Saturday Thumbs
Saturday, November 29, 2008 1:19 AM PST
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E-mail this articleNov. 29 Daily News editorial
A plan for success
Thumbs up: The Wahkiakum Family Practice Clinic, which has been a money-loser for cash-starved Wahkiakum County government for several years, now has a path to financial solvency. That’s thanks to the hard work of members of a clinic advisory board, appointed more than a year ago by the Wahkiakum County commissioners
Board members have met weekly since their appointment in August 2007, according to Daily News reporter Cheryll Borgaard, hammering out a 50-page plan to put the clinic on solid financial footing. The plan calls for expanding both the clinic’s building and patient base. Borgaard reports that the eventual goal is to make the clinic profitable and attractive for an outside buyer. Advisory board member David Goodroe believes that goal can be reached by 2010.
The minority rules
Thumbs down: The future of Castle Rock’s library is in doubt. A final tally of votes cast Nov. 4 has the library’s operating levy nine votes short of passage. Nine votes out of 806 cast! And what really makes this levy failure hard to swallow is that 480 of those votes — 59.55 percent — supported the levy. That’s a landslide victory in a political race. But with this library levy, the minority rules.
It’s wrong. A minority of voters shouldn’t be able to deprive the majority of Castle Rock residents the many educational and entertainment benefits a library provides. But that could be the case, if library supporters cannot come up with a way to replace the $42,000 this levy would have provided.
Biting the bullet
Thumbs up to Washington State University President Elson Floyd for saving taxpayers a sizeable chunk of change at his own expense. Floyd asked the WSU Board of Regents to cut his $625,000 annual salary by $100,000 effective Jan. 1. It’s not going to send Floyd to the poor house, but give the man credit for volunteering to give up a significant portion of his pay. The symbolism does matter in these difficult economic times.
We’ll give University of Washington President Mark Emmert a bit of credit, as well. Emmert, who makes a little more than $900,000 a year, volunteered to forego a pay raise. Not quite the sacrifice Floyd is making, but noteworthy.
An end-run around the people
Thumbs down: City officials in Olympia, like their counterparts in just about every other Washington city, are strapped for cash. We understand that, but we still take a dim view of the Olympia City Council’s move this week toward adding a $20 car tab fee to vehicle license renewals.
If the Olympia council took this proposed fee increase to the voters who approved the citizen initiative that lowered the car tab fees, we might view it differently. But that’s not going to happen. Council members are preparing to take advantage of a state law that allows them to add $20 to the fee without a public vote. That’s the easy way to generate more revenue. The problem is that it breaks faith with the voters who turned out almost a decade ago to reduce their car tab fees. Raising those fees in Olympia ought to require the OK of Olympia voters.
northender wrote on Nov 29, 2008 9:10 AM:
rosy wrote on Nov 29, 2008 1:23 PM:
I can't wait to see how you follow up. "
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