Third “mobile office” event is in Spokane’s Hillyard neighborhood today

The legislators from the 3^rd Legislative District have been bringing their office to Spokane's neighborhoods over the past several weeks. Today, they'll be at the Northeast Community Center in the Hillyard neighborhood from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. The address is 4001 North Cook Street.

Reps. Andy Billig and Timm Ormsby, together with their Senate counterpart Sen. Lisa Brown, have been making it easier for their constituents to meet with them this fall. Through a series of informal "mobile office" events around Spokane, people can simply show up and get some face time with the legislators – no prior appointment necessary. 

If you miss today's event, you have one more chance to catch the "mobile office" before the three legislators return to Olympia in late November for a special legislative session. On Tuesday, November 1, they will be at the East Central Community Center, located at 500 S. Stone, from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.

Photo:  Last week's mobile office event at Indaba Coffee in Spokane's West Central Neighborhood.  You too can get this up close and personal with the 3rd LD legislators.  Photo by Ben Doornink.

New website: Here's a great e-source for breast-cancer survivors

One in eight American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Also, according to a website called Breast cancer: Tips for families; facts, figures:

• More than 230,400 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women here in 2011.
• More than 2,100 American men will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
• More than 39,900 women and more than 400 men will fall victim to this killer this year here in the United States.

People who've been diagnosed with breast cancer can tap into a big variety of educational links and other helpful details featured at another excellent website newly up and running. Sponsored by the Pink Lemonade Project, this new e-source covers information on a range of insurance rights and reconstruction options for breast-cancer survivors. All too often patients aren't provided with info about alternatives for breast reconstruction. They may not even be informed that their insurance provides coverage for reconstruction, for instance, as well as mastectomies.

Legislation was discussed in the 2011 session that would go a long way toward providing patients with information on options for breast reconstruction. The measure was sponsored by state Rep. Jim Moeller. Although the bill survived Republican objections to win House Health Care & Wellness Committee approval, it was stuck in the House Rules Committee when the legislative session adjourned.

Moeller has pointed out that, "Washington has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in our whole country. We need to be sensitive to the fact that having a mastectomy has both physical and psychological impacts on patients. Insurers are required to cover not only mastectomies, but also breast reconstruction."

A Vancouver newspaper item about the new website can be found here.

A high-five for the I-5 Partnership Project

Congratulations to the Washington State Department of Transportation for winning the coveted 2011 People’s Choice Award for the top transportation project in the entire USA!

Forty outstanding projects from 29 states were in the running for this year’s edition of America’s Transportation Awards, but none could top WSDOT’s I-5 Partnership to Relieve Congestion.

Working with federal, state, local and military leaders at Joint Base Lewis McCord, WSDOT slashed commuter snarls and nasty multi-mile backups by coordinating signals, streamlining interchanges and access points, and sharply reducing incident-response times. 

Washington qualified for the People’s Choice finals by winning top national honors in the Innovative Management for a Small Project category.  But the sweetest victory came this week when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials presented the People’s Choice Award and a $10,000 prize.

Washington won in a landslide. Some 147,000 people cast votes for the 10 finalists in the national competition, and WSDOT netted an astounding 40 percent of the total, winning with 62,000 votes.

The $10,000 award for the top prize will go to the WSDOT Memorial Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving the memory of fallen transportation workers and helping the families of WSDOT employees and retirees.

To learn more visit the America’s Transportation Award website.

Washington likes kids; it’s official

We’re making headlines again! Our state, that is. Five Washington cities were just named to America’s Promise Alliance’s 2011 list of 100 Best Communities for Young People.

The 100 Best Communities for Young People is an annual competition, now in its fifth cycle, that rewards and recognizes communities making extraordinary efforts to reduce dropout rates and provide outstanding services and supports to their youth.

What all the cities included in the list have in common is outstanding success in supporting leadership and programs that supply their kids with all of the Alliance’s 5 Promises:

• Caring Adults 
• Safe Places 
• A Healthy Start 
• Effective Education 
• Opportunities to Help Others

Want more info on how these Washington communities made the list? Click on the links to our winning cities:

Bellevue (5-time winner!)     Greater Spokane

Lakewood            Prosser           Redmond

America’s Promise Alliance, which was founded in 1997, is a cross-sector partnership of more than 400 corporations, nonprofits, faith-based organizations and advocacy groups that have taken on the mission of improving the lives of children across the nation.

Read a great story on why Prosser is among the winners in the Yakima Herald.

The announcement of the 2011 winning communities was webcast October 12, 2011, you can watch it here:

30 minutes on the viaduct. No, it’s not rush hour before an M's game.

Commuters that use the Alaskan Way Viaduct may not find this contest endearing, but the Washington State Department of Transportation wants to let you and up to 24 of your friends have a little celebration on the aging infrastructure.

The winner of the “One Last Shot” contest will get access to the viaduct for 30 minutes on October 22. Using 100 words or less, send your concept of how you’d spend that time to viaduct@wsdot.wa.gov.

The Advance would enter if it weren’t for this video that’s on a mental loop every time the viaduct comes up:

You can find out more on the contest by going to the WSDOT official blog.

And the Legislator of the Year Award from the Farm Bureau goes to…

Our very own Rep. Brian Blake!

The Washington Farm Bureau has been awarding this honor to one or more legislators every year since 1995. Their criteria are based on the lawmaker’s voting record and outstanding actions to help strengthen family farms.
 

This session Blake, chair of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, was chosen by the Bureau for championing funding of the Department of Agriculture and the Conservation Commissions-services critical to the continued success of Washington’s agricultural businesses.
 

We congratulate Rep. Brian Blake for this important recognition!

Read the press release here.

Washington is bullish on renewable energy

Renewable energy? Not to worry. Folks in these parts have it covered. Fact is, we aren't a bit shy when it comes to developing renewable energy. For evidence supporting that very bold assertion, one need look no further than Initiative 937, a measure that stole the hearts of a solid majority of voters here a mere five years back.

Then, too, there's the State Energy Strategy, a collaborative effort championed by a wide range of extraordinary principles. The House Technology, Energy & Communications Committee, chaired by state Rep. John McCoy, has a lead role in this important mission. Voices of the Washington State Department of Commerce, the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission, and other state agencies also feature prominently in putting the Energy Strategy together. Advisory committee members, using input from key stakeholders and private citizens, are working toward development of the 2012 State Energy Strategy which will be submitted for consideration this coming December.

The draft 2012 State Energy Strategy can be yours for the reading at the state Department of Commerce website noted above. In fact, you best be marking your social calendar for a couple of upcoming, very special public meetings called to discuss the Energy Strategy. One meeting is planned 6 to 8, tonight, Oct. 12, in the Vicky L. Carwein Auditorium of the University of Washington Tacoma campus, 1900 Commerce St. A second get-together is set 5 to 7, Thursday evening, Oct. 20, in Academic Center Room 107 of the Washington State University Spokane campus, 412 E. Spokane Falls Blvd.

McCoy's committee will also discuss this titanic issue in its December meeting, with an eye toward developing pertinent energy legislation for review in the 2012 session of the Legislature. The Snohomish County lawmaker said distributed energy encompasses "a range of small power generation and energy-storage technologies that are placed at or near the actual point of energy-consumption."