1. A Budget of their Own: Today at 10 am, the state House follows up yesterday’s all-cuts Senate budget announcement by unveiling their version. Expect more of the same (if not harsher.)
2. Senate Budget Footnote: They selflessly suspended per diems for Senators and Reps … If and only during a Special Session. A bit of incentive from leadership to pass the budget—no haggling into a special session?
3. With all the news focusing on the Senate’s all-cuts budget yesterday, you may have missed House Transportation Chair Rep. Judy Clibborn’s (D-41, Mercer Island, Bellevue) transportation budget. As expected, transit got mangled, especially Sound Transit.
Some highlights: De-funds the state share of two-way HOV lanes on I-90, which will delay expanding light rail to Clibborn’s district (which voted 60 percent for Sound Transit 2 last year); De-funds ST’s competitive grants from the Office of Transit Mobility—including $5 million for new hybrid buses, $8 million toward Lakewood commuter rail, and the $8 million for two-way HOV on I-90; and delays the state’s Point Defiance Amtrak/Sounder bypass for two years.
Seattle Transit Blog is following this story closely.
4. With the P-I going to on-line, real-time reporting, it’s odd that the Seattle Times has slacked off on their news blog. Nothing on the Senate budget yesterday? Their last post (as of this writing) was last Friday afternoon. And that post was merely a follow up to some news reported at the Tacoma News Tribune on Thursday night and here at PubliCola on Friday morning about Governor Chris Gregoire and the education reform bill.
5. Stay tuned today, we’re planning to debut a new Podcast feature—”Money Where Mouth Is”—a weekly interview with an All-Star from a local non-profit. But we don’t just want to know about their heroic jobs, we want to know who their dating and what music they like. Steven Blum reports, later today.
