1. What do Al Jazeera, TheWashingtonPost.com, Le Monde, the Guardian, and PubliCola have in common?
They’re all linked on the New York Times’ newsblog blogroll. Not kidding.
2. The city of Seattle isn’t the only local government that got bad budget news yesterday. At a presentation to the King County Council, the King County Forecast Council released its latest budget forecast, which shows lower revenues across the board than the county previously anticipated.
For example, the new forecast shows sales tax revenues down 3.5 percent next year (or $18.6 million); revenues from new construction down 54 percent; and revenues from real-estate excise taxes down 3.8 percent. The one bright spot: Assessed property values are now projected to go down just 4.5 percent, an improvement from the previous projected drop of 6.2 percent.
However, those numbers don’t take into account several initiatives that would change the county’s tax revenue, including several tax-cutting proposals that are, polling suggests, likely to pass (repealing the soda, candy, and bottled water taxes; privatizing liquor sales) and a 0.2 county sales tax measure that looks doomed. If the repeals pass and the tax increase doesn’t, that would mean an additional hit to county revenues.
3. File this item under gossip, but a good source tells Fizz that Governor Chris Gregoire believes she’s getting nowhere in her negotiations with TransAlta—the Canadian-based company that operates a coal-fired steam plant in Centralia.
Background: To the chagrin of environmental activists, Gov. Gregoire has been negotiating with TransAlta, the number one, single-source greenhouse gas polluter in the state, to get the company to lower its emissions—rather than letting the legislature impose mandates. (Adding insult to injury, the negotiating route prompted Gregoire to kill a move by the legislature last session to end TransAlta’s $4 million tax loophole because she wanted to keep the break on the table as a playing card in the talks.)
If our source has good info, Gregoire’s new playing card may be to kick the issue to the legislature, where the company is likely to face much stiffer demands about phasing out its greenhouse gas pollution.
4. And some more gossip.
Another good source, this one in the 34th Legislative District (W. Seattle, Burien, Maury Island, Vashon), tells Fizz that District Chair Tim Nuse may be trying to oust rival Ivan Weiss, the district’s King County Committeman, from the 34th’s executive board.
It’s not clear Nuse would have the votes for such a move, though, given that Nuse himself lost some support after his heavy-handed politicking for candidate Marcee Stone during the district’s intramural primary election scrap.
We have calls in to both Nuse and vice chair Kim Becklund.
5. Mayor Mike McGinn’s communications director Mark Matassa returns to work on Monday after taking a medical leave of absence in June. PubliCola welcomes Matassa back into the fray—as, we assume, does McGinn staffer Aaron Pickus, who’s been doing the job of two people since Matassa left.
And another staffing announcement: Gov. Chris Gregoire spokesman Viet Shelton has left to take a job with I-1098, the high-earners’ income tax campaign.
