You will have to decide for yourself what is says about the “leadership” of the city of Redmond that they can rush through in a week the approval of homeless housing project after it had been rejected following 20 months of consideration in Kenmore. The Seattle Times and the cheerleaders for the homeless industrial complex clearly think this is a great thing for the region, such as “King County Executive Dow Constantine, who previously described Kenmore’s actions as ‘an embarrassing failure of leadership,’ vowed (a) commitment to work with Redmond.”

Now, Executive Constantine certainly knows plenty (as Shift has written) about “an embarrassing failure of leadership”, given he has presided over the deterioration of our streets since he declared a “homeless emergency” back in 2015. Sort of “embarrassing” how Dow’s “leadership” is working out, eh?

You can read on to see that Redmond officials, in their haste to please people who don’t actually live in Redmond, ignored the concerns which surfaced in Kenmore over the homeless development. In the north end suburb, “many community members turned against the project, saying they were concerned about safety, the affordable housing provider, the people who would live in the building and the downtown location.”… Seattle Times, Shift.

Urban Democrats often say they are representing One Washington, though rural residents don’t often feel that unity. It’s a familiar refrain for folks on the East side of the Cascades, and so worth reminding voters across Washington that, according to a farmer’s perspective shared by the Wenatchee World, “every legislation they’ve put out that is a good intention to help farmers and farm workers has actually ended up hurting us.”

The latest example of the Democrats punishing farmers through laws with severe unintended/intended consequences is an overtime bill that is forcing at least one family farmer to close, who “tearfully told lawmakers her family decided to shut down the business due to rising labor costs and expenses.” Of course, the Democrats’ carbon tax was also a factor, as “farmers are supposed to be exempt from the (carbon) taxes, but there is no system in place to exempt the taxes, and many farmers are left with paying the taxes.” You can read how Governor Jay Inslee proudly stood behind his policies by having one of his PR folks write “in an email to The Wenatchee World that progress has been made in many areas,” though if the governor could identify “many areas” of progress, he would have held a press conference… Wenatchee World.

Political consultants and anyone else hoping to elect a Republican to succeed Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers in the Fifth District can only hope that Democrat party officials keep talking in public. That’s the lesson from the Spokesman-Review’s coverage of state and local Democrat politicians musing out loud about how the 5^th CD “race (is) the best opportunity in Washington to pick up a seat and flip control of the U.S. House, gaining a majority that could elect New York Democrat Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as speaker.”

Shift is sure that the conservative voters in the state’s Easternmost counties will be happy to know the role they could play in determining the next House speaker since it’s “been nearly 30 years since Democrats last represented Eastern Washington in Congress.” However, limited success last year in the most liberal part of the district has Democrats trying to convince donors to jump in, as “Lisa Brown’s election to mayor in Spokane shows Democrats can win in that area.” See how even Mayor Brown believes the “three (Democrat) candidates currently in the race were ‘untested.’”… Spokesman-Review.

The Seattle City Council seems to remain on a never-ending quest to drive all for-profit businesses from the city. That’s the lesson from a KING 5 piece about local restaurants responding to the city’s new “gig work” regulations, as one “owner of a Seattle pizzeria said he believes the new $5 fee added to delivery app orders is slicing into his bottom line and slowing down business.”

Turns out this is “the latest wrinkle from a Seattle city ordinance intended to improve gig workers’ pay. As KING 5 reported, otherwise usual customers, disabled residents, and even delivery drivers themselves have been vocal about their frustration with the new fee.” You can read on to see how the city, which is running a massive deficit and can’t even hire people to police its streets, is always willing to tell businesses how they should operate… KING 5.

You can tell when a politician – or reporter – really doesn’t want attention for something when it is released on a Friday afternoon in hopes of it being buried over the weekend. This holiday weekend, the Democrats running Olympia must have been hoping for some massive amnesia on the part of voters, as KIRO radio reported: “Democratic leaders in both the House and the Senate announced Friday they will hold hearings on three citizen-backed initiatives while rejecting consideration of three others.”

The Democrat “leaders” decided to only partially follow the state constitution in making the six citizen initiatives a priority, using the lame claim that “(T)he effect of the remaining three initiatives is less obvious” than the three initiatives which they have banned from being heard. Initiative sponsor Brian Heywood has a different perspective, asking, “(W)hat about the hidden gas tax, the hidden income tax, and the mandatory payroll tax? It is intriguing to me that the pet projects of (Washington Gov.) Jay Inslee and his crony union bosses won’t be getting hearings”… KIRO radio.

You might ask yourself why the government should be trusted at all with taxpayer money when the bureaucrats can’t even give said money away without losing track of it. Such is the case covered in depth by KUOW about King County’s Department of Community and Human Services, which is now in a legal dispute with a vendor, claiming “payments were supposed to come from a nonprofit that the county hired to distribute the money. The county now says that the nonprofit Scholar Fund failed to pay childcare providers at least $1.1 million.”

The plot thickens when one considers that “David Coven, Scholar Fund executive director, refuted the county’s missing payment claims and said the county owes his organization $530,000, mostly for operating costs.” And it gets even thicker when you find out that “L. Darrell Powell, Scholar Fund chief financial officer, accused the county of scapegoating the organization as the county rapidly ended the contract” and that this is the same Mr. Powell who “was recently appointed as interim chief executive officer of King County Regional Homelessness Authority.”… KUOW.

The partisan games played in Olympia during a legislative session are seemingly endless. Consider that you might think, based on media coverage, that rent control was dead for the session because it was loudly killed in the Senate last week, but instead, KUOW is telling us that the “House also approved a hotly debated rent bill this week, after days of uncertainty for its path forward in the Senate. House Bill 2114 is now in front of the Senate Ways and Means Committee – meaning the House bill will avoid the committee where its Senate companion stalled earlier this session.”

Sending a bill to be heard by a more favorable committee chair, as opposed to the one who is already familiar with the proposal, is perhaps one of the less sleazy ways the Democrats are running the show in Olympia.  Read on for more tricks… KUOW.

GOP Representative Keith Goehner discussed his legislative priorities, including addressing transportation issues and restoring law enforcement authority. He emphasized the need for hearings on Let’s Go Washington’s citizen initiatives, anticipating voter interest. Rep. Goehner also highlighted concerns about bills such as the natural gas ban and sentencing modifications. In addition, he explained proposed legislation for back country search and rescue support and laments the lack of transparency in fuel prices under the Climate Commitment Act. Read more.

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