Is the Herald in denial? Nothing in Friday’s or today’s Herald on the screwup of ballots by the Whatcom County Auditor. For a few hours Friday their website had a very small post which minimized the s
Marian Beddill has posted a good technical description of what happened with our ballots. She uses this serious incident to explain why computerized voting has serious problems.
V -Stan Snapp - Don’t ask me why Servais hasn’t endorsed Stan Snapp. Here’s a guy that has worked his way up and tirelessly served his community, who has broad popular support and plent
Louise Bjornson got my vote. Yep, ballot is mailed. And I found myself at the moment of truth thinking that, you know, we will get at least three smart bucks on the new council and four if Bill Geyer
Personalities, not issues have dominated this election cycle. It’s not that there are no issues to discuss. It’s just that our democracy has apparently developed lazy habits. The digital revolu
Seth Fleetwood has endorsed Dan Pike for Mayor of Bellingham. We have all been wondering if and who Seth would endorse. He also ran for mayor and had a strong showing in the August primary. Today he a
Podcasts from the Oct 16 forum have been posted up at the KGMI website. As I reference in yesterday’s post, listening to the mayoral candidates is very worthwhile. You can select which candidate pairs
Podcasts of last night’s forum will be posted online by KGMI about noon tomorrow. I will post links here when they go up. Meanwhile, you might check Sam Taylor’s posted as it happened blog of the foru
Candidate forum this evening at the Courthouse. In the county council chambers - a great place with good seats, good sound system and easy to see all the candidates. The Whatcom Independent format mak
Well, it turns out the several days delay in posting the city council agenda was really an inadvertent side affect from a vacation by a city hall staff person. All innocent and not by design. Nice to
John Watts has posted thousands of words the past couple days about the neighborhood planning processes. I disagree with his analysis based on my four years of intense experience updating our Happy Va
For what they are worth, or not worth, today I am posting my preferences or endorsements for candidates. I describe myself as a progressive and those who know me consider me very liberal and a tree hu
Lois Garlick has a 4-minute video on YouTube that is worth every voter watching. Please spread the word. I am strongly backing Lois for Whatcom County Executive. Many say she is too old. Well, Pete Kr
Basic-needs candidate forum this evening at the Cruise Terminal drew a standing-room-only crowd. I got down there late hoping they had attracted more than 10 people. Well, there was not a single parki
Starting in the mid-eighties, when I was on the City Council, I sat on the original Joint City-County Lake Whatcom Advisory Committee, comprised of elected officials from both City and County as well
After years of no action and two weeks before ballots are mailed, our old do-nothing elective powers announce a dramatic decision to form a joint city-county arrangement to solve the Lake Whatcom prob
The well-rehearsed Town Hall meeting with Governor Christine Gregoire will take place this evening. Rehearsed, you ask? Oh yes. Democrats in power take no more chance with real democracy than do Repub
Neighborhood organizations and the dysfunctional Bellingham planning process has finally made the Herald. It has been a year in the making - and the roots are in the five-year remake of city planning
John Watts has posted a good response on his HamsterTalk to Mitch Friedman’s guest opinion piece in yesterday’s Whatcom Independent. Since Mitch had a kind word for John in the piece, it is nice to se
Full firehouse for the candidate forum this evening in Fairhaven. Some candidates are starting to ask trap-and-poison questions while some others are showing a fine respect for each other. Terry Borne
Writer's notes: The candidates for State Representative in the 40th District Position 1 are: Dusty Gulleson (prefers Republican Party,) Chuck Carrell (prefers Republican Party,) Doug Revelle (prefers Happiness Party,) Mike Newman (prefers Republican Party,) Kristine Lytton (prefers Democratic Party,) Tom Pasma (prefers Democratic Party,) Thomas Boucher (prefers Democratic Party,) Justin Van Dyk (prefers Democratic Party,) and Donna R. Miller (prefers Republican Party.)
What follows are the two responses to questions I submitted to Chuck last Mon, Aug 2.
Why should I vote for you?
"I’m running this year because the Legislature and Governor continued their out of control spending habits despite our troubled economy, and we need to stop it.
The only way it will stop is to start electing strong leadership to the Legislature that can make the hard choices that will be needed.
I will not support any new taxes unless they will completely eliminate an existing tax and make the amount less overall to the people they affect.
I think people are taxed to their limit right now and the real long term solution is to have the state and local governments cut their spending and get back to the essential functions of what state government is supposed to do.
I will not accept money from, or be a representative for, any PAC or special interest group. That’s important when figuring out where to trim at least $3 billion dollars from our state’s budget next session.
When making cuts, these candidates will feel obligated to keep unnecessary programs due to the financial aid they received during their campaigns. The problem was highlighted this year, and electing those types of candidates will only bring the same issue to the next Legislative session."
What is important to you?
"The most important thing to me this next Legislative session is getting our fiscal house in order.
We need to simplify the tax structure and then get an accurate assessment of what the state budget will be.
Then we need to REALISTICALLY balance the budget. This means that we fund our most important things such as education and public safety first and then continue down until everything is funded or there is no more state money left.
When the state budget is down to zero then we stop funding programs. No matter how badly we want to fund a program, if the state budget is spent then they will have to get their funding someplace else besides state government.
Even within our top priorities we need to look at how to consolidate these agencies and programs to make them more efficient. We also need to look at reducing the middle management in these agencies and what I term “inner bureaucracies.”
Years of these types of hiring practices by state and local government has created an enormous drain on our resources and is not sustainable. Nor can we rely on Federal grants like we did this year to balance the budget."
