Tags: education, The Impact, TVW

Every single one of the 137,689 signatures turned in for Referendum 71 — which would cancel out the Legislature’s “everything but marriage” law for domestic partners — will need to be verified by the Secretary of State’s office, according to their blog.

That will take weeks.

Why such a thorough check? The average signature error for initiatives is 18 percent. The sponsors of R71 have 14 percent more signatures than needed. So, if the average number of them were invalid, they don’t have enough valid voter signatures. And since it’s so close, they’ll need to validate each signature against voter rolls.

But: A lower rate isn’t unheard of. Tim Eyman recently celebrated when his I-1033 was found to have 10 percent invalid signatures in the sample taken by the Secretary of State’s office.

Signature validation begins on Friday, according to Dave Ammons, communication director with Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office.

More from Ammons: “The news came amid a controversy over whether the 9,359 petition sheets should be made public. Ordinarily, the Secretary of State releases such information whenever a public records request is made, but the sponsors secured a federal court order blocking release at least until a full hearing is held on Sept. 3. Some supporters of the new domestic-partner law have said they want to post the names and addresses of the signer on the Internet. R-71 sponsors say that would lead to harassment and intimidation of those voters and would violate their First Amendment rights.”

Tags: R71

Susan Dreyfus, who was hired to lead the Department of Social and Health Services — the largest state agency — earlier this year, has a lot on her plate. From reducing her budget to dealing with high profile cases, Dreyfus told TVW what she’s working on in our second installment of Q&A.

Q. What are the biggest issues facing DSHS today?

Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) was faced with a $1.8 billion reduction to the 2009-11 Operating Budget, which was offset by $1.4 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s one-time funding. While that was very helpful for the state and DSHS specifically, we will need to make up those one-time revenues in additional to taking another estimated $400 million dollar reduction in the next state fiscal year while still maintaining critical services to the state’s most vulnerable citizens.

Caseloads continue to increase since January 2009 – for example, the Family Medical an additional 60,000 persons, increase of 25.5 percent in Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Families and additional 11,000 persons, which require additional funding to support. On a personal note, I recently visited Pierce County Community Service Office (CSO) and met people who were coming in for benefits and services who never thought they would be visiting a CSO as a client. The economy is affecting everyone and DSHS is not immune from these impacts.

Obviously the hard-working, dedicated employees of the Department are also being impacted daily by the seriousness of this recession. We have had to eliminate nearly 500 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) positions, which results in asking staff members to take on additional responsibilities and they too have family members who are being impacted by this economic downturn. (more…)

Tags: Dreyfus, Q&A

U.S. Homeland Security Department Sec. Janet Napolitano and Governor Chris Gregoire held a media availability in Seattle today to discuss cybersecurity, terrorism, immigration, border issues, the 2010 Olympics and more. Watch here:

Joe Turner points out that the lawsuit over whether the state is providing enough money for public education goes to trial at the end of August.

As Joe points out, that doesn’t mean a resolution is near, since the judgment will probably be appealed to the highest court.

TVW’s Jennifer Huntley is working on a documentary now on the state’s education system and the funding history. I’ll keep you posted on it!

Tags: school funding

Remember the restroom bill? The one that drew Mike McCready of Pearl Jam to Olympia to testify? It’s now a law.

The new law allows people with medical conditions to use restrooms in retail stores without public restrooms. But there’s some fine print: You must present a card to the establishment, and they can deny restroom access if allowing non-employees in that portion of the business could jeopardize security. And: You must provide either a form or a medical card to the business. Here’s the form. (The card is not available through the state, but nonprofit organizations for people with Crohn’s and Collitis.)

There’s more: Businesses must allow anyone to use the restroom if they have three or more employees on duty and no security risk is posed. Go here for more details.

Tags: restroom bill

On Saturday, the group behind Referendum 71 — which would cancel the implementation of the 2009 Legislature’s “everything but marriage” law for domestic partners -- turned in their signatures to the Secretary of State’s office. They estimated that they had 138,000 voter signatures.

The signatures will be scanned for archives, counted and then checked for validity, according to Dave Ammons, communications director for the Secretary of State. The process could take up to two weeks. Here’s more of what Ammons has on the matter.

The “everything but marriage” law was supposed to take effect on Sunday — this puts that on hold. If R-71 don’t have the signatures to make the ballot, the law will go into effect as soon as that’s determined. If it does have the signatures, the law will be on hold until election results are determined: If R-71 passes, the extension to domestic partner benefits passed by the Legislature last session will not go into effect, if it fails, the benefits go into effect once the election is certified.

Tags: Domestic partnership, R71

This just came in from the Department of Natural Resources: 75 fires were started today in Washington from lightning strikes. Some were in public and private lands that DNR protects.

“DNR has responded to today’s outbreak by deploying 200 firefighters, 30 fire engines and 5 helicopters, plus a 900-gallon air tanker.”

This time last year, there were nearly 400 wildfires in the 12.7 million acres of land DNR protects. This year, there’s more than 500. 506,250 gallons of water have been dropped by helicopter on those fires, and firefighters have drank nearly 30,000 bottles of water and Gatorade in the process, according to DNR.

The message: Be careful! Here are some tips:

• Be sure recreational vehicles have operating spark arresters;
• Do not park any vehicles in dry, grassy areas, as the heat from exhaust systems can ignite the dry grass;
• Never leave a campfire unattended, and be sure it is completely out before leaving;
• Before burning, check local conditions and restrictions by calling
1-800-323-BURN (2876) or going here

Home safety
• Do an exterior home inspection;
• Remove moss and needles from the roof and rain gutters;
• Clear vegetation and flammable materials from around propane tanks;
• Stack firewood at least 30 feet away from the house;
• Keep decorative bark and railroad ties away from the foundation—these types of materials provide great places for sparks to smolder;
• Trim tree branches to ten feet off the ground for tall trees and adjust for shorter trees; this helps reduce fuels that aid in fire traveling;
• Maintain defensible space around the home, which is the large, open area firefighters use to defend homes during a wildfire event.

Tags: DNR, fire

I just got a note from Mike Bay, VP of programming for TVW, about what we’re covering in the next week. There’s quite a bit:

• Tomorrow we’re covering Howard Dean at Town Hall Seattle. He’s got a new book “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer.” We’ll air it initially next Tuesday at 7 & 10 p.m.
• Next Monday we’ve got two House committee hearings – we’re live 10 a.m. to noon with House Ecology and Parks, which has a work session on federal and state climate policies; we’re taping House Higher Ed that morning and airing it at 2 p.m. that afternoon, they’ve got a work session on what higher ed is doing to address the achievement gap
• Tuesday we’re covering the Higher Education Coordinating Board and will begin airing the meeting segments Friday
• Tuesday also we’re covering the “Washington State New Americans Policy Council” – public hearing in Tacoma on immigration. Airing Thursday and Friday.
• Sam Reed is hosting a “Marmot Day” celebration Tuesday with Sen. Ken Jacobsen and schoolkids on the state’s newest symbol and endemic mammal, the Olympia Marmot. Airs Wednesday 9 p.m.
• Wednesday we’re covering the first meeting of the SR 520 Legislative Workgroup, which includes a long list of legislators and is going to make recommendations regarding 520 including through the Montlake cut area. Airs Friday.
• Thursday covering the Joint Transportation Committee.
• Friday going to Portland City Club to cover their legislative wrap-up discussion with legislative leaders. We’ll air it the next week.

Tags: TVW

This morning, I spoke with Department of Agriculture Director Dan Newhouse for a new feature for the blog: Q&A. The premise is pretty simple: I’m scheduling weekly interviews with agency and department heads and will post the interviews in their entirety on the blog.

Newhouse, a former lawmaker and a hop farmer, took his current post during the 2009 legislative session. Now, just a few months later, he’s had to deal with Mexico-U.S. trade spats, Japan’s refusal — and subsequent acceptance — of Washington cherries, a trip to D.C. to meet the new administration, and multiple budget cutting rounds. Newhouse took 30 minutes to talk to me. Here’s the entirety:

Q. What are the biggest issues facing the Washington Department of Agriculture right now?

A. “What I’ve been spending most of my time on is that we’ve been involved in some international trade issues extensively the last few months. Specifically there’s an issue with Mexico and some tariffs they’ve put on agricultural products. That obviously has a big impact on our agriculture industry – potatoes, pears, cherries, and several others. We’re working hard with our Congressional delegation and some others in D.C. (more…)

Tags: Agriculture, Newhouse