You can tell when Attorney General Bob Ferguson is losing on an issue, or court case, when there is no press release accompanying news about him, a trend Shift has noted in the past. Now the folks at the Washington Observer are picking up the same thread, noting that “Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s campaign quietly backed down this week on that nagging campaign cash issue that has dogged his gubernatorial bid since the spring. The campaign amended its disclosures to the Public Disclosure Commission and sent $86,000 back to a surplus campaign account.”

Essentially, the AG was caught trying to wash more than a million dollars in money from previous campaigns into his current gubernatorial “exploratory” effort without disclosing his donors, and now that he got caught, he is hoping to make the issue go away while looking for another way to get the dark money into his campaign. You can read how that works here… Shift, Washington Observer.

The fight over agritourism continues in Skagit County, with KIRO 7 warning the fight could extend to “everything from local wedding venues to the Skagit County Tulip Festival.” Catch up on the fight that’s led to a proposal one elected official calls “pretty Draconian” here… KIRO 7.

Just in case you thought it was “safe to go back in the water” as the ad from the movie Jaws used to warn, come’s the news covered by Axios-Seattle that “COVID-19 hospitalization rates across Washington state have ticked upward since June, amid signs of a late summer wave sweeping the country.” You can read more about how this is “no sign we’re headed for anything like the waves of the peak pandemic era. But it’s still an alarming trend, and a reminder that COVID-19 remains a public health concern” here… Axios Seattle.

Multi-billion dollar public boondoggles don’t start out that way – generally the initial reach into the taxpayer wallet is much lighter. Such is the case in the news from KIRO that “a group of Washington Democratic representatives is pushing for an additional $198 million grant for planning a bullet train between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia, through a letter addressed to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.” Of course, that initial waste is just a start, with State Senator Marko Liias helpfully pointing out that “Everything we’re going to do is expensive. But this is one of those things we’ve got to look at and invest in to make sure we’re keeping up with growth.”

A counter-argument is provided by Republican State Representative Andrew Barkis, who is left to point out the obvious that “We don’t have the revenue to take care of what we have in front of us. Now we’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars planning for something that, by all estimates, would not be done in the next 30-40 years and could cost upwards of $100 billion?” here… KIRO.

Secrecy seems to be closing in over the ongoing saga (which Shift has covered at length) that is the dream of Seattle’s extreme environmental community to rip out four dams on the Snake River, with Capital Press reporting that “Northwest stakeholders say they’ve been shut out of the federal mediation sessions over the Snake River dams” as the federal government engages with a “coalition of environmental and fishing groups, led by the Earthjustice law firm, (which) in 2020 sued over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration dam operations plan.”

You can read how agricultural and other economic interests are being sidelined as the lawsuit moves to a crucial stage, with one leader noting that “secrecy has been extremely frustrating … The lack of communication from the (federal government) to intervenor defendants doesn’t give us much confidence in this process”, here… Shift, Capital Press.

It must be frustrating for first responders – if not the public at large – to see someone who admits to causing a raging fire in downtown Seattle to face no legal consequences for their actions and just walk free. Yet that’s the news from FOX 13, as a “man accused of causing a massive fire at a homeless encampment at the Mercer Street ramp in South Lake Union was just released from jail with no charges filed.”

Even worse, it is not like this is a new development at this illegal site, as “FOX 13’s David Rose also profiled this encampment in early 2023. At that time, it was clear structures were being built by campers out of makeshift materials.” More depressing details about how now the “city of Seattle and WSDOT said they are coordinating the next steps for this site” here… FOX 13.

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