Democrats continue to ignore the needs of rural Washington, costing the Dept. of Natural Resources $15 million to remove trees prone to forest fires when they walked off of the House Floor rather than help pass a capital budget. “The longer we wait, the more we’ll pay for both the restoration and the increasing costs of suppressing wildfires,” Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said. 

The “Driving Under the Influence of Electronics” law went into place yesterday, meaning you could be issued a $136 ticket for getting caught on your cell phone during your commute. Drivers may use apps that require “minimal use of a finger,” presumed to be apps for navigation or Bluetooth software, but holding a cell phone for texting or anything else is breaking the law.

Rep. John Koster (R-Arlington) will be quitting the legislature next month so that he can accept a position as the head of the County Roads Administration Board – an agency responsible for allocating funding to road projects. The 39^th Republican precinct committee officers will nominate three candidates to fill his place, with the final candidate being voted on by council members and commissions.

Big money liberals in California have shelled out $64,992 for Manka Dhingra’s campaign in the 45^th. Dhingra, a mega-lefty, has seen $126,816 in out-of-state money donated to her campaign.

“We have a leader in our Emerald City, Ed Murray, who said it the best: ‘Either you’re looking at a serial pedophile or this is a big political take down’,” Ron Upshaw wrote in a piece on MyNorthwest. Upshaw is criticizing Seattle Mayor Ed Murray for, “desperately trying to stay in control by pulling all Seattle’s levers of distraction,” referencing the recent executive order by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray. (Read more about his distraction techniques here)

Officers in the Seattle Police Department will begin wearing body cameras tomorrow, with the West Precinct bike cops becoming the first members of the force to wear the body cameras – required after Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signed an executive order mandating their use. Negotiations with the Seattle Police Officers Guild are still underway. 

Faith-based pregnancy care providers must provide signage, declaring the words, “This facility is not a healthcare facility,” in King County after a ruling by the King County Board of Health yesterday.

Metropolitan King County Council is proposing a property-tax levy for Veterans, Human Services and Seniors, which would double the current size of the levy. The proposed rate is a 10-cent tax for every $1,000 of assessed property value or $45 a year for a $450,000 median-priced home. If approved, half of the funds would be directed towards veteran services, 33 percent would be directed towards human services and the remaining 17 percent would be for seniors.

West Point Treatment Plant is hitting more roadblocks, with employees frequently transferring out of the facility – leaving the plant with a shortage of experienced workers. Former plant manager Dick Finger explained, “The challenge is that you lose that knowledge and more importantly you have to hire and train new people about a complex facility.” West Point’s damage is estimated to be around $57 million for the flooding earlier this year that caused millions of gallons of sewage to be dumped into the Puget Sound.

Respect Washington is proposing Burien repeal their sanctuary city status, with two possibilities on the horizon. The first is a proposal to the city council to nullify the original legislation establishing Burien as a sanctuary city while the second option would be for Respect Washington to submit their proposal to be placed on the November ballot for voters to decide.

Western Washington University will be increasing tuition by 2.2% and 3.5% for the 2017-18 school year. The former increase for resident and undergraduate students while the latter for nonresident undergraduates, all graduate and MBA students.

SeaTac is relying on multi-lingual robots to facilitate check-ins and verbalize TSA instructions, hoping they can help to relieve some of the pressure off of the airport that has been hitting record numbers for the last six years. SeaTac is now the 9^th busiest airport in America and spent $3.3 million last summer for people to manage TSA lines – a position the airport is hoping the robots will fill this summer.

Columbia Basin is facing a lower number of fish coming through the Bonneville Dam than they have seen in over three decades, with projections estimating that 131,000 fish will be swimming through. This is the third year in a row that has at least 45,000 less fish projected to swim through the Basin than the year prior.

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