Department of Ecology Director Ted Sturdevant talks about Washington’s response to the Gulf oil disaster and State Parks Director Rex Derr discusses controversial auto license fees supporting state parks. You’ll learn about those and other major issues involving the state’s natural resources by watching Inside Olympia here:

Have you seen the signs going up along I-5 Nortbound in the Seattle area?  Right now, they’re not active, but WSDOT will begin testing those signs over the next couple months before launching the “Smarter Highway” system. Software engineers are programming the system to automatically change speed limits depending on the level of traffic congestion.  Operators will also be able to use the signs to close off lanes, if drivers are approaching a crash.  In our report, you’ll learn more about how the system works and why WSDOT says it’s worth the $64 million price tag.

In our second piece, we got a chance to talk with National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis on his recent visit to Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. We asked him a number of questions about Washington’s national parks, but we wanted  to hear his thoughts on making Mount St. Helens a national park to resolve criticism about underfunding of the volcano. In the piece, you’ll also get a good primer on the history of the issue.

Two-time gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate on his website this morning. He sent out a message to his supporters on Facebook and Twitter but did not hold a traditional press conference with the media.  Rossi, a republican who lost to Gov. Chris Gregoire twice, will have to beat a crowded field of republican candidates to challenge democratic Senator Patty Murray in November.

In his online video, Rossi said he’s running to tackle the federal deficit, saying “policies being passed in Washington D.C. have put us on the edge of a fiscal cliff.”  He also says he wants to roll back the health care reform package and replace it with “reform that gives power back to patients and their doctors and takes it away from big government and insurance company bureaucrats.”

Candidates have until June 11 to file for office.  The primary will be held Tuesday, August 17, and the general election is Tuesday, November 2.  For more information on the election calendar, go here.

Tags: Dino Rossi, Patty Murray, Senate

I’ll be on vacation until June 1. Next week, Jessica Gao will post updates to the blog when news strikes.

I’m still trying to reach Sen. Dale Brandland for the Q&A. Look for that in the first week of June. And don’t miss TVW’s excellent programming next week, including the second House Ways and Means hearing and the committee on implementing national healthcare reform.

Gov. Chris Gregoire just announced that Cindy Zehnder, lobbyist and former chief of staff for Gregoire (and former president of TVW), will chair the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board. It is a volunteer position.

The board is a partnership between labor, business and government and aims to keep students in school and career training. They also come up with ways to monitor that performance and help adults stay in school.

Read the full release after the jump!

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Tags: Workforce training

The House Ways and Means Committee is holding a hearing this morning — which you can watch live on TVW — on how to make government more efficient and effective.

They’ve discussed the Toyota model, initiatives that have worked at GE and other companies, and systems like Lean.

“It only works … if you decide the results are the reason everybody’s at the table together,” said Larisa Benson with the state auditor’s office. She said if employees and employers at the state come together with a shared goal of improving customer service and being more efficient, it can be a useful process. But, if the agenda includes criticizing the other’s approach, it just doesn’t work.

Rep. Eileen Cody said part of the problem with systems like Lean and Six Sigma is that they’re not written in a way that’s easy for everyone to grasp.  “Speak English and try and get it so everybody understands it,” she said, calling for more simple language.

“I appreciate that and have rustled with that for 20 years of research in this area,” Benson said.

Watch now.

Tags: efficiency, government reform

And here’s tonight’s Inside Olympia with Austin Jenkins. He talks to state schools superintendent Randy Dorn about K-12 education:

Tags: education, Inside Olympia, The Impact, TVW

Washington’s newest unemployment rates are out: April was the first time in three years the unemployment rate fell. It’s now at 9.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, down from 9.5 percent in March.

The state also added 5,800 jobs — for a total of 14,800 jobs this year, according to the Employment Security Department.

“This is further evidence that our economy is starting to turn around and is headed in the right direction,” Gov. Chris Gregoire said in a statement.  “The job growth is especially welcome news for job seekers.”

The bad news: ”Year over year, Washington had 48,400 fewer jobs last month than in April 2009, a 1.7 percent decrease.  Nationally, employment declined by 1.7 percent over the past year.”

And more than 300,000 people in the state were unemployed and looking for work in April.

Tags: unemployment

I’m on my way back from Medical Lake near Spokane, making a stop to check emails and blog about my inside look at Pine Lodge Corrections Center.  It’s the only women’s prison on the east side of the state, and it’s about to be closed. Budget cuts are shuttering the facility that has operated as a women-only institution since 2004.  In the mid-’90s, it pioneered the Therapeutic Community Program – an intensive chemical dependency program that has been adopted and modified by other institutions across the state.  I had a chance to talk with two inmates.  One is a 34-year-old mother sentenced to 60 months for dealing drugs.  The other is a 37-year-old mother of three who was sentenced to 33 months for ID theft and fraud.  They both shared their stories of drug addiction, crime, and and incarceration.  They also shared why they think Pine Lodge offered unique opportunities for women to rehabilitate, learn social norms, and envision a productive, healthy future.

My one-on-one interview is with the superintendent of Pine Lodge, who spent most of his corrections career in the military.  He tells me how treating women is different from his experience with men.  For the second part of the show, I talk with Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail about the broader picture of the state’s prison system – other closures, challenges for the institutions forced to rapidly accept new inmates, and new prison siting work.

You can watch The Impact Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on TVW and on our new channel KBTC on Friday nights at 7 p.m.

If you have an iPhone or web-capable iPod Touch, check out TVW’s web site now. It’s optimized for mobile devices and allows you to instantly access thousands of hours of programming — including hearings back to 1997, live webcasts and any of our produced shows — instantly.

And: Click the + sign at the bottom of the screen to add TVW’s app to your phone’s desktop. TVW Mobile is free, easy to use and puts all we offer right at your fingertips. Go try it now.

Tags: iPhone app, TVW