As Cavalia winds down, we have had a brief flurry of a different kind of circus, leading to the Republican caucuses on March 3. Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney already have been here, but the main events and prizes lie elsewhere. The campaign is lurching towards Super Tuesday, March 6, when 10 states, some crucial, hold elections or caucuses.
Citizens should be aware of – and opposed to – House Bill 2801 and the provisions that would allow local governments to cease publishing public notices in their local newspapers.
A few weeks ago, as many Redmond residents are now aware, our City Council voted to approve the signing of a development agreement with Group Health, the regional health care cooperative, which is preparing to dispose of its old hospital near Microsoft after relocating operations to a new building on the Eastside adjacent to I-405 in Bellevue.
Urgent care facilities have been around for much longer, and have a different purpose than ERs. It is very important for medical services consumers – you and me – to understand the difference, and to make appropriate use of each.
Our state is on the verge of giving gay and lesbian couples the right to be married.
It’s long overdue and deserves to be passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Chris Gregoire.
Some people fear 2012 could mean the end of the world, but others see this year in a more positive light.
On Wednesday, Capitol Hill was jolted by perhaps the most extraordinary protest ever organized in the history of the United States of America.
The Washington State Supreme Court ruled last week that the state is not complying with its constitutional duty to “make ample provision for the basic education of all children in Washington.”
Is anyone surprised?
It’s not just that the state is nickel-and-diming our kids; it’s more like it’s doing it by $5s and $10s.
Is now the right time for the City of Redmond to ask for a tax increase?
Randomly selected residents will be asked to participate in an automated phone survey as early as Sunday, which will help city leaders answer this question.
The National Transportation Safety Board has taken a tough, but necessary, stand on texting, emailing or chatting while driving a vehicle. The board wants it outlawed.
Good.
The unanimous recommendation from the five-member board would apply even to hands-free devices, a much stricter rule than any current state law.
Again, good.
Every 10 years, after the census required by the U.S. Constitution has been successfully completed, each state begins the process of redistricting, or drawing new boundaries for its congressional districts. Here in Washington, our redistricting process is overseen by a five-member commission with four voting members (two from each major party) and one nonvoting chair, who helps facilitate and guide the commission’s work. The commission has the unenviable task of not only drawing up new congressional districts for the next decade, but legislative districts as well.
It seems that Congress has never been more unpopular than it is right now.
Almost a year after it first convened, the 112th Congress has, in the eyes of most Americans, made virtually no progress towards solving our nation’s problems. Most of the days the House and Senate have been in session this year have been dominated by gridlock and bickering instead of harmony and cooperation.
When I started as publisher of the Redmond Reporter in August of 2007, little did I know how sad it would be to say goodbye four years later.
If you haven’t started your holiday shopping, you might want to hold on to your wallet.
Gov. Chris Gregoire wants the state to dig deeper into your pocket to help bail-out the state budget.
On Monday, Washington’s Legislature will convene for a special session in Olympia to figure out how to close another depressingly large budget shortfall. Unlike the federal government, the state is required by law to maintain a balanced budget – and the budget that the Legislature approved several months ago assumed that revenues would be higher than they have been.
With La Niña expected to make a return trip to the Northwest this winter, now is not the time to be complacent.
Others have cut their budgets; the state can, too.
Legislators return to Olympia for a special session Nov. 28. For the fourth year in a row they will try to balance the state’s budget.
It won’t be pretty.
If you’ve watched any television recently, or paid attention to the contents of your mailbox, chances are good that you’ve seen many of the ads for and against I-1183, Costco’s latest attempt to rewrite the rules regarding the sale of hard spirits in its favor.
A year after approving a pilot project to test whether red-light cameras would make several well-trafficked Redmond intersections safer, the City of Redmond appears poised to pull the plug on the cameras and end the pilot project – while possibly continuing to operate a speed camera near Einstein Elementary during school hours.
When President Obama recently unveiled his plan to pay down the deficit, congressional Republicans’ first reaction was to call it “class warfare” because his plan calls for increasing taxes on the wealthy and recovering revenue that we currently give away as a nation to powerful corporations in the form of tax loopholes.