19th District legislators to hold tele-town hall meeting

Tomorrow night residents of the 19^th Legislative District will have the chance to ask their legislative members questions without leaving their homes.

On the evening of Tuesday, April 17^th, Rep. Dean Takko, D-Longview, Rep. Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, and Sen. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond, will take part in a telephone town hall meeting.  Residents of the district will receive a phone call at or around 6 p.m., asking if they would like to participate in the live event.  Those who do will have the chance to join thousands of their fellow constituents in directly asking the members questions or sharing concerns they have for the 19^th District and the state.

Constituents who do not receive a phone call may participate in the meeting simply by calling 1-877-229-8493 and entering the ID code (PIN) number 18646 when prompted.

New Washington state law helps people who help people who are vision-impaired or hearing-impaired

This one's all about helping folks who help other folks.

Very recently signed into new Washington law, a revised state policy limits a potential liability of charitable organizations (such as the Lions, for instance). The liability could possibly rear its head when groups provide previously owned eyeglasses or hearing instruments to people who could really use that helping hand. State Rep. Dean Takko sponsored this measure in this year's regular session. The goal here? It's simply to make sure these organizations can proceed with their good public service of recycling health-assistance devices that offer so many people a better, more rewarding quality of life.

Photo credit: Lonedoe

You see, here’s the thing: Previous Washington law (the "Good Samaritan Act") held that people who render care at an emergency (as long as these people don't expect any compensation for their “Good Samaritan” act) have immunity from liability in any lawsuits that might be considered against them. The law has been strengthened over the years. Specifically, immunity is assured for physicians and other health-care providers volunteering health-care services with nonprofit organizations or with for-profit groups that regularly provide services to uninsured people.

Services must be given without payment or expectation of payment in order for the immunity-protection to apply. These immunity provisions don't protect people from lawsuits brought against them for gross negligence.

Here's a little history lesson, good Blogsters. Back in 1925, Helen Keller delivered a stirring, inspiring keynote address at that year’s Lions International Convention. Among the points Keller hammered home that day, she challenged Lions "to become Knights of the Blind in the crusade against darkness.” Lions all over the world answered Helen Keller's challenge. In fact, upward of 200,000 pairs of used, good-quality eyeglasses are distributed every year around the nation to folks who are vision-impaired.

To read this story in Spanish, click here.

Investing in our communities with tax-dollar funded jobs

Detractors of state government sure love talking about how our government can't create jobs, only inhibit job growth. But, as the Seattle Times reports today, maybe they should check with the residents of Aberdeen, who are more than happy to welcome state-funded jobs constructing the components of a 520 bridge replacement, which have replaced the dwindling timber industry jobs in the area. Smart investments of tax dollars are bolstering new industries in high-demand fields, and bolstering communities hard hit by the recession.   

Excerpt:

"In a county that has limped along with a 13 percent unemployment rate, one of the highest in the state, the $367 million contract to build the pontoons — some as long as a football field and weighing 11,000 tons each — is pumping new life into a once-thriving timber town that fell on hard times and stayed that way for years.

The pontoon project will produce 300 union-wage jobs over several years. While it's not the only burst of recent good news for Aberdeen, it's clearly the most visible...

The project has meant nothing but good news to Aberdeen.

"The restaurants are ecstatic to have them here," Mayor Bill Simpson said. "People always knock down Grays Harbor County, but I see it as a booming area, doing better and better all the time."

Merchants agree.

"It's bringing a lot of smiling faces," said Dave TerBush, who works for Home Depot. "It's all positive for the harbor. We've been discovered."

Added Deanna Russell, owner of Teri's Steakhouse, which opened about a year ago downtown: "It has done nothing but boost the economy, a real plus to the community."

Our own representative, Dean Takko from Longview, is also quoted with regards to the booming business at the nearby port, which is exporting Chryslers and biodiesel made in America. "If you would have told me five years ago we'd be exporting cars to China out of Grays Harbor, I would have said you're crazy. It's huge. The biodiesel plant is running at 100 percent capacity."

Transportation leaders roll through North Central Washington

Led by state Rep. Judy Clibborn, the Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee (JTC) is getting an up-close and personal view of Wenatchee and other North Central Washington communities.  The two-day visit is part of a series of tours that are giving leaders a first-hand look at transportation needs and opportunities of communities across Washington.

“These tours are helping us to see the transportation challenges of every part of our state with open minds and a bipartisan spirit,” said Rep. Clibborn, who chairs the House Transportation Committee and is this year’s presiding co-chair of the JTC.

Clibborn added that “Washington has been well-served by cooperative leadership on transportation issues and budgets, and we need this healthy cooperation to continue as we set priorities and face the challenges ahead.”.

The two-day tour is taking Democratic and Republican transportation leaders—including State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond—through Monroe, Stevens Pass, Leavenworth, Wenatchee, Quincy, Ephrata, Moses Lake, Othello and Ellensburg. 

At Stevens Pass, Reps. Judy Clibborn and Dean Takko took a look at a new electric-car charging station.

To learn more, take a look at the articles on the tour in the Ellensburg Daily Record and the Othello Outlook

Mr. Speaker, Point of Personal Cuteness

Today is Children's Day at the state capital. So enjoy some photos of our caucus members getting a dose of their children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and those they miss back home as they toil away in Olympia.

Forestry-jobs measure all set for gubernatorial love

Yes, there’s still plenty of heavy lifting to do in the 2010 Legislature. There’s cumbersome iron to pump in these parts, for sure. The worldwide financial, uh, poop took years to really hit the fan, after all.

But at least one big economic-development task is about to be wiped clean from the must-do chalkboard. A key timber bill prime-sponsored by Rep. Dean Takko navigated the state-capital obstacle course sans a single opposing vote. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously passed Takko’s House Bill 2541 in this year’s regular session – and the governor is poised to sign it. Takko pointed out that his prime-sponsored legislation directs the state Department of Natural Resources to write landowner-conservation plans that support forest landowners. These proposals must be submitted by Dec. 31, 2011.

The bill will provide the kind of conservation incentives needed for defending timber jobs, public resources, and private, working forestland. Takko said the prime directive of the legislation is to fashion a collaborative approach that balances job-protection with protection for the environment.

“Our state has lost 16 pulp mills just in the past five years,” said the Longview Democrat, who represents southwestern Washington’s 19th Legislative District. “We’ve seen thousands of workers thrown out of a job. We need to help private foresters maintain land and continue to move wood products. This bill looks both to keep the timber industry economically viable and to explore opportunities for protecting the environment.”

Rep. Lynn Kessler, who joined Takko in co-sponsoring the bill, observed that many rural communities rely upon a healthy forest-products industry. Timber dollars support small businesses; they support local schools,” Kessler said. “When the industry is stable, these communities thrive.”

Mark Doumit, Executive Director of the Washington Forest Protection Association, said that “we greatly appreciate Representative Takko’s leadership on this legislation. He and other legislators recognize that in order for working forests to continue to protect our environment and provide tens of thousands of jobs in our state, we need to focus on ways to make owning forestland economically viable. The alternative is conversion and permanent loss of those lands.”

The forest-products industry is Washington's second largest manufacturing sector, providing nearly 45,000 direct jobs and almost 100,000 indirect jobs. The Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers also supported the bill in committee testimony.

Takko’s bill recognizes the importance of emerging ecosystem services markets and places emphasis on accessing capital to finance ecosystem services. The legislation also requires the Department of Natural Resources to develop a report on conservation incentives to protect, restore and maintain the ecological values that the public enjoys. We’re talking specifically about recreation, clean water, renewable energy, carbon storage and habitat for fish and wildlife.