice outside his apartment complex and broke his ankle. While otherwise immobilized, he did manage to call us on his cell, and a good chunk of the day was taken up with helping out with the ER, rapidcare visit, prescriptions and other minor matters that occur when a friend fractures his fibula.

It is not that surprising that Steve was laid up, given that the snow we had early in the week hung around through surprisingly cold temperatures, and that the apartment complex management apparently thought that the polished ice surface they generated in the parking lot was some sort of benefit to their tennants. As a result of the running around, I had to be in and out of that parking lot three times, and each time I briefly lost control of the vehicle to a ice-bound skid (I learned to drive in Pittsburgh and spent a fair share of my life in Wisconsin, so I knew the drill about turning into the skid and generally heading for dry asphalt). And each time, at the entrance to the parking lot, there was some benighted fool from warmer climes (like California) who was struggling to get his minivan up the rise and out onto the main road. The surprise would be not that Steve was injured, but that there were not more such injuries from the complex's ice-bound negligence.

Once out of the parking lot, the main roads were fairly dry, with just enough ice in the shady parts to make it all an adventure. There have been two types of drivers this week - those driving way too fast for conditions, and those driving way too slow. As a result, it has been the ice capades combined with demo derby.

And through it all, I got the Seahawks game on a second audio channel while dealing with other matters. The game on in the background of the waiting room of the rapid care facility. The practitioner in the ER getting a phone call, saying "Yes!", then hanging up. (I had to ask "Seahawks score?" and she nodded). The Fred Meyers where I picked up the prescription had the game on in the electronics department, but only on the radio (they couldn't access the TV feed, apparently). In many ways, it felt like we were in the "B" plot of the episode while the Seahawks were the "A" plot. The upside was that the ER and rapid care units were pretty empty when we came in, since everyone else was watching the game. When I finally got home, I turned on the tube to hear words, "" ...and we'll be speaking with Coach Holgren about his disappointing loss."

But Steve is now resting comfortably (I hope), with his leg up and his bloodstream enhanced with an anti-inflammitory and a couple Limbaughs. And if he is reading this, we're rooting for him, and note that he should have his leg up, even if he's cruising the net. Now!

More later,