1. The day before he took office in January, Mayor Mike McGinn and his staff came up with a list of 46 official “norms” for working in the McGinn office, including such rules to live by as “26. If you say you’re on it, you’re on it;” “6. Always work when volunteers are present;” and “12. Trust the seaworthiness of your vessel.”
We’ll be tweeting the whole list starting this morning over at twitter.com/publicolanews.
2. One of Seattle’s legislative priorities in Olympia is saving the GAU program, General Assistance for the Unemployable—a $200 million a year program that serves some 20,000 people who have physical and mental disabilities.
The state Senate budget crushes the program with a $90 million cut, lowering the $339 a month cash payment to $50 and halving medical support. The House, however, keeps the program in tact, even funding a $5 million pilot that tests a housing and on-site services program.
Here’s the problem: The House is relying on $70 million from the federal health care reform bill (um). And even if that passes, they’re counting on a waiver that will allow Washington state to expedite Medicaid coverage to people who wouldn’t otherwise be eligible (people at 133 percent of the poverty level) until 2015—two big ifs.
3. This just in from PubliCola music writer Jonathan Cunningham:
There are a ton of Seattle bands heading down for the mammoth, four-day South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas March 17-21, and consequently, there are a few sendoff parties happening around town.
On Friday, you can see Hey Marseilles, Mash Hall, Fences, and Rachel Flotard (above) and her band Visqueen play Neumos for just $10.
All of them are playing SXSW, and they’re all local stand-outs in their respective schools of rock.
If you don’t want to pay the $10 (cheap skate), we’ve got a pair of tickets to give away to a lucky PubliCola reader. All you’ve got to do is answer this easy question: Which one of these bands played at Mayor Mike McGinn’s January 9 inauguration party at the Showbox?
Email the answer to Cynara@publicola.net.
4. A few weeks back, Morning Fizz noted that PubliCola GameNerd Sam Machkovech was moonlighting at the Atlantic as a music columnist. Well, his first column—“The Death of the iPod”—debuted yesterday.
5. Members of the Blue-Green Alliance, an ad hoc group of about 15 progressive state House Democrats (Blue=labor, Green=environmentalist) are planning to flex their collective muscle to amend the House budget proposal (they don’t like that it cuts the TANF working connections program, adult day health care, home care, environmental programs, and threatens state worker health care.)
They’ve got a stack of amendments (Josh will post a “Best of” later today).
“It’s way past time for Democratic super-majorities to actually honor Democratic values,” Blue-Green Alliance member, super dissident Rep. Brendan Williams (D-22), wrote in a blistering email to his constituents last night, “I was elected as a ‘Progressive Democrat’—not a pretend Democrat.”
Here’s Rep. Williams’ full email, in which he threatens to push the session past the March 11 deadline:
“The conservative Washington House leadership is throwing fits – full of profanity and items thrown in office meetings – because over a dozen progressives, including myself, are resisting efforts to add to the layoffs of thousands of state employees by furloughing remaining state employees and stealing from their health care benefits.
Boo-hoo! I know it must be horribly painful for them to see interests other than those of the Building Industry Association of Washington receive any attention.
That’s not the only mistreatment I’m opposed to. Other cuts progressives are resisting including cuts to home care, adult day health, child care, nursing home care, K-12 education, work study for higher education, natural resources programs, etcetera. It’s way past time for Democratic super-majorities to actually honor Democratic values. If the more conservative state of Oregon could raise taxes – on a budget half Washington’s size – by $733 million last year (which voters upheld), why is Washington so afraid to fully sustain funding for vital state services?
I have a floor amendment to Substitute Senate Bill 6444 that would restore $4.42 million in funding to the Department of Health for medical nutritional therapy services, AIDS education, the HIV Client Services program, and regional AIDS Network grants. Would it not be unconscionable to literally take food out of the mouths of AIDS patients? My amendment is one of a couple-dozen floor amendments to the 2010 supplemental operating budget that I and other progressives in a Blue-Green Alliance of over a dozen House members have offered.
The conservatives that run the House have, thus far, been able to thwart efforts to have polluters pay a greater share of the cost burden of cleaning up stormwater by increasing the Model Toxics Control Act assessment. As I pointed out to a reporter, there are legislators here – Democrats and Republicans alike – that need to be drained weekly at an Oil Can Henry’s of the oil company contributions that clog them up.
Similarly, there are legislators here – Democrats and Republicans alike – competing to injure state employees the most.
I’m not going to be bullied into doing the wrong thing. And I do not care if the ‘price’ of doing the right thing is that the Legislature stays in session past March 11. I was elected as a ‘Progressive Democrat’—not a pretend Democrat.”
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