1. Council member Sally Bagshaw is looking into the possibility of expanding the city’s P-Patch program to property in Southeast Seattle that was used for light-rail construction staging but is now vacant. Parks committee chair Bagshaw—who sent PubliCola a cryptic email last night saying she was “on it” (“it,” presumably being this column Erica wrote on Monday about converting light rail land into P-Patches)—plans to meet with sustainability committee chair Richard Conlin, a big champion of food security, later this week.
2. Liberals—low-income housing advocates, senior and child health care activists, and labor unions—are all giving high marks to the legislature for funding their programs despite the $2.8 billion budget short fall. For example, the budget included $34 million for low-income housing, $30 million for child care for the working poor, $63 million for state worker health care, and millions to restore (for the most part) nursing home care and adult day health care.
One liberal constituency group, environmentalists, are bummed, though. Not only was their top priority—raising the hazardous substance tax—left out of the budget, but the hazardous substance tax fund (which pays for storm water cleanup) is losing $16 million.
You can read a Cliff’s Notes version of the budget here.
3. Gov. Chris Gregoire defends exempting microbrews from the temporary .50-a-gallon tax increase on beer. She says it’s not elitism is localism. The PI reports:
Gregoire said the fact that microbrews and wines were not included in the tax hikes isn’t elitism, it’s localism. Washington is home to hundreds of small breweries and wineries, which is why, Gregoire said, her husband Mike drinks microbrews and she drinks state wines.
The exemption is not for “some high-faultin beer,” Gregoire went on. “It’s because their Washington state jobs, Washington state beers.”
4. Theresa Dunbar, the longtime clerk for the city council, retired yesterday after more than 30 years at the city, during which she worked with 37 different council members. Dunbar, who could be seen at council meetings reading legislation at auctioneer speed, was the council’s longest-serving employee; that distinction now goes to Martha Lester, a council central staffer who’s been with the city since January 1989.
