They made no endorsement in the 5th District council race, which has Beckie Summers Kirby, Joe Lonergan and John Miles. But they DID endorse incumbent Tacoma Councilman Jake Fey, who is running unopposed.

Wasn’t that nice?

Pierce Conservation Voters and Sierra Club Tatoosh Group announce environmental endorsements for key Tacoma City races

Washington Conservation Voters

Tacoma – With primary ballots arriving in mailboxes this week, Pierce Conservation Voters and the Tatoosh Group of the Sierra Club (Pierce County) formally announced both organization’s Mayor and City Council endorsements. These endorsements provide voters with a clear sense of the best environmental candidate in each race.

"The environmental challenges facing Tacoma require strong champions on the Council," said Pierce Conservation Board Chair Michael Garrity. "Together, our endorsements establish a clear environmental slate for voters in Tacoma," said Bliss Moore, Sierra Club Tatoosh Group Chair. The organizations each evaluated these candidates separately and came to the same conclusions on who would best provide climate change leadership, promote transit options and protect open space.

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You have till Friday to file.

Pierce County Auditor Jan Shabro opened a special filing period today, July 29, for Bethel School Board director position number 3 and Fife School Board director position number 3.

Special filing periods are held when no candidates file during the regular filing period or if candidates later withdraw. In the Bethel and Fife cases, each race had only one candidate and that person withdrew.

This will be the third special filing period for the regular filing period held the first week of June.

It’s routine to have one special

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Our colleague at The Associated Press has this story….

By CURT WOODWARD

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TACOMA, Wash. — A federal judge is halting the public release of petitions supporting a gay-partnership referendum.

U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle agreed to the temporary restraining order Wednesday, in a case that questions whether Washington’s open-government laws could discourage free speech.

The case centers on Referendum 71, which would ask voters to approve or reject expanded partnership rights for gay couples.

The names of everyone who signed R-71 petitions are publicly available under state law, and a gay-rights group

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Kelly Cunningham has been at the Special Commitment Center for 11 years. There are now almost 300 sex predators housed at the facility, and it’s a growth industry. These are folks who have been civilly committed for treatment because authorities think they are likely to commit more sex crimes if they are released to the community.

New superintendent appointed for the DSHS
Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island

OLYMPIA – Following a nationwide search, Kelly Cunningham has been promoted to superintendent of the McNeil Island Special Commitment Center in the DSHS Health and Recovery Services Administration. He assumes the post on Aug. 1.

Cunningham has 11 years of experience in Washington state’s nationally-recognized SCC treatment program for civilly committed sex offenders, rising from front-line staff to key management positions.

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Sharon Foster will be chairwoman of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, although the chairmanship isn’t the appointment plum that it used to be. It’s a 60 percent board, so the pay is in the $50,000+ instead of $70,000+

Gov. Gregoire appointments of Sharon Foster as Liquor Control Board chair

OLYMPIA – Gov. Chris Gregoire today appointed Sharon Foster of Olympia as new chair of the Washington State Liquor Control Board. Sharon will start on August 15, 2009.

"I am incredibly pleased that Sharon is taking on this leadership role at the Liquor Control Board," said Gregoire. "I know that she will serve the people of Washington well from this position."

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Ordinarily, the names of people who sign initiative and referendum petitions are a matter of public record, but opponents of the “everything but marriage” expansion of domestic partnership rights don’t want their supporters’ names splashed all over the internet.

Here’s what Dave Ammons over at Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office has to say about Referendum 71.

FYI: Protect Washington Families, the sponsors of Referendum 71, who hope to force a vote on the new "everything but marriage" domestic partnership expansion, are taking the state Elections Division to court to block release of the names of people who signed the petitions.

U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle is hearing the request for a temporary restraining order at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in Tacoma. The state will not resist the request, pending a full hearing on the merits of the case.

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When the Pierce County Council’s auditing staff came out with its recent report on workload and staffing in the sheriff’s department, the union representing deputies was not happy.

The report concluded that auditors needed more detailed performance measures and recommended a full review by an outside expert next year. But based on the information available, it drew some preliminary conclusions:

&bull Staffing more than kept pace with workload increases in the department from 2004 to 2008.

&bull Pierce County sheriff’s staffing and workload are similar to those in other county and city law enforcement agencies.

You can download the full report here.

Sheriff Paul Pastor for years has said the department is understaffed. When the report was released he said he was disappointed with the analysis and suggested it was designed more to make a political point than to fairly assess the department.

Cynthia Fajardo, president of the 319-member

Pierce County Sheriff’s Independent Guild, also is unhappy with the report.

In an interview last week, Fajardo said it was "extremely irresponsible of the auditors to release a report that was drastically incomplete, by their own admission." She said publishing the report was a waste of taxpayer money.

Fajardo declined to comment on specific data used in the report, saying she preferred to wait until a full, independent assessment is done. She said she didn’t want to draw conclusions based on limited information.

"I’d be doing the same thing they did," she said.

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A Washington, D.C., think tank thinks highly of two Puget Sound region efforts to capitalize on the federal economic stimulus package.

In a new report, the Brookings Institution is generally critical of the federal stimulus effort, calling it a rigid plan that stifles creativity. But it cites 11 projects nationwide as possible models for future metropolitan economic development.

Among them:

&bull Government and utility officials from four Puget Sound-area counties (including Pierce County) are trying to get federal funding for long-term energy sustainability measures like "smart" electric grids and electrified transportation. You can download a Brookings snapshot

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