Archives for May 2009

Over on Slog, Paul Constant remarks on how sadly difficult it is for conservative critics like the execrable Jonah Goldberg to put  politics aside and just enjoy Star Trek for what is, and it reminded me of my only real conversation with Michael Medved.

We were chatting about holiday films, and while we both agreed that it was beautifully animated, it turns out we equally hated the film Happy Feet.  Medved, who of course originally made his name as a movie reviewer, went on and on about the film’s preachy, environmental message, complaining about the unproven science of global warming, and how the movie distorted facts to its young audience. I, who made my name as a political crackpot, complained about the movie’s boring, meandering, and disjointed script.

It turns out that Medved hated Happy Feet because of its message, while I just hated it because it was a crappy movie.  Huh.

Speaking of performance audits, somebody should conduct one on the Seattle Times editorial board, who in the absence of competition from the Seattle P-I, seems all the more eager to just make stuff up as they go along.

The authority for performance audits was created by the people, through initiative. Legislators did not do it, and were never going to do it. Key legislators did not want to elevate Sonntag into a power that could affect their programs.

Yeah, but the problem is, the Legislature did pass performance audit legislation back in 2005, by a 75-22 margin in the House, 30-19 in the Senate, some three months before I-900 even qualified for the ballot.  And while it didn’t give the State Auditor the autocratic control and dedicated funding source of I-900, Brian Sonntag and his office enthusiastically supported the bill at the time, testifying on its behalf.

I know.  So did I.

Quibble if you want over the details of which legislation was more effective—one that gave the Auditor sole discretion over which agency gets audited, or one that has the priorities and agenda set by a Citizens Advisory Board—the Legislature did in fact give up JLARC’s control over performance audits, and it did so by an overwhelming margin.

Furthermore, the very notion that performance audits would never take place without a dedicated funding source and an all powerful Auditor, totally ignores reality.  Indeed, 23 performance audits were conducted at WSDOT alone, between 1991 and I-900’s passage in 2005.  23!

Performance Audits at WSDOT: Inventory (as of April 2005)

• Washington State Ferries (WSF) Vessel Construction Audit, Booz Allen, 1991
• Environmental Organization Study, WSDOT, Transportation Commission, 1994
• Environmental Cost Savings and Permit Coordination Study, Legislative Transportation Committee, 1994
• Procurement Audit WSF, Federal Audit, 1995
• Department of Transportation Highways and Rail Programs Performance Audit, Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC), 1998
• Department of Transportation Ferry System Performance Audit, JLARC, 1998
• Public Private Initiatives Audit, Transportation Commission, 1999
• WSF Risk Assessment, Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation 1999
• Standards Review Team Report to Governor Locke, Transportation Commission, 2000
• Triennial Review WSF, Federal Audit, 2000
• Performance Audit of the Washington State Ferry System Capital Program, Office of Financial Management, 2001
• Washington State Legislature’s Joint Task Force on Ferries, 2001
• Washington State Ferry System Capital Program, OFM-Talbot, 2002
• WSDOT Aviation Division Study, JLARC, August, 2002
• Statewide Agency Capital Construction Practices (limited scope performance audit), OFM – KPMG, January, 2003
• Statewide Agency Performance Assessment, OFM-KPMG, January, 2003
• Personal Services and Purchased Services Contracting, (limited scope performance audit), OFM, January, 2003
• Department of Transportation Highways and Ferries Programs Performance Measure Review , TPAB-Dye Management Inc (November 2004)
• Department of Transportation Capital Project Management Pre-audit, TPAB-JLARC: Gannet-Fleming (January 2005)
• Environmental Permitting for Transportation Projects Pre-audit, TPAB-JLARC (January 2005)
• Business Process Review of Environmental Permitting for Transportation Projects, TPAB-JLARC; currently underway, April 2005
• Business Process Review of Accountability Oversight Mechanisms and Project Reporting for WSDOT TPAB-JLARC, April 2005
• Review of Port Angeles Graving Dock Project TPAB-JLARC; planned as of April 2005

And those are just the pre-900 performance audits at a single state agency; that list doesn’t include the regular (but much less sexy) financial audits that have always been the primary responsibility of the State Auditor’s Office.  Which raises another serious question about the Times editorial and the media coverage of this issue in general:  if the Times actually understands the difference between a “performance audit” and a “financial audit,” they don’t seem willing to share that information with their readers.

They may both have the word “audit” in their name, but performance and financial audits are not the same thing.  The latter is an objective endeavor conducted according to commonly accepted accounting standards.  If a financial audit finds that there is $90 million missing on the books, somebody surely needs to be fired and/or prosecuted.

But a performance audit is a much more subjective, complex and less exact affair that may include the following elements:

(i) Identification of programs and services that can be eliminated, reduced, consolidated, or enhanced;

(ii) Identification of funding sources to the state agency, to programs, and to services that can be eliminated, reduced, consolidated, or enhanced;

(iii) Analysis of gaps and overlaps in programs and services and recommendations for improving, dropping, blending, or separating functions to correct gaps or overlaps;

(iv) Analysis and recommendations for pooling information technology systems used within the state agency, and evaluation of information processing and telecommunications policy, organization, and management;

(v) Analysis of the roles and functions of the state agency, its programs, and its services and their compliance with statutory authority and recommendations for eliminating or changing those roles and functions and ensuring compliance with statutory authority;

(vi) Recommendations for eliminating or changing statutes, rules, and policy directives as may be necessary to ensure that the agency carry out reasonably and properly those functions vested in the agency by statute;

(vii) Verification of the reliability and validity of agency performance data, self-assessments, and performance measurement systems as required under RCW 43.88.090;

(viii) Identification of potential cost savings in the state agency, its programs, and its services;

(ix) Identification and recognition of best practices;

(x) Evaluation of planning, budgeting, and program evaluation policies and practices;

(xi) Evaluation of personnel systems operation and management;

(xii) Evaluation of state purchasing operations and management policies and practices; and

(xiii) Evaluation of organizational structure and staffing levels, particularly in terms of the ratio of managers and supervisors to nonmanagement personnel.

A thorough financial audit requires an accountant, but to achieve its intended goal a performance audit requires professionals with some degree of familiarity and expertise in the functions being audited (that’s why, lacking such broad expertise in house, Sonntag contracts out performance audits to private firms), and perhaps most importantly, the full cooperation of the agency being audited.

Did a performance audit really uncover $90 million in wasteful spending at the Port of Seattle?  Maybe. Hell, knowing the way the Port had been run, the auditors likely even missed a lot of potential savings.  But these findings aren’t worth much more than a bullet point in a slanted editorial if the target agency perceives the audit as an adversarial process, and thus resists both the auditors and their recommendations.

Oh… and as for this hypocritical piece of tired, old rhetoric:

Under cover of recession, they have now erased the people’s vote on Initiative 900 and hobbled the auditor’s office.

The Times has no problem defunding the teachers pay and class size initiatives, and has advocated in favor of gutting I-937’s overwhelmingly popular renewable energy requirements.  But “the people’s vote on Initiative 900” should somehow be inviolable?  Gimme a fucking break.

I don’t see the Times shedding even crocodile tears for the tens of thousands of Washingtonians who will be denied basic health care under the recently passed draconian budget, or for the thousands of students who now won’t find a slot in our state colleges and universities.  But force Sonntag to put off for a couple years yet another audit of Sound Transit, and we get an editorial crying for Gov. Gregoire to whip out her veto pen.

Personally, I’m a big supporter of performance audits.  I blogged extensively on the subject in 2005, and slogged down to Olympia to testify on their behalf.  (I also blogged and testified on behalf of performance audits for tax exemptions, a good government measure the Times couldn’t give a shit about.)  But unlike the Times, I understand their limits.

Budgets are all about priorities.  And if Sonntag really believes that investing in education or preventative health care produces less of a long term financial return to the state than investing in performance audits, he should save up his pennies and conduct the next performance audit on himself.

Aneurin catches a Forbes article about Spokane. It’s um, not flattering, unless being called “the scam capital of America” is a compliment.

So while it’s a little strange that people might eat less pork because the words “swine flu” have been in the news lately, it’s kind of pathetic to see Food Network host and Smithfield pork spokesperson Paula Deen putting out a news release like this:

“You know y’all, the Secretary of Agriculture has said it’s safe to eat pork,” said Deen, restaurateur, best-selling author and the host of “Paula’s Home Cooking” and “Paula’s Party” on the Food Network. “You can eat all the pork you want. You are not going to catch the flu from eating pork.”

After witnessing what she calls myths and misinformation surrounding the safety of pork, Deen was moved to speak out on the subject. She decided to make her views public when she considered the hardship many were experiencing due to a misunderstanding regarding pork safety.

“There’s a lot of people that’s been affected by this,” Deen said. “It also affects our pork farmers, our truck drivers, our grocery stores. It affects the whole economy.”

Oh, for crying out loud. The pork industry has been the biggest WATB’s about the swine flu thing, and in the best traditions of American corporate culture have set the PR hacks to busily spinning away, going so far as to insist traditional media outlets not use the term “swine flu.” Which is flat out ridiculous.

Say, what about the workers, citizens and consumers affected in other ways by Smithfield? From a 2006 Rolling Stone article:

A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. The reason it is so toxic is Smithfield’s efficiency. The company produces 6 billion pounds of packaged pork each year. That’s a remarkable achievement, a prolificacy unimagined only two decades ago, and the only way to do it is to raise pigs in astonishing, unprecedented concentrations.

A lot of consumer disgust isn’t being caused by flu fears, it’s being caused by disgust at how food is produced and handled. To be fair, Smithfield is just one corporation, albeit a giant corporation with operations in the United States, Mexico and Europe.

Whether you eat meat or not, everyone is impacted in some way by the flaws in our food production and safety system. The Peanut Corporation of American salmonella cases showed that. You’d think giant corporations concerned about profits would realize that until proper safeguards are put in place, and safe, humane production techniques become the norm, any part of the food sector is vulnerable to being rejected by consumers. Ask the tomato growers in Florida or the beef producers hammered by mad cow and e-coli scares.

Making dinner shouldn’t be an exercise in bio-hazard management. At some point consumers will rebel to the point that changes in the entire system happen, it’s just a matter of time.

Putting out celebrity news releases instead of dealing with underlying consumer concerns is laughable.

When I started obsessively plugging a high-earners income tax during the last session, I was publicly and privately informed that I was absolutely nuts.  Washington state voters would never approve an income tax in any form, I was told, and so it was futile, if not downright counterproductive, to even attempt to start the conversation.  One state lawmaker even went so far as to privately congratulate me for cementing my reputation as a “political crackpot.”

Well… if I’m a crackpot, it looks like I’m not the only one, for in an unsigned editorial today in The Olympian, our state capital’s paper of record takes up the challenge, warning that “Hesitance to rethink taxes will bite lawmakers.”

The need for tax reform is long overdue.

That effort has to come from Gov. Chris Gregoire and legislative leaders. They simply must engage the public in a constructive conversation about this state’s overreliance on property and sales taxes and how the missing third leg of the stool — an income tax — is necessary to level out the revenue peaks and valleys that this state constantly experiences.

Of course, one way to effectively start this conversation would be to use the coming special session to put a high-earners income tax on the November ballot.  Some might call that a crackpot idea.  I prefer to think of it as leadership.

University of Washington faculty members may be organized, but they’re not unionized, a circumstance that may change in the wake of deep budget and program cuts at our state’s premier university.

As you set about making drastic cuts to the programs you have worked so hard to build and maintain, the thought may cross your mind: However we are advocating for the UW in Olympia now, has failed. AAUP-UW invites you to consider whether and how a unionized UW faculty could be a stronger voice, not only for ourselves, but for the institution to which we are so committed.

That was from American Association of University Professors UW Chapter President Janelle Taylor, in an email inviting members to attend a panel discussion, “Faculty Unionization: Does It Make Sense for Us?”, next Tuesday, 4:30PM at the UW Club.  Panelists will include Prof. Lisa Klein of Rutgers University, and Prof. William Lyne of Western Washington University, “both of whom have extensive experience with faculty unionization.”

The message I keep hearing from university faculty is that it takes years and years, and a substantial financial investment, to build a successful academic program… but it only takes a single stroke of a red ink to destroy it.  No wonder resistance to unionization appears to be wearing thin in the face of unprecedented cuts.

From yesterday’s Danny Westneat column about how opponents of gay civil rights are rather discouraged.

“Voters are immune or desensitized to the word ‘gay marriage’ right now. Besides, they think we hate them,” wrote Josephine Wentzel, a Vancouver-area Christian conservative.

I wonder how anyone ever gets that idea?

Social conservatives should have hope, though, because I am developing a web site and program to cure social conservatism, which is, in the end, a lifestyle choice.

All this progress towards equal rights, and my marriage is STILL NOT THREATENED. Weird, huh? I was pretty scared there for a while that my wife would leave me because gay folks could visit each other in the hospital.

I did give my wife a silver ring, but she prefers diamonds. I’m done listening to these people, they can’t even give decent jewelry advice.

The Franklin County Republican Central Committee censured State Rep. Maureen Walsh (R-16) on Tuesday, for her vote in favor of HB 1727, the recently signed domestic partnership bill.  A party press release accuses Walsh of “stripping traditional marriage of its meaning,” and gives official “NOTICE” that she no longer represents “the values of the Franklin County Republican Party.”

But what really happened at Tuesday’s FCRCC meeting?  Jimmy at McCranium reports:

Once source tells me it was more like mob rule than a meeting when a group consisting largely of evangelicals led by Nicole Prasch and Brenda High (complete with a area representative from Focus on the Family) pressured for a censure vote (Ok… censure… exactly what does that even accomplish?).

This isn’t good for Franklin County moderate Republicans who like many others, are increasingly coming around to the understanding that civil unions are not the great threat (or the best platform issue) they had been led to believe.

Looks like that Republican big tent just got a little smaller.

It’s a Cinco de Mayo edition of the podcast, and the panel is joined by Seattle City Council candidate David Ginsberg. Goldy puts the candidate in the hot seat and (using only DOJ-approved interrogation methods) extracts from Mr. Ginsberg his real reasons for running.

There is also a race coming up for King County Executive, and a new poll puts former Discovery Institute Fellow Susan Hutchison way out in front with 20%. Does this poll bode well for a candidate who beats the competition, hands down, with 62% name recognition? The conversation then meanders to transit for the Puget Sound region. Goldy wonders about a new rumor that Sound Transit wants to electrocute the I-90 floating bridge.

In the other Washington there is a forthcoming nomination to the Supreme Court, and the Republicans are ready to demonize and block just about anyone nominated by Obama. Can they succeed? Will they succeed? Listen and learn!

Goldy was joined by Seattle City Council candidate David Ginsberg, Peace Tree Farm’s N in Seattle, Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard, and Seattle Transit Blog’s Andrew Smith.

The show is 44:50, and is available here as an MP3

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_may_5_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0[/youtube]

[via Demo Kid]

A few days back I suggested that newspaper publishers should take personal responsibility for their own bad business decisions, arguing that as poor as industry fundamentals may be, it’s the mountain of highly leveraged debt, not operating losses, that threatens to crush many of our daily newspapers.  And as an example, I pointed to two of Washington’s most prominent struggling dailies.

While the whole industry is struggling, the financial precariousness of some of our most threatened papers is at least partially due to the awful business decisions of their owners, in particular, the incredibly over-leveraged position they find themselves in as a result of ill-advised acquisitions and other bone-headed ventures.

For The Columbian, it was the construction of a new $40 million office tower that landed a shrunken newsroom back in its old digs, and publisher Scott Campbell in bankruptcy court.  For The Times, it was Frank Blethen’s ill-fated foray into the Maine media market that has left him with a couple hundred million dollars of debt coming due, and no obvious means of raising more capital.  Both papers are currently losing money on their daily operations, but neither would be struggling to survive this particular recession if the bankers weren’t pounding at their doors.

As usual, my trolls took issue with my analysis, arguing that I was bucking conventional wisdom simply to take another potshot at my friends at The Seattle Times. Uh-huh. So I’m guessing they’ll probably be disappointed to read the unsigned editorial in today’s Times, that picks up on my basic premise in arguing that the bankruptcy of the Columbian is “different” than that of debt-laden giants like The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Los Angeles Times:

Like every newspaper, the Columbian’s advertising revenue has been whacked by the recession. Unlike larger companies such as Philadelphia and Tribune, the Columbian’s push into Chapter 11 does not stem from a debt-laden purchase of newspapers.

The Campbell family, three-generation owners of the Columbian, took on debt to help revitalize downtown Vancouver by constructing a new building. The newspaper quickly moved back to its old building because of the recession. Now Bank of America is calling in its loan of about $17 million — a pittance compared to what other newspaper companies owe.

What makes the Columbian’s plight so sad is that Southwest Washington could lose its dominant news provider because Bank of America is apparently not willing to work with the company. This is a newspaper that in ordinary times would be doing well and will likely do well after the recession.

Forget for a moment the Times’ effort to spin the Campbell’s ill-fated real estate speculation as an act of civic engagement; what’s important here is that The Times acknowledges my core thesis… that it is debt, not operating losses, that threatens both the Columbian and its larger cousins.  The Times also confirms that it was the construction of its new/old headquarters that ultimately pushed the Columbian into bankruptcy, not the Great Recession, or the fundamental weakness of the newspaper industry itself.

Of course, what we don’t see from the Times is a mention of their own poor business decisions, or an admission that they and their friends at the Columbian should take any personal responsibility for the current sorry state of their respective family businesses.  On the contrary, the Times paints evil, Bank of America as the bogeyman for demanding that the Campbells actually make good on their debt, according to the terms contractually promised.

The Times solution to The Columbian’s mismanagement of their own finances?  Appeal to gov’ment to force BoA to renegotiate the loan.

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing today about the future of journalism. This hearing and the Columbian’s plight should grab the attention of the governor, the state Legislature and our federal delegation.

The time is right for politicians, journalists and the public to start working toward preserving an independent press.

One can’t help but wonder if this is a preview of the arguments the Times will make on its own behalf should it seek bankruptcy protection later this year… that the government should use its bailout accrued leverage to force financial institutions to renegotiate terms with struggling newspapers, in the interest of preserving an independent press?

Irony aside, I’m not necessarily opposed to the government doing exactly that.  It would be a shame to see Southwest Washington lose its only major daily, just as much as it would for Seattle to become our nation’s largest no-newspaper town.

But as a condition of any such government-brokered bailout, I’d want to see a genuine public admission from the likes of the Blethens and the Campbells of their own culpability in their respective paper’s near demise—not out of vindictiveness or a craving for public humiliation, or even the hope that acknowledging their own plight might moderate their editors’ demands for less government and more personal responsibility—but because self awareness is the first step to recovery.  For the most effective thing we can do to prevent newspaper publishers from repeating their own mistakes of the past fifteen years is to force them to admit these mistakes to themselves… something the Times, if today’s bankers-as-villains editorial is any indication, simply isn’t ready to do.

The SPD will be cracking down on crosswalk violations this summer. Let me sidestep the usual “stupid pedestrians” versus “stupid drivers” argument and say that I like being safe in a crosswalk as much as the next guy, but I can understand how difficult it is for a driver to safely get through a crosswalk, especially at a “left turn” situation.

But that’s not why I’m posting this. Guess who they nailed in one of their stings?

Seattle driver Peter Sherwin, a former monorail activist, got ticketed on Stone Way North and says he’ll dispute the $124 fine. He said his view was obstructed by a parked SUV and that he had only 60 feet to react once the decoy, a woman wearing white, stepped off the curb.

“There was no way, at the point when I saw her, that I could stop, without being through the crosswalk,” said Sherwin.

But what really ices the cake is this:

Sherwin wondered why the stings aren’t more publicized. “This isn’t producing safety. This is producing revenue,” he said.

Because if anyone knows revenue, it’s one of those monorail guys, right?

Nation confronts crisis of severely chapped hands after a week of sanitizer use, lotion titans rejoice.

Please join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier for dinner.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyF3na7H0Aw[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 328 chapters of Drinking Liberally spread across the earth.