Category: Public Planning

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

New coastal radar now online near Copalis Beach; local meteorologists thrilled

by Andrew Villeneuve

Thanks to the tire­less efforts of our two U.S. Sen­a­tors — par­tic­u­lar­ly our junior sen­a­tor, Maria Cantwell — the Pacif­ic North­west final­ly has a state-of-the-art Doppler radar sta­tion locat­ed on the coast, capa­ble of assist­ing mete­o­rol­o­gists in prepar­ing more accu­rate and use­ful fore­casts for our region. The radar sta­tion, which has been under­go­ing con­struc­tion since […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Seattle decisively votes to bless construction of deep-bore tunnel for State Route 99

by Andrew Villeneuve

The State of Wash­ing­ton’s project to replace the aging, crum­bling Alaskan Way Viaduct has just received its final polit­i­cal green light. After endur­ing sev­er­al months of debates, forums, and adver­tise­ments, Seat­tle vot­ers have resound­ing­ly cho­sen to bless the con­struc­tion of a deep bore tun­nel under down­town. Ear­ly returns indi­cate a land­slide vic­to­ry for Let’s Move Forward, […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Deal struck by Executive Constantine, King County Council to save Metro

by Andrew Villeneuve

King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine and sev­en mem­bers of the King Coun­ty Coun­cil announced this morn­ing at a press con­fer­ence in Pio­neer Square that they have struck a deal that saves Metro with­out ask­ing the pub­lic to vote on approv­ing a new vehi­cle fee to off­set dev­as­tat­ing cuts. The deal was made between Exec­u­tive Con­stan­tine, the […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Elections, Policy Topics, Public Planning

OFM: Tim Eyman’s I‑1125 would imperil key transportation projects, raise borrowing costs

by Andrew Villeneuve

A few months ago, when we took an ini­tial look at the details of the scheme Tim Eyman said he was going to attempt to force a vote on in 2011, we con­clud­ed that it would inter­fere with vital trans­porta­tion projects around Wash­ing­ton, includ­ing many under or near­ing con­struc­tion, and many more on the draw­ing board. […]

Posted inEvents, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Greetings from the Empire Builder!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good morn­ing from the prairies of North Dako­ta! Though Net­roots Nation 2011 may have end­ed on Sat­ur­day evening, our adven­ture to Min­neapo­lis and back has not. After spend­ing a full day explor­ing greater Min­neapo­lis yes­ter­day, we made our way to Mid­way Sta­tion last night to board Amtrak’s Empire Builder for the trip home to Wash­ing­ton State. Patrick and I opted […]

Posted inOpen Government, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Tim Eyman reveals that his old buddy Kemper Freeman Jr. is bankrolling I‑1125

by Andrew Villeneuve

When Tim Eyman announced a few weeks ago that he would be attempt­ing to qual­i­fy a mea­sure for this year’s bal­lot, we were imme­di­ate­ly sure that he had con­vinced some­body to put up a lot of cash to hire mer­ce­nary peti­tion­ers (because Tim does­n’t do vol­un­teer sig­na­ture dri­ves). On May 1st, I wrote the following: […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Mercenary petitioners hawking Tim Eyman’s l‑1125 target Bellevue College students

by Andrew Villeneuve

Though it’s not appar­ent from look­ing at Vot­ers Want More Choic­es’ most recent reports to the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion (PDC), NPI can today con­firm what we have sus­pect­ed since the begin­ning of the month: Tim Eyman has found a new wealthy bene­fac­tor to put up the mon­ey for his lat­est scheme, Ini­tia­tive 1125, which he […]

Posted inEvents, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Sound Transit christens University Link tunnel boring machines at Husky Stadium

by Andrew Villeneuve

Let the tun­nel­ing begin! This morn­ing, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton’s Husky Sta­di­um, Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray, Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tor Peter Rogoff, and local elect­ed offi­cials gath­ered to join Sound Tran­sit in chris­ten­ing the bor­ing machines that will exca­vate the tun­nels between the U‑District sta­tion at Husky Sta­di­um and the Capi­tol Hill sta­tion at Broad­way and Den­ny. University […]

Posted inEvents, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Peter Steinbrueck: Our fractured metropolis (Text of the keynote from NPI’s 2011 gala)

by Peter Steinbrueck

Edi­tor’s Note: Fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of our Spring Fundrais­ing Gala a few days ago, we have been asked if we could make the text of Peter Stein­brueck­’s keynote speech avail­able. He has kind­ly agreed to do so; what fol­lows are a pol­ished ver­sion of his pre­pared remarks, deliv­ered on April 28th at the Com­mu­ni­ty Center […]

Posted inElections, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Who’s responsible for the Associated Press’s ongoing Tim Eyman worship?

by Andrew Villeneuve

A few moments ago, NPI’s news crawler alert­ed me that the Asso­ci­at­ed Press has just dumped anoth­er half-baked — no, make that quar­ter-baked — “sto­ry” out on the wire, glo­ri­fy­ing an announce­ment Tim Eyman sup­pos­ed­ly made about attempt­ing to qual­i­fy an ini­tia­tive for the bal­lot this year. I say sup­pos­ed­ly because I haven’t seen any other […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Tim Eyman gloms onto another anti-red light camera measure — this time in Redmond

by Andrew Villeneuve

I’ve lost track of the num­ber of times I’ve been asked (usu­al­ly in con­ver­sa­tion) what moti­vat­ed me to cre­ate Per­ma­nent Defense more than nine years ago. Reg­u­lar read­ers are undoubt­ed­ly famil­iar with the sto­ry of PD’s found­ing, because I’ve told it or referred to it many times over the years. The cat­a­lyst, of course, was Tim […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Republicans continue assault on emergency preparedness, even after Tohoku megaquake

by Ken

Read­ers may recall our ire was raised dur­ing the Repub­li­can response to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s 2009 State of the Union Address, when Louisiana Gov­er­nor Bob­by Jin­dal dis­missed fund­ing for vol­cano mon­i­tor­ing as a triv­i­al­i­ty. As res­i­dents of the Pacif­ic North­west, we are all too aware of the pres­ence of vol­ca­noes in our region and the destruction […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Public Planning

Aftermath of Tohoku megaquake demonstrates the folly of nuclear power

by Andrew Villeneuve

Two days have elapsed since Japan was pum­meled by one of the largest earth­quakes human­i­ty has ever doc­u­ment­ed. In that time, we’ve begun to see the trag­ic and painful extent of the dis­as­ter. The earth­quake (which reg­is­tered 8.9 on the moment mag­ni­tude scale) and the ensu­ing tsuna­mi it spawned have laid waste to sev­er­al previously […]