Monthly Archives: April 2015

Posted inElections

Vashon parks levy, Enumclaw school bond cross 60% minimum threshold for passage

by Andrew Villeneuve

Some good news to share this after­noon: The lat­est num­bers uploaded by King Coun­ty Elec­tions fol­low­ing today’s bal­lot count show that two bal­lot mea­sures to fund parks and pub­lic schools in two dif­fer­ent areas of King Coun­ty are now pass­ing, after hav­ing been short of the six­ty per­cent thresh­old in ear­li­er counts. The first, a […]

Posted inElections

April special election results: King County public safety radio network levy winning big

by Andrew Villeneuve

Min­utes ago, King Coun­ty Elec­tions pub­lished the results of the first round of bal­lot count­ing for the April 2015 spe­cial elec­tion. While there are no offices up in this elec­tion, vot­ers in a num­ber of juris­dic­tions were asked to decide the fate of a num­ber of bal­lot mea­sures, includ­ing a coun­ty­wide levy to replace a […]

Posted inNational Defense, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Horrible tragedy unfolding in Nepal following massive quake; thousands dead and injured

by Andrew Villeneuve

Last night, as most of the Pacif­ic time­zone was head­ed to bed or snooz­ing away fol­low­ing the end of anoth­er work­week, a mas­sive earth­quake struck Nepal, includ­ing the cap­i­tal of Kath­man­du. Ini­tial­ly report­ed as a mag­ni­tude 7.5 trem­blor by the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey, it was lat­er revised to 7.8. The quake stuck at a depth […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Washington State Legislature adjourns Sine Die; special session to begin next week

by Andrew Villeneuve

With a great deal left undone, the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture adjourned sine die this evening, two days ahead of the dead­line for adjourn­ment of an odd-year reg­u­lar ses­sion fixed in the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled House and Repub­­li­­can-con­trolled Sen­ate remain far apart on an oper­at­ing bud­get for 2015–2017, and haven’t yet fin­ished work­ing on […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Public Service

Loretta Lynch confirmed as the United States of America’s new Attorney General

by Andrew Villeneuve

Well, it’s final­ly hap­pened. After many con­temptible delays, the Unit­ed States Sen­ate final­ly took up Loret­ta Lynch’s nom­i­na­tion today and vot­ed to con­firm her as the nation’s next Attor­ney Gen­er­al, which means that incum­bent Eric Hold­er can final­ly pack his bags and leave office, as he has want­ed to do for many months. A relieved […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Lake Washington teachers latest to walk out in protest of inadequate education funding

by Andrew Villeneuve

Teach­ers in the Lake Wash­ing­ton School Dis­trict — which serves 26,700 stu­dents in NPI’s home­town of Red­mond along with the neigh­bor­ing cities of Kirk­land and Sam­mamish — have vot­ed to walk off the job on Wednes­day, May 6th in protest of the Leg­is­la­ture’s com­plete­ly inad­e­quate response to the Supreme Court’s McCleary deci­sion, and its refusal […]

Posted inCelebrating Free Software, Policy Topics, Technology

Ubuntu and Kubuntu 15.04 “Vivid Vervet” released; Debian 8 “Jessie” due Saturday

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s note: If the terms GNU and Lin­ux don’t mean any­thing to you, this post is prob­a­bly going to read like a bunch of gib­ber­ish. Sor­ry. But do read on if you’re inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the won­der­ful world of free soft­ware.  Free soft­ware enthu­si­asts, it’s time to rev up your Advanced Pack­ag­ing Tool […]

Posted inOpen Government, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Maria Cantwell, Ron Wyden vote to fast-track Trans-Pacific Partnership in Senate Finance

by Andrew Villeneuve

Deeply dis­ap­point­ing news to share tonight: So-called “fast-track” leg­is­la­tion that would pre­vent Con­gress from con­sid­er­ing amend­ments to pri­or to a future vote on rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship is mov­ing for­ward after the U.S. Sen­ate’s Finance Com­mit­tee vot­ed twen­ty to six to advance it. Among the twen­ty sen­a­tors who vot­ed in favor were Wash­ing­ton’s Maria […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Meta, Policy Topics, Technology

Browse with confidence: NPI’s core network now encrypting all visits by default

by Andrew Villeneuve

It seems like hard­ly a week goes by these days when we don’t hear about yet anoth­er data breach or new­­ly-dis­­­cov­­ered exploit in wide­ly used soft­ware. Bad neigh­bor­hoods have exist­ed on the Inter­net for a long time, but dan­ger now seems to present itself at every turn. There’s mal­ware lurk­ing all over the place, email […]

Posted inLegislative Advocacy

Analysis: State Treasurer’s grand tax reform plan is fatally flawed, shouldn’t move forward

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, State Trea­sur­er Jim McIn­tire — who is respon­si­ble under state law for man­ag­ing and over­see­ing the invest­ment of the pub­lic’s mon­ey — unveiled a rather grand and ambi­tious plan for reform­ing the state’s tax code, which he says he hopes will be a “con­ver­sa­tion starter”. The plan would dra­mat­i­cal­ly alter Wash­ing­ton State’s tax structure […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

NPI to region’s congressional delegation: Stand strong against fast-track for TPP

by Robert Cruickshank

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing mes­sage regard­ing the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship is being sent today to our region’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors and Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, exclud­ing Ron Wyden and Dave Reichert, who are on record in sup­port of leg­is­la­tion to give Pres­i­dent Oba­ma the author­i­ty to nego­ti­ate a final incar­na­tion of the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship that could­n’t be amend­ed by […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Open Government, Policy Topics

Federal grand jury returns ten count indictment of State Auditor Troy Kelley

by Andrew Villeneuve

State Audi­tor Troy Kel­ley has been indict­ed by a fed­er­al grand jury for fil­ing false tax returns, mak­ing false dec­la­ra­tions, obstruct­ing jus­tice, and pos­sess­ing stolen prop­er­ty, the Unit­ed States Attor­ney for West­ern Wash­ing­ton announced today. The ten count indict­ment was returned by a jury in the U.S. Dis­trict Court in Seat­tle. Kel­ley is due to […]

Posted inElections, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Live in King County? Vote Yes by April 28th, 2015 to upgrade our region’s emergency public safety radio network

by Andrew Villeneuve

April may not seem like an elec­tion month, but in Wash­ing­ton, it’s actu­al­ly one of two times dur­ing the year when local juris­dic­tions may sched­ule spe­cial elec­tions, most often for the pur­pose of send­ing the vot­ers a levy for their con­sid­er­a­tion. This year, the nine-mem­ber King Coun­ty Coun­cil has opt­ed to place a propo­si­tion on […]