The 43rd annual Bill Mize Forum took place last night at the Rome Grange, a few miles east of Bellingham on the Mt. Baker Highway. This gathering of political candidates, their supporters and all the
A leading primary election candidate has reminded me of two facts regarding yesterday’s post about the unknown early-voting process. 1.) Others who could have benefited from early voting in June are f
Did you know that you could vote today - or tomorrow? Or last week? This could be very nice to know if you are planning a vacation during the first three weeks of August and will not be home to receiv
The Southside Forum last night had a packed-house attendance - showing a strong voter interest despite the mid-summer timing of the election and the lack of media coverage.
Some thoughts after the League of Women Voters Candidate Forum last night at the Municipal Court building at Girard and C Street. 7 to 8 pm, all 11 city council candidates. 8 to 9 pm, the 5 to 7 mayo
It is not bad enough that the city council schedules the public hearing on our future Shoreline Master Plan for the middle of July - a plan many years in the making and one with two time extensions fr
Forums. On Wednesday evening, the forum will - gasp - have all city candidates speak and answer questions. But not the County primary candidates. What a loss. This will make for a very long and over-s
It was a pleasant and still informative meet-and-greet last night at the Democratic Women’s forum. It was more like a Midwest American summer political fest and included a potluck the ladies provided
The Silver Beach Neighborhood forum went well last night with about 75 people attending. It was the first public chance for citizens to compare candidates and gauge them for their potential. I could n
The Herald does not even follow its own mandates. On Sunday, the editorial said the candidates “…must address 6 big issues.” Must. Then they sent out their own list of 8 questions to council candida
Election info online is starting to appear in addition to the candidate sites. - Whatcom Independent - Candidate Forums - except for the one on July 12. - Cascadia Weekly - candida
The Herald ran an ad for the State Department of Ecology informing us of the web site where we could find the Draft Consent Decree for our waterfront cleanup. Well, it isn’t there. Upon inquir
Ham Hayes has posted a well-worded response to the Herald editorial that ran in today’s paper. Ham is running for Bellingham City Council, but he speaks for all local candidates in his short and pithy
The Herald continues to ignore the political campaigns. Nary a word about candidates - and we are just three weeks from the ballots being mailed. Yesterday Scott Ayers wrote on his blog about how he d
Happy Independence Day. To all people residing in the United States, may you have a fun day and may you benefit from the principles of freedom, justice and opportunity that are the foundation o
Tried phoning the White House to weigh in with my comment that Bush shows no respect for the rule of law by commuting Libby’s sentence. After a minute of ringing and no answer, I hung up. Sent an emai
In a nutshell; “Keep me out of jail or I talk.” So they paid the price. The fall guy is Libby. The criminals - for releasing the name of a CIA undercover agent - are Bush and Cheney. All Libby did was
Election? Campaigning going on? Gee, how did you know? Our one daily and two weekly newspapers certainly are not telling you. I don’t recall such an absence of coverage just 4+ weeks to voting. I wait
We all have to quickly realize something. The primary election is only a month away. It starts August 1 - a Wednesday and exactly 5 weeks from now. The county Auditor’s web page continues to tell us;
We notice Rick Larsen is one of the members of Congress who refuse to release their earmark requests for the Federal Budget. Earmarks, pork or legislatively directed spending requests - he will not ev
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."
