Adorned in green and gold and waiting for my maturity voucher, I listened for someone to shout “CUT! Ok folks we’re done for the day, all you extras can go home now. Put the gowns back in the dressing room, please.”
It could have been lively, but it looks like the Redmond election season will be pretty laid back.
Of the four city council races, two will be contested and Mayor John Marchione will get to keep his spot at City Hall for another four years as no one was up for the challenge.
Lake Sammamish State Park brings back fond memories to those here who live adjacent to the facility.
Or not.
The park, once a popular destination for families, boaters and picnickers, has little to appeal to those groups now. And, really, who can blame them?
A good way to beat a criminal is to think like one — especially when it comes to deterring vehicle prowls.
It’s a no-duh statement, but car break-ins can be easily avoided by not leaving valuables — or anything that might be perceived as valuable by potential prowlers — inside your parked vehicle.
Our state’s new cell phone law apparently is having an effect. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to get these drivers to obey the law.
Last year, the Supreme Court of the United States struck a devastating blow against open government when it decided Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50, holding that corporations have the power to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence the outcome of elections.
Although the Court did uphold disclosure requirements as part of the decision, corporations have found an easy way to circumvent them: Any corporation that wants to covertly influence the outcome of an election can simply funnel an unlimited amount of money into a fake nonprofit organization, and use the nonprofit to anonymously buy millions of dollars’ worth of paid media.
Legislation has been proposed that would curtail this and other practices made possible by the “Corporations United” ruling (particularly the DISCLOSE Act), but Republicans have repeatedly killed it.
Regional cooperation on a project can seem rare these days. Therefore, it was nice to see King County Council member Larry Phillips’ opinion piece supporting the acquisition and use of the BNSF rail corridor in the May 20 edition of the Redmond Reporter.
Redmond is a growing city.
And with this growth comes more diversity: In the last 10 years, populations in almost every racial group in the city have grown.
While it is unquestionably true that the world is a better place with one less mass murderer in it, killing is not something that we should be celebrating. Bin Laden and his followers are the ones who celebrate death. Why should we want to emulate them?
Attention Redmond residents, there’s an easy and effective way for you to help reduce the rising epidemic of prescription drug abuse, while keeping Mother Nature clean and green.
The second National Drug Take Back Day will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 30, at various locations on the Eastside as well as elsewhere in the nation. The event is what its name implies: Officials will be on hand to accept unwanted and unused prescription drugs for proper disposal. The drugs can be dropped off anonymously at one of the designated locations and there will be no questions asked.
In all the debate I’ve witnessed so far over red-light cameras, the discussion seems to have centered around whether the mechanical eyes are a good or bad thing.
Almost nobody seems to have tried to ask — let alone answer — what I consider to be the deeper and more meaningful question: Why do people run red lights in the first place?
There’s some new technology from Microsoft that can connect content in newspapers, like the Redmond Reporter, to more online content on your mobile phone using a bar code.
The technology is called Microsoft Tag, which is a new kind of barcode that connects almost anything in the physical information world to more information, photos, entertainment, and interactive experiences on your mobile phone.
The red light cameras are installed, the strobes are flashing away, and tickets are being issued.
We are stuck with cameras forever. Right? Wrong!
Our mayor wisely negotiated a contract with the camera vendor that lets the city back out of the contract without penalty if the vendor is given notice in the next few months. The grace period was established so the city could evaluate the program and gauge public opinion.
On March 20, Sound Transit will officially inaugurate service at its new Mountlake Terrace highway station at 236th Street Southwest in Snohomish County. The new station, which sits in the Interstate 5 median, is one of the last capital projects planned as part of Sound Move – the regional transit system approved by voters in November 1996. It includes several bus bays, platforms for riders with weather shielding, and glass walls to reduce noise pollution. It also features a covered pedestrian bridge, built to connect the station to the third floor of the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center.
If we’ve learned one thing the last few months it’s that drivers in this part of the country are challenged when snow hits.
Just a few inches of snow can cause driving complications around this area of the state. But, there are many things to keep in mind when the white stuff starts falling.
As activists and candidates are well aware, the moment one election cycle ends, another begins.
Only a few months have passed since the 2010 midterms, which featured an array of corporate-funded ballot measures, a hard-fought U.S. Senate race, and several closely contested U.S. House races.
Those irritated by insidious advertising, endless robocalls, and nonstop “horse race” coverage on cable news will be relieved to hear that 2011 looks like it will be one of the quietest election cycles in recent years, permitting at least a temporary reprieve before 2012 contests heat up.
State legislators are looking for ways to pare down a budget deficit projected to be $4.6 billion in 2011–13, and ease recessionary burdens on local governments too.
SB5360 and HB1478 would allow cities and counties to place public notices on their websites instead of publishing them in their local newspapers. The idea: to save local governments the cost of publishing those notices in print.
At nearly every town hall, legislative action meeting, or budget question-and-answer session that I’ve been to in the last few months, someone has inevitably brought up the subject of tax loopholes, wanting to know why Gov. Chris Gregoire and legislative leaders aren’t talking about raising revenue by repealing outdated, unnecessary exemptions that no longer serve the public interest (or never did).
They’ve barely finished counting the votes on I-1053 and already Gov. Chris Gregoire is trying to get out from under it’s restrictions. She now wants to change the operation of the state ferry system. It’s another case of the state ducking its responsibility and should be rejected by the Legislature.
Defying the conventional wisdom that they can’t accomplish anything significant during the last few weeks of an even-numbered year, lawmakers in our nation’s capital recently concluded a remarkable period of post-election activity, which culminated with the approval of several important legislative priorities that had previously been stalled.