Cascadia Report

Blog

  • Grants awarded to boost port security

    Several ports and transit agencies in Cascadia are getting federal money to improve security, part of $400 million in grants nationwide. Washington’s windfall was announced Monday by Rep. Dave Reichert (R, WA-8th), who faces a strong reelection challenge.

    The Ports of Seatle and Tacoma will get about $10 million for “perimeter security.” The Port of Olympia gets $327,000 to pay for access card readers. Another $2.9 million is going to Sound Transit, King County Metro and Washington State Ferries for security on light rail to Sea-Tac, the downtown transit tunnel and the Seattle docks.

    Unfortunately, specifics on how the money would be used weren’t announced.

    More than five years after Sept. 11 the gaping holes in port infrastructure have been widely reported. For example, it’s possible to drive a truck to the docks in Seattle without identification and reportedly less than 5 percent of all containers entering U.S. ports are checked. In April, 22 stowaways were found inside a container, a day after it arrived at the Port of Seattle.

  • Border clogged in security scare

    The British Columbia-Washington border was effectively closed Sunday when about 60 Canadian guards walked away from their posts after hearing that a murder suspect was approaching. The closure of four border crossings clogged traffic for several hours.

    border crossing by The ProvinceU.S. Homeland Security warned the Canadian police that the “armed and dangerous” criminal was heading north from California and might try to cross the border. The unarmed Canadian guards have the right to leave duty if they believe their safety is threatened.

    Canadian border guards have walked away from their posts about 50 times in the last year because of safety threats, including seven or eight times in B.C., according to the head of the border-workers’ union. “I’m very sorry it has to happen,” George Scott of the Customs Excise Union told CanWest News. ”But people are entitled to do a work refusal if they feel they’re in danger.”

    The Canadian government plans to arm the border guards starting in 2007 but has said it will take about 10 years to fully implement the plan.

  • Worthwhile reads from Sunday’s newspapers

    1. Anyone who’s driven through Cascadia’s forests this summer has noticed stands of drying trees and the hundreds of thousands of acres of wildfires. This thoughtful front-page story in The Seattle Times examines the link between climate change and the infestation of pine beatles that has killed trees and left the forests easy prey for wildfire. The effect is very real: the Tripod Complex fire in Okanogan County covered an area three times the size of Seattle and cost $82 million to fight.

    2. Oregon habitually spends 99 cents of every tax dollar, but has no buffer and relies on income taxes, which quickly dwindle in an economic downturn. The result is a fiscal roller coaster that hurts schools, the public health system and long-term investment. Coming up with a more stable system is a mainstream politicial issue for the first time, according to this report in The Oregonian, the first in a series.

    3. The battle to represent Washington’s 8th congressional district is heating up, with a flurry of TV and direct-mail ads. Democrat Darcy Burner and Republican incumbant Dave Reichert have reserved $3.6 million in TV ads, according to the report.

    4. National forests in Washington and Oregon are planning to close, shorten seasons or impose new fees at campgrounds, trailheads and other facilities to reflect cuts in funding under President Bush’s 2007 budget. It’s hard to argue with some modest usage fees. But why should recreational users — who generally have a small impact on the forests — take an increasingly large hit while logging is broadly subsidized by the government?

    5. While Vancouver International Airport continues its expansion as Cascadia’s largest international gateway, several smaller Lower Mainland airports are starting ambitious growth plans of their own. Langley, Pitt Meadows, Boundary Bay and Abbottsford International all plan expansion projects that could generate jobs and business for their communities. New terminals and runways could allow passenger service to Vancouver Island, Calgary, Seattle, Portland and Spokane.

  • Portland’s financing method should be copied

    The financing of Portland’s massive redevelopment south of downtown, detailed in Willamette Week here, is an example of how to partner government and private industry on large-scale development.

    Portland South Waterfront by visualcodec.comThe South Waterfront project is turning a huge swath of formerly industrial land along the Willamette River into condos and offices. Public investment in the project totals $195 million, including $74 million that is supposed to be paid back by future property taxes. Much of the cost is to extend the city’s streetcar, build a tram up the hill to a university, and add parks and affordable housing. Private developers have also committed $70 million, according to the article.

    For similar projects to happen in Washington, the same funding mechanism, called tax-increment financing, needs to be authorized. Business groups have pushed the issue and are likely to raise it again in the legislature.

    Portland’s project faces criticism because so far there’s less demand for all the planned condos and offices than when the plan started. Still it makes sense for government to lead private investment in this sort of development. The result could be well-designed communities with open space, adequate transit infrastructure and future costs already built into the plan.

  • Primary results excite Democrats

    The primary election vote totals in Washington’s 8th district have Democrats excited about gaining a seat in Congress but it’s way too early for them to celebrate.

    As of late Friday, Democrat Darcy Burner led incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert by 1,288 votes out of a total 86,038. Since voters had to declare a party affiliation in order to vote, the results suggest that there is broad support for Democrats in the district. In 2004 the suburban Seattle district voted Democrat for president and U.S. Senate but also for Reichert. It earlier elected Republican Jennifer Dunn to Congress six times.

    Democrats say Burner did well in the Republican-leaning rural part of the district and is “virtually assured victory” if she does the same in November. Republicans point out why it’s too early to annoint a winner. In 2004, three Democratic candidates got a total 9,027 more votes than the four Republican candidates. But Reichert won by 5 percentage points in November.

  • Alaska politics draws regional attention

    Southeast Alaska is part of Cascadia but the area gets little attention from the media in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland. That’s why it’s nice to see a front-page story about Alaska’s politics in Friday’s Seattle Times.

    A scandal around the oil industry and debate about how much special treatment that industry should get from the state government threatens a big turnover in the November elections. Already the governor lost a reelection bid in the primary.

  • Rising costs to reshape election debate

    A series of higher cost estimates for road projects and a statewide initiative should reshape the debate on each.

    The cost of replacing the waterfront viaduct with another overhead freeway or a tunnel rose by about $1 billion each, thanks to calculations assuming a higher inflation rate and costlier materials, according to the state Department of Transportation. Official estimates of the cost to replace the 520 floating bridge rose by more than 40 percent.

    Since there’s not enough funding for either project, chances are that other options will be considered. In the case of the viaduct, replacing it with a combination of surface streets and improved transit suddenly looks even more sensible.

    Meanwhile the state’s Office of Financial Management estimated that Inititative 933, the so-called property rights measure, would cost cities, counties and the state up to $8 billion. The initiative would require governments to compensate landowners who feel they have been financially harmed by zoning and other regulations. If governments don’t pay they would have to waive the regulations.

  • Early conclusions from the elections

    The races for supreme court were the closest in Tuesday’s primary election. Thanks to absentee ballots, the final results likely won’t be known for days. Meanwhile here’s a report on one challenger for U.S. senate:

    Hong Tran, who was getting less than 4 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary against Senator Maria Cantwell, plans run for office again, according to this post on David Postman’s Seattle Times blog. She sounds like she’s got lots of potential targets.

    She says Darcy Burner, who’s challenging Rep. Dave Reichert in the 8th district, is getting national attention because she’s well off. Seattle Rep. Jim McDermott isn’t doing enough to represent the city and could use a challenge. And she plans to write an article about “how undemocratic the Democratic Party really is,” according to the post.

  • Olympics organizers need more money

    Backers of the 2010 Olympics are looking for another C$200 million in corporate sponsorships to cover the growing cost to host the games. The organizing committee says it still plans to meet its swelling budget.

    The British Columbia government was slammed for underestimating the games’ costs by about C$1 billion, according to a report last week by the province’s auditor general. The report alleges that mismanagement is costing the province hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing income and that the cost of hosting the games will continue to rise.

  • Council should take a stand on viaduct

    The state wants to know if Seattle prefers replacing the earthquake-damaged viaduct (otherwise known as State Route 99) or building a waterfront tunnel. But it seems that the Seattle City Council may punt the question to voters. That would be a mistake.

    Any solution needs statewide financing and a tunnel likely costs about $1 billion more than other options. Politicians who don’t see the need to pay for a gold-plated roadway in Seattle oppose it and the governor, who certainly faces a tough reelection battle in 2008, must be sensitive.

    A better option is replacing the viaduct with better surface roads and improved transit. The state already has a thorough plan to keep traffic flowing during the several years that any viaduct-replacement project requires. Why not add to those measures permanently? While it’s true that a larger city will need more transportation infrastructure, fixes like a more extensive city streetcar system and a remodeled I-5 could meet the demand.

    The bottom line is that the city council needs to make this hard decision. Seattle doesn’t need a costly and divisive election battle — ala the monorail project — leading up to a vote. Making tough decisions for the long-term future of the city is the council’s job.