and has hired a private fueling firm for the airport, according to today’s Bham Herald. Remember a couple years ago, summer of 2001, the port terminated Alpha Aviation, saying the Port would run fueli
a weekly newspaper based in Bellingham, will start publication next Thursday, Nov 20. It will strive to report local news. Amazing. It will be a tabloid and be distributed throughout Whatcom County. Y
Their intentions were to serve our country and they did as they were told and went where they were sent. Our presidents do not always use them correctly, sometimes using them for adventures that have
Brett Bonner sent out his concession statement last night, shortly after the auditor posted the final 7,000+ absentee ballots. It shows class by the fellow who waged a positive and forthright campaign
Shame on the Bellingham Weekly. Page 3 of today’s paper has “The Slate” with photographs taken at Mark Asmundson’s victory party on Tuesday night. They asked Mark supporters what Brett would do
Those not sure just vote for the person in office, preferring a sure thing to an unknown. I give my respect to those who took the challenge and ran against entrenched incumbents. Especially Brett Bonn
County Auditor Shirley Forslof will have the election results posted online as soon as or even before the printed copies are brought out her office door to those of us in the courthouse rotunda. First
Sunday’s Herald front page story on the mayor’s race again showed us how to skew reporting to favor your candidate. John Stark does this type of reporting on a regular basis. His story lists controver
So the Public Disclosure Commission is investigating Foster without any complaint. Yet they pretend to not know of flagrant violations of the PDC laws being committed by Mark Asmundson as Mayor - to w
I’ve just posted up a commentary by Stephen Trinkaus on all the local elections. He gives the perspective of a liberal activist - one who has participated in the local process and knows what is happen
Today’s Herald devoted much of the first section of the paper to promoting the levy tax for EMS services, under the guise of reporting the issues. They printed two big graphs showing increases of resp
That is the question making the political rounds this afternoon. Foster Rose, who came in third in the primary election for mayor, today endorsed Mayor Mark Asmundson for reelection. Foster’s voters h
Tip Johnson has written the best analysis of the mayor Mark’s record that will appear anywhere. Tip, a hero to local environmentalists and liberals, takes an honest and courageous look at Mark Asmunds
The Bellingham Police Guild will endorse Don Hansey today for city council. Their executive board voted 100% last night to endorse Hansey and not Bornemann. To most political observers this will be a
The City Council yesterday evening showed their disdain for public process and for state laws against using city facilities for promoting campaign issues. And in their afternoon session they bowed to
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."
