Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 2972 - 2996 of 3750
Step raises reality I want to begin by saying that I am the wife of the grader operator out of the Colton shop in District #2. My husband and many of his co-workers have worked in their positions for many years. There is a very low turnover with these hard working guys. I am so fed up with the continuous reference in the paper from the higher ups about these employees getting longevity (step) raises every 18 months. To quote Mr. Lothespeich “employees have gotten scheduled longevity raises of 3% for every 18 months they work at the same time e...
There are dams that should come down and those that shouldn’t. Demolishing the two dams on the Elwha River west of Port Angeles is a good thing and, hopefully the salmon and steelhead will return in record numbers. The dams were built in the early 1900s to bring electricity to the Olympic Peninsula at a time when salmon and steelhead were plentiful in other Pacific Northwest rivers. On the Elwha River, the issue was clear: Two barriers were blocking salmon from moving upstream. The care with which the demolition was planned, studied and i... Full story
A few weeks ago the national average price for a gallon of gasoline peaked at $3.94. Every newscast covered the escalating prices, punctuating the reports with unhappy people at a gas pumps. Newspapers were no better, and talk shows railed over the situation. Many blamed the president. He blamed speculators. Others blamed the greed of the oil industry. Despite the emotion, nothing was new. We’ve been through this before. The country was first hit by fuel shortages and dramatic price increases in the 1970s. Long, desperate lines of motorists w... Full story
For much of the world, Italy is synonymous with “la dolce vita,” the sweet life, full of pleasure and indulgence. But that life comes at a price, and the bill has come due. After 60 years of ever-increasing cradle-to-grave benefits and lifetime job security, Italy’s economy — the eighth largest in the world — is breaking down amidst declining birthrates, protectionism and crushing debt. Stunted by policies that discourage competition and thwart growth, Italy’s economy has been stagnant for 15 years, forcing that nation to borrow heavily in...
IT’S BAD ENOUGH that the cream of the security crop in our government, the Secret Service, dallied with prostitutes on a trip to Colombia while making sure of the safety of our soon to arrive on a visit president.The more worrisome thing to me, however, was the stupidity of the agent or agents who questioned the fee charged by his lady for the night, thus blowing the lid off the whole thing by triggering her complaint to the local cops. Prostitution is not against the law in Colombia so she had as much of a right to complain as if she were a t...
Some years back, the Whitman County commissioners decided to give up control of their salaries and the salaries of their elected cohorts and turn it over to an independent citizen committee. As a result, on Tuesday night, the county’s elected officials received substantial salary increases. The decision is final and absolute. Now, everyone has to live with it. Surely, those elected officials receiving the increases will have no problem living with it. It is just the rest of us that may have problems. Some lower level county employees may h...
W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. In this berserk, time-bankrupt world, I believe I should be grateful for an opportunity to spend several peaceful, uneventful hours sitting on an airport runway with the seatbelt sign on. It provides me with time to look inward, toward my bladder. After an afternoon of controlled breathing, I feel as though I’ve gotten in touch with my inner child — the child who used to wet his pants. There’s a reason pilots hold their passengers hostage for hours and hou...
Open Palouse I had a very small shopping list of things I wanted to accomplish when I was appointed to the Palouse City Council 25 years ago. Trees for downtown was tops on my list, followed by saving the historic Pratt truss, F-Street bridge. I lost on both. A perfectly serviceable bridge was replaced at huge cost by a slab of concrete. Trees in 1988 could line Main Street for less than a thousand dollars, well within the city’s well-managed budget. That plan was shelved until then councilman Echanove discovered how persistence could turn a s...
Recently, the EPA proposed new air quality regulations for power plants that activists say will finally kill King Coal. The rule would require all new power plants to cut emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by almost 44 percent. While natural gas plants can meet the standard, coal-fired plants cannot without expensive carbon-capture and storage technology that is not commercially available. While EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stresses the standards will apply only to new power plants, some experts say the Clean Air Act explicitly requires the go...
ITEM—Just as the Democrats were stoking up a hit on Mitt Romney as being unacceptable by women voters, prominent Demo Hilary Rosen threw gasoline on the fire by stating that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.” Even Democrats joined in condemning the remark about a woman who was a stay at home mom, rearing five sons. Rosen apologized to her and “anyone else who was offended.” COMMENT—USA Today says Hillary Rosen has two children with her ex-partner Elizabeth Birch, although there is no explanation for how that came about. ITEM—Congre...
Mitt Romney says he likes to fire people. If elected, can the General Services Administration be his first target? A few (but not enough) heads have already rolled at the agency that threw itself an infamous Las Vegas conference that could have been planned by former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski before he went to jail. The GSA couldn’t outdo Kozlowski, who threw his wife a birthday party on an Italian island with an ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s “David” that urinated vodka and billed his company for half the cost, but it undertook its confere... Full story
When environmental organizations pushed Washington voters to approve their renewable energy Initiative 937, they touted biomass energy — incinerated wood waste — as one of their preferred alternatives to fossil fuel. They reasoned that biomass energy plants would help clear forests of flammable wood debris from dead and diseased timber, put idled loggers and millworkers back to work and produce cleaner, more affordable energy. But since voters narrowly approved the initiative in 2006, many of those same activists are battling against bio...
REMEMBER the 9-year-old kid who took a gun in his backpack to school in Bremerton and when he dropped the backpack on his desk the gun went off and almost killed another student? That was Feb. 22, and the victim just got out of the hospital the other day. The bullet did so much internal damage, however, that Amina Koceer-Bowman will be undergoing repairs for years to come, if not the rest of her life, She and the accidental shooter made the news again recently over a letter he wrote her apologizing for bringing the gun to school. That... Full story
Irony was thick this week. The GSA, General Services Administration, is under fire. One manager may face criminal charges, and the administrator has resigned. It all stems from a GSA conference and team building exercise in Las Vegas in 2010. Nearly $830,000 of public money was spent on the affair. The conference turned out to be a raucous and very expensive party. What is more, the GSA regional commissioner who put on the show made several trips with taxpayer money to Las Vegas prior to the party just to scout things out. Ironically, according...
On April 21, 1962, the Seattle World’s Fair opened. The “Century 21 Exhibition” ran for six months, drew 11 million visitors, turned a profit and left the Northwest with a wonderful Seattle Center. A half century later, many of the fair’s landmarks remain, and the Center’s 73-acres is a gathering place for people from all walks of life. It is Seattle’s Central Park. The Space Needle has become Seattle’s landmark. Conceived in an architect’s notebook, it was constructed in eight months at a cost of roughly $3 million in private funds. You have... Full story
A short time ago, LaCrosse was declared all but dead. The loss of its grocery store, declining population, a downtown fire, the negative impact of CRP and, more recently, the loss of its bank threatened the town’s future. Despite even all this, the report of the town’s demise was exaggerated. LaCrosse is seeing a resurgence. This renewal is not the result of some grand project but is instead the result of many smaller ones and many individuals working together with a common goal. Even though the town’s obituary had already been written, LaCross...
“IN YOUR COLUNM which ran in the Wilbur Register issue of March 8, in response to a younger member of your family who asked why doesn’t somebody do something about Barack Obama,” writes Gordon Green of Seattle, “you responded in part by saying ‘he keeps doing things that are unconstitutional like making recess appointments.’ “A check with the Congressional Research Service, which works closely with Congress providing policy and legal services, shows Obama has made only 28 such appointments to date. By contrast, George W. Bush made 171 and Ronal...
Crosswalk concerns With the work proposed on State Route 195 this summer, I wish to inform the Gazette’s Colfax readers about my concerns for pedestrian safety. I am particularly worried that there will be more fatalities in our crosswalks. Of particular anxiety are two intersections, one between Greg’s Electric and Columbia Bank and the other between Palouse Empire Pest Control and the Siesta Motel. At this time, the possibility for improvement in safety would seem to be better for the crossing intersection of Thorn Street and Main Street sin...
Last year, Fotis I. Antonopoulos, a successful Web designer in Athens, decided to set up his own e-business to sell olive oil products. It took him 10 months, winding his way through the city collecting dozens of forms and stamps of approval, including proof that he was up- to-date on his pension contributions, before he could get started. But, according to The New York Times, even that was not enough. In perhaps the strangest twist of all, his board members were required by the Health Department to submit lung X-rays and stool samples, since...
WELL, AFTER TWO years, the tennis ball known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, has finally landed in the U.S. Supreme Court. We may know in June, we may not know until the end of the year or we may have to wait until 2015 to learn whether it will remain the law of the land in whole or in part. Obamacare, the linchpin of President Barack Obama’s legacy, was passed on March 23, 2010, as a plan to provide health care and insurance for the 50 million Americans who are uninsured. Without it, we were told, Medicare a... Full story
Republicans are getting closer to deciding on their nominee to run against President Barack Obama in the upcoming election. Tuesday night Mitt Romney won three more victories in the race for the party’s nomination, handily winning the primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The roster of possible Republican nominees has shrunk over the months. Only Rick Santorum appears to have a viable chance to oust Romney, but even in Wisconsin, where Santorum put in a significant effort, Romney won 45 percent to Santorum’s 38 percent. Rom...
Precious legacy Last week’s Gazette quotes Kirby Wilbur, state Republican Party chair, as exhorting local constituents to turn out in big numbers to “stop those wild-eyed drug-crazed Seattle liberal hippies.” Could he have been joking? He looks like a jolly man. I am tempted to point out that Seattle is also populated by a lot of fat, narrow-minded, mean-spirited hicks, but my Grandma tried to teach me good manners, and I don’t think she would have liked that. Maybe my grandma could have taught Mr. Wilbur something about good manners. Can you i... Full story
Oregonians loathe a sales tax about as much as Washingtonians detest an income tax. Knowing that, why would Curry County commissioners put a 3 percent sales tax on the ballot later this year? The answer: Money. Curry, Oregon’s southwesternmost county, is one of a network of economically distressed rural counties throughout the West with double-digit unemployment and facing the potential loss of federal subsidies. Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act in 2000 to provide transition payments to counties a...
I WAS INVITED to a luncheon meeting the other day of the WGAS group, which stands for Who Gives a (Darn.). Figure it out for yourself. It was a small crowd of old timers, retired legislators, judges, lobbyists, staffers. I knew most of them, having covered the legislature since the 1960s, although I didn’t recognize some at first. They were all friendly to me, despite the fact I didn’t shake hands with any of them, following my rule of not shaking hands during the flu season which apparently is still with us, according to the newspapers. And... Full story
Last week’s editorial about requiring the new Colfax police chief to live in or near town needs to be revisited. The editorial stated that the new police chief should be required to live in the city or at least be within a certain distance of the city to be able to respond quickly to unforeseen circumstances. It is a good idea, but it is not an idea ahead of its time. The city had considered the idea way before the editorial came out. According to Connie Ellis, secretary of the Civil Service board, the issue of residency requirements for new c...
