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Advice from Fourth Graders – Week 2
Week 2 of excellent advice from fourth graders in Linda Myrick’s class at Somerset Elementary in Bellevue. Again, I’ve fuzzed out the name of the student so I don’t violate federal privacy rules. (This is too bad, as it’s truly excellent advice and they should get credit, but…) This particular concept is a good one –…
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Ringing the Gong for Homeless Kids
The Committee to End Homelessness rents a gong every year and has people volunteer for stints ringing it once for every unhoused person found in King County during the annual count on January 23rd. I stopped by for a few minutes and was able to take a few whacks. As you can see from the…
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Advice from 4th Graders – Week 1
I recently spent a fair amount of time working with Linda Myrick’s 4th grade class at Somerset. After my visit they sent me a stack of cards with advice on them. In general, it is EXCELLENT advice. I’ll be posting one a week until I run out. Perhaps at that point another 4th grade class…
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Joel’s Law and dealing with lawsuits, disasters, and an increase in child abuse reports
The House Appropriations committee is planning to hear two bills Today, (Jan. 26, 2015): HB 1258 – Concerning court review of detention decisions under the involuntary treatment act. This is “Joel’s Law,” a bill creating the ability for parents and other family members to provide information to the court in involuntary treatment act cases. The…
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Nobody is going to be able to ram anything down anyone else’s throat…
I get a small cameo on the Seattle Channel Legislative preview show. I’m in the first 30 seconds, and all I get to say is “Nobody is going to be able to ram anything down anyone else’s throat.” This is in the context of host Brian Callanan talking about the split control of the Legislature. Seattle City Council…
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Great Town Hall meeting last weekend
Rep-Elect Joan McBride, Sen-Elect Cyrus Habib and I had a great, if lightly attended town hall meeting last week at Redmond City Hall. We’ll do more of these, and I’ll get my email notification system working more effectively by then. I think there is one schedule in late February. The Reporter papers covered it, if…
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Washington reserves becoming healthy again
The Pew Charitable Trusts devotes significant resources to assessing the fiscal health of the states. They do (mostly) great work, and the information they provide is a great comparison of how different states approach managing their finances. It’s something we look at regularly. As you can see Washington was slightly above the national median at…
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Scary “Drones” or Annoying Neighbors with Model Airplanes?
I’ve gotten a lot of mail recently from ACLU members supporting regulation of drone use in Washington, which I support. However, I won’t support ANY bill on drones. I think the environment is more interesting than just the current ephemeral technology concern of cheap ubiquitous model airplanes. There was a bill last year on this…
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Every year we get the same scam
Somebody has a problem with the Ellensburg Rodeo and Kittitas County Fair. Every year he (she?) sends a similar “notice of cancellation” of the Ellensburg Rodeo and Fair with some goofy excuse. Every year it’s not true. It’s not true this year either. Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up. (The photo is a random…
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Visiting Bertha (Many Photos)
One of the perks of the State Rep gig is that I get some cool tours. I’ve been inside pontoons on the 520 bridge, an aircraft carrier, Sound Transit tunnel construction, and last week the orifice the Bertha is creating. I took some photos that illustrate some aspects of the visit, though it’s hard to…