Monthly Archives: December 2011

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

I‑1183, if implemented, could generate $81 million plus in annual sales for Costco

by Andrew Villeneuve

Ever since Cost­co and its exec­u­tives first start­ed mak­ing noise about dereg­u­lat­ing and pri­va­tiz­ing our state’s liquor con­trol sys­tem, it’s been appar­ent that their dri­ving moti­va­tion for push­ing pri­va­ti­za­tion is because they want our state’s liquor stores’ busi­ness for them­selves — not because they think “get­ting the state out of the liquor busi­ness” (which is […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Tolling on SR 520’s Evergreen Point Floating Bridge to begin on December 29th

by Andrew Villeneuve

Tolling on the heav­i­­ly-trav­eled Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge, which car­ries State Route 520 across Lake Wash­ing­ton, is final­ly set to begin for real lat­er this month after months of delays, the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion announced this morn­ing, mak­ing good on a promise to set a start date. “Tolling is help­ing Wash­ing­ton move for­ward with […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Litigation, Policy Topics

Teamsters, UFCW file legal challenge seeking to have Costco’s I‑1183 overturned

by Andrew Villeneuve

Two unions that rep­re­sent work­ing fam­i­lies who would be adverse­ly harmed by the imple­men­ta­tion of Cost­co’s Ini­tia­tive 1183 filed suit today in King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court seek­ing to have the mea­sure strick­en in its entire­ty as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Team­sters Local 174 and UFCW Local 21 con­tend that I‑1183 vio­lates Arti­cle II, § 19 of Wash­ing­ton’s Con­sti­tu­tion, which […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

Join the fight against Internet censorship: An open letter to Senators Murray and Merkley

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing is the text of a let­ter sent by NPI to the offices of U.S. Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray of Wash­ing­ton and Jeff Merkley of Ore­gon this morn­ing. Dear Sen­a­tors Mur­ray and Merkley: On behalf of the team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, I am writ­ing to express our strong oppo­si­tion to two […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Unemployment falls to lowest level in two and a half years, Department of Labor says

by Andrew Villeneuve

The Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics today released a report sum­ma­riz­ing the state of the econ­o­my for the just end­ed month of Novem­ber. Turns out our nation’s unem­ploy­ment rate has gone down. Here’s Bloomberg with more details: Job gains in the U.S. picked up last month and the unem­ploy­ment rate unex­pect­ed­ly fell to the low­est level […]

Posted inPublic Service

LIVE from Seattle: 46th District Democrats draw up list of names to succeed David Frockt

by Andrew Villeneuve

Tonight, the 46th Dis­trict Democ­rats and the King Coun­ty Democ­rats are hold­ing a joint meet­ing at Olympic View Ele­men­tary in Seat­tle to draw up a list of names to suc­ceed David Frockt as State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive There are a hun­dred and five Demo­c­ra­t­ic precinct com­mit­tee offi­cers present, out of one hun­dred and six­teen eli­gi­ble to vote. […]