Olympia Time

History, politics, people of Oly WA

Month: November 2008 (Page 2 of 2)

Who will replace Bob Macleod

November 16, 2008 / / 0 Comments

From what I know, no one has formally put their name forward for Macleod‘s seat. But, there’s a lot of talk going on out there, so here’s my effort to distill all that I’ve heard in terms of who could be going for it.

Joan Cathey, Tumwater City Council

She’s very likely to file. The only thing I can say is that she’s only been on Tumwater City Council for less than a year, not necessarily a bad thing, but that’s a pretty quick step from council to commission.

Ed Stanley, Tumwater City Council

You’ll soon get the feeling that being on the Tumwater City Council qualifies you for this position somehow. Geography just worked out, I guess.

Ed ran for port commissioner awhile back, might be interested in another county-level office.

Karen Valenzuela, Tumwater City Council

Karen is a pretty long serving city council-member that I’ve never heard anyone speak ill of. She’s also very good at helping out when other folks decide they want to run for office. If she files, she’d probably end up on the list of three.

Susan Bogni, Macleod’s administrative assistant

She’s also likely to file. I don’t know Susan, I’m sure she’s great. But, there’s something that feels wrong about a staffer stepping forward at this point.

I guess that reveals my main prejudice about this process. I want to vote for someone who has already run for elected office and served, hopefully for awhile. Being knowledgeable about the particular position and the issues isn’t necessarily a good thing to be, because of the danger of built in biases. Someone (like a city council member) with elected experience, who already knows how to be a candidate and has served on a board and that already participates in regional processes (we got those ’round here) would be the kind of person I’m looking for.

Brendan Williams, state representative

Brendan is stepping down in his own right, having decided not to run for the legislature again in two years. And, in the mean time, Tim Sheldon proved there’s no legal problem with being in the state legislature and a county commissioner at the same time. And, while Sheldon is doing it from Shelton and Olympia, Brendan would be doing it all from Olympia.

Another bonus for Brendan. He replaced Sandra Romero, one of the county commissioners that will decide on the replacement, in the legislature. She also endorsed him in a crowded primary for her seat. Maybe not a shady backroom deal if he gets onto the commission, but you could say that Brendan and Sandra would work well together.

Steve Lundin, legislative staffer (house Local Government Committee)

Not a name I came up with, I’m sure he’s pretty smart about local government.

Bob Jacobs, former Olympia mayor

He’s been a former mayor for awhile, so I guess geography puts him on the list. Since leaving he’s been involved, very involved.

Jeff Kingsbury, Olympia City Council

I like Jeff, but at the same time I’d hate to lose him from the city council. Or, if he tried to do both, lose his attention.

Jeff isn’t interested.

Russ Lehman, former Olympia School District

I heard back in the day when it wasn’t known yet whether Macleod would run for a second term, that Russ was putting together a campaign committee for the position. Since then Bob stepped up, Russ stepped back and then Russ became a central part of the horror show that was the Olympia School Board for the last year or so.

Did resigning from the Olympia School Board taint Russ? I don’t know, but I thought he was a pretty strong candidate two years ago and felt bad he didn’t have the chance to run.

Neil McClanahan, Tumwater City Council

Right now, Neil is my top choice. I’ve heard good things about this work with the county housing task force. He’s also the right mix of the person who has run for office before and has served well in regional boards.

The only knock I think that will hold up is his working against trying to keep Walmart out of Tumwater. Though, it seems, his approach there was to take the reality of Tumwater’s fiscal condition into consideration. If he gets on the list, it will be because he was able to move past Walmart.

Anyone not from Olympia/Tumwater?

Like, you know, someone from Rochster/Grand Mound or Little Rock? These rural communities have the most per capita interest in who actually gets this seat, but I haven’t heard of anyone put forward that could say they represent anywhere outside the urban core.

I’d be interested in any names.

How Bob Macleod will be replaced

November 16, 2008 / / 0 Comments

The Precinct Committee Officers will put together a list of possible replacements for county commissioner Bob Macleod. But, that process will likely take a bit longer than we’ve assumed. Put it shortly, the process sketched out by the Olympian is wrong:

The precinct committee officers elected during the August primary will take office Dec. 1. They then have a month to finalize a slate of candidates. It’s up to the party to determine if all the officers in the county or only those within the district now represented by Macleod will make those decisions.

Between the party central committee and the two county commissioners, there is actually two whole months to work after December 31. According to the state constitution, there is no need to appoint someone before Macleod even resigns officially.

Here’s the language:

…shall be one of three persons who shall be nominated by the county central committee of that party, and in case a majority of the members of the county legislative authority do not agree upon the appointment within sixty days after the vacancy occurs…

This is backed up by the scuttlebut at the recent PCO orientation meeting this week. From what I heard, there will be an application process in early January. Those names will be considered by the PCOs in Macleod’s district and then a (hopefully) long list of candidates will go to the entire body of PCOs.

Fittingly, this follows the path for county commissioners in wider elections. They are winnowed down during a primary in which only district voters can participate. But, the final decision is made by the entire county.

Guzzo’s reaction to election day: ethnic cleansing

November 7, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Grumpy old Lou goes over the deep end:

Is the “American Dream” quickly being transformed into the “American Nightmare” by the hordes of newcomers, legal and illegal, who are coming into the U.S. far and beyond the immigration quotas that were once ordered by Congress? It would certainly seem that way to judge by the most recent alarming statistics — and Tuesday’s election.

…

It was no surprise to note that several states, including Texas and California, “have already reached the point where members of minorities are in the majority. Finally, in the words of a Brookings Institution demographer, “by the 2028 presidential election, racial and ethnic minorities will constitute a majority of adults between 18 and 29 for the first time.”

Our forefathers never conceived of what the great nation of America would become. Should we put a stop to these severe ethnic and racial changes?

Some context on the Jeff Kingsbury Facebook thing

November 5, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Jeff Kingsbury updated his status on Facebook during a city council meeting Monday night. It depends on your opinion on whether what he wrote or whether he wrote it at all matters.

I think updating your status, twittering, or blogging from council chambers is ok. I also think Jeff should have written more (not less) about what he was hearing. In this case, providing fewer details upset some people.

Here’s the original Olyblog post.

Here are the multiple threads at Olyforums (here, here and here). You probably need to be a member at Olyforums to read that last one.

Here’s the Olympian story and the comment thread for it at Haloscan.

In regards to how this even started, the Olyblog post was probably put up by someone who isn’t on Jeff’s Facebook friends list anymore. Facebook is assumed to be a somewhat private forum, and they have some very explicit rules to that regard.

From Gelf:

Q: Is it permissible to share content taken from Facebook?

A: No. Facebook released a statement regarding Caldwell’s actions saying, “Facebook users agree in the sites terms of use and policies that they will not reproduce other user profiles without permission from the user in question and Facebook. Permission was not granted in this case, and Facebook has disabled the offending account.” Caldwell broke the site’s Terms of Service when she reproduced a screenshot of Giuliani’s profile on Slate. Facebook is not looking to take legal action, and Caldwell has expressed no regret over her actions, despite being banned from the site. The question isn’t so much whether or not it is permissible to share personal information taken from Facebook, but whether it is ethical.

And:

Q: When is it OK to share information gained from Facebook?

A: When it’s justified. The status of information placed on Facebook is murky because it is neither entirely public nor private. That being said, if the information is particularly newsworthy, like the MySpace page of the Virginia Tech shooter, then it should be shared.

Sometimes, Facebook can reveal an interesting take on a tired story, like when friends of members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team jokingly called the players “nappy headed hos” on their Facebook walls during the high-pitched Imus controversy. However, the political leanings of a presidential candidate’s estranged teenage daughter should not be making the rounds in the respected news media.
I believe the reason for the coverage, and therefore the blame, comes from the source of the story. Slate is one of the foremost respectable internet publications, and holds itself to journalistic standards typical of print magazines and newspapers, not political blogs. Many sites take cues from the way Slate reports on the internet, and their coverage of this nonevent resounded in the mainstream press. This type of material is posted all the time on many political blogs, particularly Wonkette, which posted a follow-up article with pictures of the underage Giuliani drinking at a party. The reason why these articles are generally unreported in the mainstream press is because they come from the world of blogs, which the mainstream press is still not entirely sure how to deal with. Those unconscious quotation marks, in print or in tone, are readily apparent in news from “the blogosphere.” It is inevitable that the two will grow closer together, as blogs like DailyKos and Gawker have become their own miniature media empires, and respectable news sources now regularly feature blogs on their site. One can only hope that this will result in higher-grade reporting from blogs, and not lower standards of news journalism in the mainstream press.

What happens on facebook doesn’t stay on facebook (city council should be blogging)

November 4, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I was thinking about posting this up last night, but decided that since I really like Jeff Kingsbury as my elected representative, I’d nudge him towards blogging publicly, rather than doing this.

Be careful what you say online, even when you’re surrounded by your friends.

UPDATE: Jeff’s not on my friends list on Facebook anymore. I don’t know why. What he did wasn’t all that bad, though I can see why people are getting bent out of shape.

This thingie is an argument for more online communication by Jeff and other electeds, not less.

Good luck, Springfield Times

November 4, 2008 / / 0 Comments

As newspapers contract all over the freaking place, its really nice to hear about a new effort in Oregon. Scott Olson and Craig Murphy, both of whom I used to work with in a previous life at the Montesano Vidette, are kick starting a new newspaper in Springfield:

Having learned that The Springfield Beacon had ceased operations earlier in the year, Olson began thinking about starting up another paper in Springfield. He contacted Craig Murphy, one of his former employees at The Vidette, to see if he would be interested in becoming the editor for a startup paper.

As luck would have it, Murphy and his wife, Julie, were anxious to move back to the Pacific Northwest after spending the last few years in Iowa.

“Once I had Craig on board as my editor, I began putting the other pieces in place for the newspaper,” Olson said. “Craig is an excellent journalist and has been highly respected everywhere he has worked.

Newspapers and Springfield are lucky to have two guys like Scott and Craig. They’re about as close as you can get to true community journalists. I hope things work out down there.

Few things though:

1. I’m encouraged that Scott and Craig describes their newspaper website as intended to be “utilized and updated on a regular basis.” This simply isn’t enough. Even daily papers are getting into the online community building business.

Its not enough to provide news, you need to provide space for people to discuss their community as well. Good news, though. The Register-Guard has a handful of blogs, some of which line up directly against what the Springfield Times is trying to do (prep sports, prep football, and Close to Home). While I’m not sure about the blog traffic at the RG, they don’t seem to get many comments on the blogs that would compete with the ST.

2. So, while the current web package your running is ok, you’ll eventually want to change over to something like wordpress or scoop. Maybe even Drupal. They’re all free, and they can easily be adapted into a “news” format.

3. In the same line as #2, turn over a portion of your site to your readers. There’s only two of you right now, so it will make the news gathering if not easier, then more interesting.

4. “Troll the bright waters of the internet”(quote via here). There are likely people blogging in Springfield already. It isn’t journalism, but they’re talking about their lives, and I’ve seen some good blogging that would pass for journalism and 40 percent of small papers.

So, get to know your local bloggers, they will probably help you out.

This week in grumpy old bloggers (don’t vote an damn kids!)

November 3, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Ken doesn’t want you to vote:

For all practical purposes the election is already over and your vote will do nothing to change the outcome one way or the other. And, if you just guess at the other names on the ballot, you’re making a decision based on ignorance and an ignorant ballot is more dangerous than not voting at all.

If you haven’t already sent in your ballot – don’t.

Hey Ken, if you’re trying to be sarcastic, that particular device doesn’t work in print.

Crazy old man Lou trying to take the joy away from children:

Halloween has careened out of control.

What is the “hat tip” and why its important

November 3, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Find something on another blog and want to share it on your own? Make sure you do a hat tip:

A hat tip is an acknowledgement to someone (or a website) for bringing something to the blogger’s attention.

Hat tip is also, sometimes, abbreviated as h/t or HT.

In addition to acknowledging someone else’s work (hard or not), the hat tip is a great way to expand your readers blog reading universe. Its a way of telling them, “did you find this post interest? Well, let me tell you about this other blog over here that writes about this stuff all the time!”

Done well, it helps expand the number of relevant blogs around you, increasing your relevancy as well.

Done poorly, it makes you look stupid:

If you find something via another blog or even get an idea from another blogger, you should give the blogger credit. Sometimes this is called a hat tip (or h/t) and sometimes you’ll just say “via” and then link to the blogger. Failing to do this can get you in trouble fast. Bloggers are resourceful, too. You can’t really hide! There once was a woman who liked my own blog so well, she copied it right down to the name and the weekly features! Once I caught her, all my blogger friends jumped all over her! Not a good way to make friends.

And:

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but at some point, if a blogger repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the source of his inspiration and it’s obvious (and it will be) where it came from, readers will pick up on it, they will wonder if you have any original ideas of your own and they will begin to think of you as a phony. As in the real world, whispers behind the back occur in the blog world. If someone is guility of using other blogger’s work, the offender may notice his statistics going up, or frequent visits from the same source. That’s because once you’re tagged with this label, people will check in on you frequently to see if this pattern continues. They will take notes and they will tattle on you.

Newer posts »

© 2024 Olympia Time

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑