Seattle City Council Passes Interim Tree Protection Ordinance.

By a vote of 8 to 1, the Seattle City Council yesterday passed an emergency interim tree protection ordinance. Council Bill 116404 is a step in the right direction to try to halt the continued loss of trees, especially mature ones in the City of Seattle.

Since 1973 the city tree canopy has decreased from 40% down to 18% according to the Mayor's Office when he announced his 2006 - 2007 Environmental Agenda.

Council Bill 116404 would limit tree removal and topping to no more than 3 trees that are 6 inches in diameter per year. It expands the definition of exceptional trees to include "group of trees". Hazardous trees and dangerous trees would be exempt from the law.

While a step in the right direction the interim tree ordinance mainly gives protection to trees that are not being threatened by construction or building permits. Unfortunately the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) still will have the authority to approve construction projects without significant regard for the loss of trees in the process. This is whynthere is an urgent need to pass new strong legislation to protect trees in Seattle.

The DPD's recent approval to cut down 72 trees in a rare plant habitat at Ingraham High School near Haller Lake in North Seattle because the understory was not in a pristine condition and the approval of cutting most of a grove of mature Douglas fir trees at Waldo Woods in North Seattle finds the DPD's bias is to cut down trees without regard to its impact on Seattle's urban canopy and continued loss of natural habitat.

The understory in most urban forests needs restoration. Many of Seattle's Parks have little native understory because they have been overrun with ivy and blackberries. Understory can be restored in a few years time while 75 year old trees like at Ingraham literally take 75 years to be restored.

Waldo Woods is being appealed in King County Superior Court and the Ingraham decision is being appealed by Save the Trees- Seattle before a City Hearing Examiner on April 1, 2009.

You can watch the watch the full council meeting here , listen to the public comment and and to the Council members as they discuss their support for the measure before they take their affirmative vote. The tree ordinance vote is their first action item on the Agenda.

All the Council members except McIver spoke in favor of the ordinance and voted for it. They did express the need to do a tree inventory for Seattle so we can track how fast trees are being lost and whether we are reversing the trend.

Save the Tree-Seattle noted the need to require permits before trees can be cut down as the only way we can track tree loss accurately. They also suggested that the Environmental review process should be turned over to the Office of Sustainability and the Environment for independent review, rather than DPD doing it.

The ordinance that was passed will only be in place until a long term tree protection law can be put in place, hopefully this year. Unfortunately such a new law has been talked about for years and little publicly has been seen coming from the Mayor's Office. Hopefully this will change.

US Senators Still Trying to Figure Out Computers and Internet

If you think the US Senate is going to figure out a way to track the billions of dollars they are giving away forget it. It seems they still have not even figured out how to use computers and the Internet to even track their own campaigns.

For years Senate Republicans have been blocking legislation requiring them to use computers to move reporting of their campaign financing into the digital age. A New York Times editorial last year summed up the still current status of first filing paper copies of campaign records that then have to be scanned and resent to the Federal Elections Commission.

"Unlike the House, it (the US Senate) still refuses to require electronic filing of its campaign finance data. It clings to an old slow-motion paper system that builds in months of obfuscation by requiring print records that have to be scanned and e-mailed to election officials, who in turn have to do their own processing and printing before the information is publicly available. Senate Republican leaders have, scandalously, been blocking a good bill that would force campaign reporting into the digital age."

Once again a bill is being introduced to correct this absurd situation. Let's hope this time that the Democrats have enough audacity to tell the holdout Republicans, particularly Senator John Ensign of Nevada who put a hold on this bill in the past, to get with the program and move into the digital age. It's way past time.

Talk about wasting money and resources still filing paperwork in the digital age. Of course for the Republicans it was merely a delaying tactic to prevent the public from getting timely information on campaign contributions.

As Reid Wilson reports on the Hill:

Under the current system, Senate campaigns file paper copies of their quarterly disclosure reports with the Secretary of the Senate, which then transmits those reports to the Federal Election Commission.
House campaigns are required to file their reports electronically and directly to the FEC, making for sortable databases and easily compilable statistics.
But the Senate process is cumbersome, often taking weeks to produce results readily available on the Internet.“If you can’t search on the Web, you can’t get timely information about contributions. It takes weeks for the contributions to get in any online database,” Weissman said. “It’s critical if you’re talking about an election coming up and the voters knowing who’s supporting the candidates.”

As it is the Congress still use quarterly filing and it is way past time to also move to monthly campaign reporting. Washington State has done monthly reporting for years. Congress should also and quit hiding information from the public about who is contributing to Senate campaigns.

The Hill notes that Senator Feingold and Senator Cochran first introduced the legislation entitled the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act in 2003. Feingold is going to reintroduce the bill again in the next few weeks and has the support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Help urge the US Senate on and send an e-mail to your Senators urging they join the digital revolution in reporting campaign contributions. Click on the link to email Washington State's Senators:

Senator Maria Cantwell

Senator Patty Murray

To e-mail Senators in other states go to the US Senate website.

Legislature Should Act to Limit Special Interest Money in Elections

Representative Sharon Nelson is the prime sponsor of HB 1289. HB1289 would limit campaign contributions to candidates for public lands commissioner in Washington State from persons or entities that are regulated by, contract with, lease to or sell commodities to the public lands commissioner.

They could not "directly or indirectly pay or use, or offer or consent, or agree to pay or use any money or thing of value for or in aid of any candidate for the office of public lands commissioner: nor for reimbursement or indemnification of any person for money or property so used."

The bill is patterned after a similar law limiting insurance companies from spending money for the State Insurance Commissioner race.

HB 1289 is proposed because a big loophole exists in Washington State's campaign finance laws. They make a mockery of the supposed intent to limit special interest money in elections. This was evident in the 2008 race to elect the Washington State Public Lands Commissioner this last November.

Our current state law limits campaign contributions to a statewide candidate to $1600 for the Primary and $1600 for the General election. And on first look that appears to be what happened. If you check the contributions given to Republican incumbent Doug Sutherland's campaign and to Democrat challenger Peter Goldmark's campaign from individuals and corporations everything appears fine. None exceed $3200 total. Everyone seems to have an equal limit in their contributing money to try to influence the outcome of the election.

There is however no limit in Washington State on the amount of money that can be contributed to so called independent PAC's supporting a candidate. And companies and individuals who benefited from contracts with the Department of Natural Resources repeated what they did 4 years previously in helping to get Sutherland re-elected then.

According to the Washington Public Disclosure reports they contributed lavishly to a PAC called the Committee for Balanced Stewardship. which spent some $573,000 on mailings to voters across the State urging them to re-elect Sutherland. The PAC was funded by contributions of a few special interests that benefited by receiving contracts from the DNR for timber harvest and other resource extraction like gravel. Their contributions greatly exceeded the $3200 they could have given if they contributed it directly to Sutherland. The companies that exceeded the $3200 limit are listed below:

Weyerhauser, Federal Way $100,000
Rayonier, Jacksonville, FL $75,000
Hampton Affiliates, Portland, OR $75,000
Glacier Northwest, Seattle, WA $50,000
Sierra Pacific Industries, Redding, CA $25,000
Green Diamond Resource Company, Shelton, WA $25,000
Longview Timber Company, Longview, WA $25,000
Green Crow, Port Angeles, WA $25,000
Murray Pacific, Tacoma, WA $20,000
Stimson Lumber Company, Portland, OR $20,000
Port Blakely Tree Farms, $20,000
Olympic Resource Management, Poulsbo, WA $15,000
Green Diamond Resource Company, Shelton, WA $12,500
Simpson, Tacoma, WA $12,500
M&R Services, Inc $5000
Vaughn Brothers, Colville, WA $5000

According to Brad Shanon of the Olympian, business interests objected to HB1289 at a recent hearing before the Legislature. No surprise there since they were the ones working the loophole to their advantage.

"It is an affront to the speech and participation rights of Washington businesses in the political process," Kris Tefft of the Association of Washington Business said of the proposed bill. "It imposes content restrictions on one side of a political debate while leaving free rein on the other side." ...
The Washington Forest Protection Association and Washington Aggregates and Concrete Association also weighed in against the bill."

The business conflict of interest was obvious in Sutherland's granting Glacier Northwest the right to remove gravel from Maury Island in a marine protected area and his granting of geoduck rights to a company that used public tidelands that it hadn't leased originally.

On Feb 10, 2009 Goldmark announced that he was going to review the lease granted to Glacier Northwest just before Sutherland left office. As noted by the Tacoma News Tribune:

"Goldmark said his staff will review whether the 30-year lease signed by Doug Sutherland with a subsidiary of Glacier Northwest is consistent with the long-term sustainability and health of Puget Sound.

“I have concerns about how this dock will impact the long-term sustainability and cleanup of Puget Sound,” Goldmark said. “When these leases are signed, Washingtonians expect due diligence, and we must review this deal to make sure it is in lockstep with the Puget Sound Partnership’s Action Plan.”

The lease allows the company to build a barge-loading pier on state aquatic lands in the Maury Island Aquatic Reserve."

Washington state has at least several ways it can try to reduce the influence of independent special interest money in elections. HB 1289 of course is one approach to deal with a specific office. But independent expenditures by special interests are not limited to the Public Lands Commissioner race.

The BIAW (Building Industry Association of Washington) has spent enormous amounts of money trying to influence the outcome of specific elections, like the Washington State Supreme Court races, Governor, Attorney General and other races.

Other states limit such independent contributions to PACs. Here are some examples:

Alaska $500 per individual; corporations and unions prohibited
Connecticut $500/calendar year per individual, corporation or union
Massachusetts $500/calendar year; corporations and unions prohibited
Rhode Island $1000/calendar year; corporations and unions prohibited
South Carolina $3500/calendar year per individual, corporation, or union
Vermont $2000/2 year/lection cycle per individual, corporation or union
West Virginia $1000/election; corporations and unions prohibited

You can check out the complete list of limitations on contributions to PACs by going to the National Conference of State Legislatures webpage .

Another way to try to limit the influence of independent contributions by PACs is to look at public financing of campaigns. See Washington Public Campaigns. They are pushing a bill this year in the Washington State legislature for public financing of Washington State Supreme Court races, arguing that" justice should not be for sale."

Sherril Huff Has Strong Lead in Early Returns.

In the first returns from King County Elections released just after 8 PM tonight, Sherril Huff, the current Elections Director for King County, has taken a strong lead over the 5 other candidates in the special election to fill the office of King County Elections Director. She is receiving 44% of the vote. David Irons is coming in second with only 19% of the vote. The 9:00 PM count is below:

Sherril Huff .................75,983..... 44.00%
David Irons................ 33,200......19.23%
Pam Roach .................28,896 ......16.73%
Bill Anderson ..............14,775........ 8.56%
Julie Kempf ................12,069 ........6.99%
Christopher Clifford,....6,854 .........3.97%
Write-in........................... 895........... .52%

The turnout as expected in ballots mailed in is only 15% at present. For the importance of the office this is rather bleak but for the Republicans who pushed for this "nonpartisan" election it has to be a big disappointment. Sherril Huff's lead looks very difficult to overcome and the candidate appointed to run the Elections Office by Democrat Ron Sims is the probable winner.

Irons raised the most money at $158,000 , $132,000 of his own money. His last report showed him spending $107,176 of his money - $75,000 on direct mail.

Sherril Huff meanwhile raised some $56,761. Some $30,000 came from the Washington State Democrats.

Pam Roach only raised $3,200 and was limited from raising money while the Legislature is in session.

Ron Sims Goes To Washington, DC

Ron Sims, King County Executive, has just announced that he has been tapped by President Barrack Obama to head to Washington, DC as the next Deputy Secretary at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In a statement released by the Sims Campaign :

President Barack Obama today announced his intent to nominate me as the next Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. If confirmed by the United States Senate, I will serve the President.

I want to thank you for the support and encouragement you have given me all these years. I would not have been able to serve in an elected capacity without your help. There are no words to express my heartfelt gratitude for your contributions of time and money; no measure of my appreciation for your passion and commitment to work with me on issues that affect our quality of life. ...

I sincerely believed I would be tackling these challenges at the regional level when I announced my intention to seek reelection as County Executive. Little did I imagine that I would be called upon by the President to join him on this historic journey. I am so honored. If confirmed, I will give the President, his administration, and our country my very best. I am eager to promote what we have done here in King County, particularly in helping other metropolitan centers adapt to climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build healthy communities that provide economic opportunities for all.

Again, let me thank you for your unyielding support. Leaving King County government will be very difficult, but I look forward to the opportunity to serve our President and our great country.

Councilmember Larry Phillips last year formed an exploratory committee to begin a run for King County Executive. Last Tuesday he announced that he was moving forward with his intent to run for King County Executive.

Larry Phillips is a Democrat. Despite voters last November making the race a nonpartisan one, Democrats hold a distinct edge in winning office in Kng County. And Phillips has a strong progressive track record on issues, both before the King County Council and before that as a state legislator.