Gregg got it all wrong when he attempted to blow smoke up our collective behinds using financial relativity as the basis for his conclusions:
Opinion - Vancouver manager a bargain
Friday, July 22, 2005
GREGG HERRINGTON Columbian staff writer
You heard it here first. Vancouver's city manager is underpaid. What? How could that be? A unanimous city council gave Pat McDonnell a 5 percent raise just last week.
You might think McDonnell's new $135,362 annual pay is generous for a town that doesn't even merit "Vancouver" coffee mugs in its Starbucks stores. But, besides the fine job the council says McDonnell is doing and I'm not disagreeing comparisons can be made that suggest he's underpaid even now.
Or could it be that some other public servants around here are overpaid? Nah. That can't be it. Consider:
. Bill Barron, McDonnell's counterpart in Clark County government, is pulling down $146,520.
. Port of Vancouver Executive Director Larry Paulson gets $155,072 (almost $13,000 of it in deferred compensation) plus a $6,000 car allowance.
. Wayne Nelson, general manger of Clark Public Utilities, who has been getting $165 grand a year plus a $3,900 car allowance, is due for a raise the amount not yet determined retroactive to July 1. Moreover, some employees, who report to Nelson also make more than McDonnell does over at city hall and about the same as Barron, the county administrator. The utility's directors of operations, finance and energy resources each is paid $144,984, and the engineering director gets $138,588. Three other directors are in the $122,000 neighborhood.
The second-highest paid city-government employee, in contrast, is Assistant City Manager Betsy Williams at $117,816, just ahead of the city attorney and the fire and police chiefs.
See, Gregg, you miss the point. ALL of those people, each and every one of them, are WAY overpaid. By far.
As our tax bills continue to skyrocket, perhaps you can remember the mind set that enables people to believe that a city manager making more money then 37 of our US governors is somehow "underpaid."If they wanted to get rich, they should have went into the private sector.
Mark it on your calender. Steve Stuart handed Tom Mielke the election yesterday when he came out in opposition to I-912, the Gas Tax Repeal.
When an issue hits the ballot... and that issue is going to get 60% plus of the vote... if you get in front of it in opposition... you can expect to get run over by it.
Congrats, Steve. We hardly knew ye.
County commissioner candidates spar
Friday, August 5, 2005
By ERIN MIDDLEWOOD, Columbian staff writer
Clark County Commissioner Steve Stuart and his challenger Tom Mielke agreed that growth is the top issue confronting the county at a debate Thursday, but they disagreed on how to tackle the problem.
Mielke pointed out that the county's population has increased by 65 percent since 1990. The county should make room for the kind of influx it's experienced in the past 15 years, or be caught unprepared, he said.
"We failed to plan for that increase in population," Mielke said. "You can't stop growth. We end up finding ourselves on top of each other."
Stuart said he and other commissioners are studying historical development patterns to be more realistic in planning, but that's only the beginning.
"If we're going to be planning for a more realistic growth rate, who's going to pay for it? Is it going to hurt neighborhoods?" he asked. "Where is it going to go?"
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You would have thought, after all these years of fighting terrorist scum, that the Seattle Times would be a little better at parsing words.
Today's editorial, approving the actions of an association of North American Islamic scholars last week "is welcome clarification in the ongoing battle to fight terrorism."
No... it isn't. It is FAR too little... FAR too late. While what was said by this group SEEMS important, what is MOST important is what they DIDN'T say. And the Times either didn't notice, or didn't care that more was left out then was added in.
I was literally stunned that the Times failed to ask the questions needing to be asked in their editorial of support.
Question Number One: The 9/11 attack took place almost FOUR YEARS AGO. What took you so long?
Question Number Two: You tell us:
"Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians' life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram — or forbidden — and those who
commit these barbaric attacks are criminals not 'martyrs.'"
So, in your world, it's just swell that these thugs murder American military members attempting to bring democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq?
Like Sen. Dick Durbin's non-apology over his typically leftist-scum efforts to equate American soldiers with Nazi's, this "fatwa" amounts to nothing, more or less, then eyewash... a sop to the non-muslim masses who they've detected are getting just the tiniest bit restless as a result of the efforts of those murdering clowns in London.
I'm disappointed in the Time's editorial board... a board, as I've indicated on my blog, that I am far more in agreement with than opposed. Clearly, here, they took this thing at face value and ran with it... when going just a little deeper would have clearly shown it for the sham it is.
Thursday, August 4, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Editorial
Welcome news from Muslims
The fatwa — a formal message — issued by an association of North American Islamic scholars last week is welcome clarification in the ongoing battle to fight terrorism.
Not only does it clearly state Islam denounces the terrorism that killed more than 3,000 people in the 9/11 attacks, but it helps clarify the societal debate for non-Muslims tempted to jump to conclusions. Almost four years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a month after the four London bombings that killed dozens, the enemy in the war on terrorism still remains murky. It is too easy to define the enemy by what we know about the culprits: the 9/11 attackers and the London bombers all are Muslim men. But they are more than that. They are fundamentalist radicals, an aberration, but a formidable one. They do not represent Muslims in general. That has been the consistent message of many American Muslims and Islamic scholars.
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Oregon Governor Ted "taxandgougeme" Kulongoski has threatened to sue if Portland Air Force Base is closed.
So, go ahead and sue. Except for wasting millions of Oregon taxpayer dollars, depending on how long he runs out the string, he'll accomplish nothing except to make himself out to be an idiot.
Instead of condemning the Administration decision to close down PAFB, the Governor would be better served if he were to butt heads with Portland Mayor Tom Potter, the nexus for this development as a direct result of his bizarre decision, one in a series of bizarre decisions from the City of Portland over the years, to remove the City of Portland from the regional terror task force.
That action, done in a snit over security clearances, was wholly unmerited and unquestionably a direct threat to the security of this region.
So.... where's the Governor's threat to sue Potter and the City of Portland? Or is it the size of the security threat that gets the Gov's attention?
I live here. I am far more concerned about terrorism and the likelihood of a local terrorist attack, dramatically increased by Potter's irresponsible action in ditching the task force, than I am by any threat that could be intercepted by an F-15 flying at 10,000 feet and 800 MPH.
So go ahead and sue, Governor. But you would be better off to tilt at windmills that you can actually impact.
Governor threatens to sue over air base
8/2/2005, 4:04 p.m. PT
The Associated Press
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Gov. Ted Kulongoski threatened on Tuesday to sue the Department of Defense if the government transfers fighter planes and personnel from the Portland Air National Guard base.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Kulongoski cited federal statutes he said required his consent for such a move. "I do not consent to deactivation, relocation or withdrawal of the 142nd Fighter Wing," he wrote.
"Given Oregon's geographic location and unquestionable need for air superiority in the Pacific Northwest, this recommendation places the entire region at risk if it is accepted," Kulongoski wrote.
"It is my present intention to file a lawsuit in Oregon's federal district court seeking injunctive and declaratory relief to stop the proposed actions."
Under the Pentagon plan, 15 F-15 fighter jets operated by the fighter wing would be transferred from Portland to New Jersey and Louisiana, and eight KC-135 tankers flown by the 939th Air Refueling Wing would go to Oklahoma and Kansas.
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I'm a "no."Smoking killed my parents, contributed to my oldest brother's stroke... and I HATE it.
As a militant nonsmoker, I would not enter a smoking establishment. But as an American, I have concluded that as much as "I" hate smoking and would like to see it disappear, it IS the principle of the thing.This is a classic "slippery-slope" argument. Those here who seek out the ever-growing embrace of a larger, more intrusive government in THIS instance merely encourage it to expand in OTHER areas of "public health," or "public safety."So, next year, the initiative will be fast food. And then, the year after that, alcohol. Next, we can look forward to a ban on even legal racing. Next up might be lawn fertilizer. And did you know the car wash people have been pushing legislation for years that would make it illegal for us to wash our cars at home? I mean, can an initiative be far behind?All of these activities, to a greater or lesser extent, cause harm. All of them are now legal activities. All of them are voluntary. And all of them are subject to become banned conduct… and our approval of THIS initiative will only bring on these and OTHER efforts to regulate our conduct. I am sick of government “saving us from ourselves.” And I’m not happy when ultra-liberals subvert the process to accomplish the same thing. I would hope that those in the middle and on the right recognize this for what it is: the removal of yet more of our rights.
