Trains and boats and planes

Those who are unquestionably opposed to immigration are against what made America the greatest country and economic power in the world. The United States is the world’s grand experiment. We are the first Democracy to achieve super power status without a common gene pool. All of our ancestors arrived here boat, plane and land bridge. Although I have historically respected the opinion of Lou Dobbs, his stance on immigration is not in this nation’s best interest. Those who work to shut the doors of immigration, do so without regard to our future economic growth and prosperity.

According to the Wall Street Journal article “Some States Seek Integration Path for Immigrants” by Miriam Jordan, “The U.S. has absorbed a record number of immigrants since 1990, mainly from Latin America, Asia and Africa. The country is now home to about 38 million legal immigrants and 12 million undocumented immigrants. An additional 31 million people are children of immigrants.”

The Federation For American Immigration Reform reports that King County has 268,00 immigrants which make up 15% of our population.

Is immigration good for the economy? The Federal government thinks so. President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors issued a 2007 report that concluded, “Our review of economic research finds immigrants not only help fuel the Nation’s economic growth, but also have an overall positive effect on the income of native-born workers.” The Federal Reserve Board in Dallas, TX concluded the pace of recent U.S. economic growth would have been impossible without immigration.

The National Academy of the Sciences also found that “Immigration produces substantial economic benefits for the United States as a whole…”

Bill Gates, the most successful businessman and philanthropist in history, also agrees with the Federal assessments on the benefits of immigration. One only needs to read his persuasive Washington Post Op-Ed “How to Keep America Competitive” .

Professor Gordon H. Hanson of the University of California, San Diego studied immigration through the lens of economics for the Council on Foreign Relations. The report, “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration,” concludes, “By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration…stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy—a finding that calls into question many of the proposals to increase funding for border protection.”

The same positive economic growth can be said of illegal immigration. “Illegal workers: good for U.S. economy”.

The National Immigration Law Center also reported that the National Academy of Sciences found that tax payments generated by immigrants outweigh any costs associated with services used by immigrants. Undocumented immigrants contribute to the tax rolls and the Social Security Trust Fund. The U.S. Social Security Administration has estimated that undocumented immigrants contribute approximately $8.5 billion in Social Security and Medicare funds each year. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has determined that undocumented immigrants paid almost $50 billion in federal taxes from 1996 to 2003.

The Governors of the states cited in the Wall Street Journal article (including our own Governor Chris Gregoire) who encourage both increasing legal immigrants and providing pathways to citizenship for others, will insure their states are the winning economies of the 21st Century. The data is conclusive. It is time to stop arguing. In this globally competitive economy let us unabashedly embrace immigration as a gift to the next seven generations.

If I had a hammer

Ron Sims in the garden

In my days as a college student, protester and demonstrator I recall the song, if “I had a Hammer”. My favorite verse was ” I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land.” It was a call to overcome the deep divisions that haunted the times. Well much has changed since that period. And, much still needs to be done.

Over the last several years I began gardening (great stress relief), my brother in-law remodeled my mother’s home, and my wife, Cayan, began making numerous minor home repairs (she is really good at it). Like so many others we purchased our supplies and tools at the big box hardware stores. One can’t help noticing the day laborers that wait for someone to hire them. Evidently, contractors and others could efficiently buy both supplies and hire laborers at the same place. But this year seemed different. A sagging economy reduced the need for these workers. So, laborers, many Latino, seemed to be waiting for longer periods of time to be hired. Far too often, you could see the desperation in their faces and body language.

People waiting for a day job are more often the visual of a developing country. Or, they make headlines as a member of China’s migratory day job labor force, which is the largest in the world. The plight of this workforce is legendary and human rights activists have criticized China’s handling of their living and working conditions.

So, I was so pleased that the City of Los Angeles adopted an ordinance to establish regulatory standards for the treatment of day laborers. Those big box stores must provide them with shelter, bathrooms, drinking water, and trash cans. I wish King County government could follow suit. But there are no big box hardware stores within our jurisdiction of unincorporated King County. We live in the greatest nation in the world.

Contrast Los Angeles with the elected leaders of Hendon, Virginia. They closed down their day labor center and are intent on adopting regulations that will make Hendon inhospitable to day laborers. Their town officials want to step up police activity and zoning enforcement where the workers gather, ban carryout alcoholic beverage sales downtown and remove the pay phones that the workers use to call their home countries. According to the Washington Post, they want to “institute a permitting process for homeowners to rent out rooms, in hopes of reducing the number of workers living in crowded conditions. They also want to confiscate bicycles — a common mode of transport for the workers — that are parked illegally in public places.” The racism that surrounds this issue in Herndon is evidenced by Town Councilman’s Dennis Husch, who proposed the new rules, who says “I’m getting a lot of pressure from my constituents to do something about those 30 guys standing on the street all the time… I got an e-mail from a lady that lives on the west end of Alabama Drive talking about how scared she was, how afraid she was to go out at night or to go out during the daytime because of the men just hanging out. ..”

How we treat day laborers and migrants can represent either the best or the worst in us. To deprive an individual of shelter, water, and a sanitary environment and intimidate them with police is so very wrong. Or we can see them for what they are: hardworking individuals chasing and sustaining the American Dream.

We must set the highest standards for the treatment of people, especially in a world that all too often forgets to. We must remind ourselves and each other that being humane is what separates us from other living things.

Well I’ve got a hammer

And I’ve got a bell

And I’ve got a song to sing

All over this land

It’s the hammer of justice

It’s the bell of freedom

It’s the song about love between my brothers and my sisters All over this land…

Related links:

• Lyrics to Hammer Song
• LA City Council article
• Herndon Could Tighten Screws On Day Laborers
• State farm workers face low quality of life, study find
• As Unrest Rises, China Broadens Workers’ Rights
• Hundreds of migrant workers riot in east China

Stop in the name of love

Puget Sound

…before you break my heart, think it over … seems to be the tune that the Puget Sound, Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are singing to cities and counties. The tune will make it to the top of our charts but it may not be the tune of our choice.

The Puget Sound is not a local stream, river, or lake. It is a single marvelous ecosystem with a water body that has 1,864 miles of coastline that encompasses 18,000 square miles of watersheds. Ten thousand rivers and steams empty into it. It has countless avian, terrestrial, and marine species. Four million Washingtonians live within its still well forested basins.

Now, many new and old voices are expressing concern about the health of the Sound. Some believe we still have a chance to save it, others believe we’re too late. Recently the state’s Pollution Control Hearings Board in a seventy-page ruling ordered DOE to develop and enforce rules that will protect the Sound by requiring significant, almost radical, changes in how cities and counties are built and grow.

The City of Seattle, King County Wastewater, and DOE are expecting EPA to initiate Clean Water Act enforcement actions. This would require investments by the City of Seattle and King County’s Wastewater division to control combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges into Lake Washington and the Puget Sound. These will cost Seattle ratepayers at least one to two billion dollars and Metro’s Wastewater possibly several hundred million dollars more.

But the question is not if we’re going to spend these funds, it is where they should be spent. All of these efforts are supposed to recover the Puget Sound. The elephant in the room is will they? Some clearly will, many others won’t. Quite frankly, we’re going to have to venture way outside our comfort zones for a solution that creates fewer problems than it solves.

The CSO dilemma is the most intriguing and the most disappointingly predictable. As usual, we will likely be required to expend lots of money to reduce local impacts upon the Sound without determining how that money should best be spent for the recovery of Puget Sound. Those who wish to protect the status quo will use age old arguments; regulators don’t allow for innovation; it will be impossible to harmonize the federal, and state approach; stakeholders are leery and often hostile of change; enforce existing laws; no one trusts scientists or the science; we should leave these decisions to the policy makers (politicians); my good projects wouldn’t qualify for funding; my great projects wouldn’t be prioritized; this would remove local capacity building (no pork); local dollars should be spent locally (pork in my backyard only); and, the status quo may not work well, but it is better than nothing. In large part, this is why the Sound will likely remain on life support for generations to come. Or, government will probably be forced to enable a substantial tax increase to finance the priorities that would actually make the Puget Sound healthier.

So, I posed a question to the staff and scientists of our King County’s Department of Natural Resources and Parks (DNRP). How can we align our resources to do what is best for Puget Sound? Now, this group of individuals has a well-earned reputation for being thoughtfully aggressive on environmental issues. Sometimes, this makes others uncomfortable, but this risk-taking has produced cutting-edge work that is well recognized for its excellence here and abroad. In a recent meeting they reduced my question to its essence; what if science ruled the day, what would we do?

You cannot break the Sound into small manageable pieces or fit it into silos that traditional enforcement approaches always require us to use. First DNRP staff recommends a watershed trading system that could redirect money to projects or programs to achieve a greater benefit for Puget Sound. Using CSO as an example, a particular CSO location could be measured for existing pollutant loading. In lieu of building the CSO project the owner of the CSO could solicit alternatives that must achieve a higher level of pollutant reduction and greater environmental benefit. They also proposed the owner of the CSO would be relieved of controlling the CSO if the agency paid for the alternative benefit. This is a cap and trade model similar to those being proposed to reduce the growth of emissions that are causing Global Warming. I must note, that in subsequent discussions this position was modified. These CSO projects of less benefit would only be deferred and credit for investing in higher priority projects would be established.

Secondly, they would establish a single governing authority for the Sound. This would reduce the myriad agencies responsible for management of Puget Sound. This agency would be responsible for managing a cap and trade system for the Sound and prioritizing the investments based on science. Participation would be voluntary. A city, county, or private entity would not be required to participate, nor could they be a beneficiary either. The science would establish a currency of scientific benefit for improved water quality, agricultural protection, habitat restoration, protection, or acquisitions. Therefore, we could fund projects from the mountain tops to the sea bed understanding the benefit of a measurable, all encompassing Puget Sound restoration program.

What if the water shed trading model proved to be unpalatable? DNRP recommended the adoption of an approach now used by the French. France was divided into six basins. An example would be the Seine Normandy Basin Authority (L’Agence de l’eau Seine-Normandie). Resource fees for water consumption and pollution discharge fund the agency. The system is comprehensive and funds priority projects in the basin. No jurisdictional walls! This basin entity funds farming, industrial programs, and waste treatment facilities. Everything is measured and plans are updated. All activities must actually improve water quality as established by the Seine Normandy Basin Authority.

Does the system in France work? We can only dream of this August 2, 2008 article in London’s Guardian newspaper, “For the first time since records began a healthy-looking sea trout has been discovered in the Seine, prompting Paris authorities to claim a resounding success in their bid to clean up the river after years of pollution and neglect…It is an amazing turnaround for a river, which, in the 1960s, was so full of human, agricultural and industrial waste that it was declared a biological wasteland. The Seine used to be so dirty that Parisians joked that swimming in it would be more effective suicide method than jumping off one of its bridges.” (Read full article.)

We need to put the Puget Sound Partnership on steroids. If not, we’ll have more Hood canals, and like Chesapeake Bay, dead zones. We have the benefit of the best marine scientists in the world living here in our back yard. We need to let their expertise guide the direction of our public policy and not allow self-imposed bureaucratic silos to impede the clean up work that needs to be done. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” This is one of great challenges of our generation.

Recent research indicates that Puget Sound orcas have the world’s highest body burdens of PCBs (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) and other contaminants of all marine mammals. Dioxins, PCBs and other chemicals in Puget Sound sediments pose risks to not only Orcas and marine life but all seafood consumers, including people.

Oxygen depletion in Puget Sound has resulted in virtual dead zones, where fish, crabs and other aquatic life are dying from lack of oxygen.

Learn more…

• Record-setting Dead Zones Predicted For Gulf Of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, Science Daily
• The Sound of Broken Promises, Seattle PI
• What’s the Answer to Hood Canal’s Low-Oxygen Problem? Kitsap Sun
• EPA’S Ocean Survey Vessel “Bold” Studies Puget Sound, Press Zoom

You do get high and it is addictive

Let’s be clear, you do get high off of methadone and it is addictive.  So, is methadone treatment just substituting one drug addiction for another?   Does the Federal government authorize methadone use because the billion-dollar drug war is obviously failing and legalizing heroin/opiates is politically untenable?   Should people who are addicted to opiates - whether they’re doctors, lawyers, teachers, construction workers, or unemployed, mentally ill, or criminally involved individuals - have the same choices for treatment?   After years of inconclusive, and chair throwing debate, King County will increase the opportunities to use Suboxone (Buprenorphine) as an alternative choice to methadone for treatment of opiates. 

King County funds the use of methadone for substance abuse treatment.  It is even dispensed in our jails.  The goal for treatment is that between 1-2 years of treatment people become stable enough to eliminate their need for daily Methadone. While some people are able to achieve this, many require ongoing opiate substitution therapy with methadone to remain stable in their recovery.

But an opportunity for change presented itself with King County’s adoption of a tenth of a percent increase in the local sales tax to increase the array of mental health and substance abuse services.  In government jargon this funded a plan is known as the Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Action Plan (MIDD).  We moved to adopt two new strategies that specifically identify Suboxone as a viable option for the treatment of clients with an opiate addiction.

Strategy No: 1a (2) - Increased Access to Substance Abuse Outpatient Services for People Not On Medicaid 
”Funding will be increased to County contracted outpatient treatment agencies and OST programs to provide treatment services for low-income individuals from King County.  Low-income individuals are defined as having income of 80% of the state median income or less, adjusted for family size.  Specific service components include intensive outpatient treatment and outpatient treatment as well as daily doses of methadone or an alternate OST such as suboxone.”

Strategy No: 15a - Drug Court: Expansion and Enhancement of Recovery Support Services 
”Access to suboxone treatment.  A medication approved for the treatment of opiate dependence.  Currently, opiate dependent clients receiving methadone must go to a limited number of Federally approved methadone treatment facilities.  Opiate dependent clients can receive suboxone instead of methadone and receive services in traditional outpatient agencies and physician offices.  This change will provide more patients the opportunity to access treatment.”

King County is also partnering with and supporting Harborview Medical Center.  They applied for a grant proposal to the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).  King County and Harborview want to expand capacity and enhance services for non-methadone assisted treatment of opioid dependence in low-income and indigent patients. If funded, King County has committed significant matching funds to this project. Harborview Medical Center (HMC), proposes to expand their Suboxone assisted program by 45 slots to serve, over three years, a total of 225 low-income and indigent patients.

This project is intended as a pilot project and will enhance the coordination of multiple systems for this population.  A Community Advisory Committee with representation from Washington State, King County, Harborview, and Suboxone program patients will be convened and guide the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the project to assure its sustainable integration into the wider addiction treatment system.   Successful applicants of this grant will be notified later this fall.

As a friend of mine told me, the best addiction is each and every new day of sobriety.

Learn more:

• A Stepped Care Strategy Using Buprenorphine and Methadone Versus Conventional Methadone Maintenance in Heroin Dependence: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Psychiatry Online
• Is methadone too dangerous for opiate addiction? British Medical Journal
• After the Storm. Developments in Maintenance Treatment Policy and Practice in Sweden 1987–2006
• Related articles, Pub Med
• Related information, American Journal of Psychiatry

Is Obama the End of Black Politics?

“Is Obama the End of Black Politics?” is an insightful and provocative piece in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine regarding the tension African American elected officials experience serving the needs of a broader and more diverse constituency. In Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, an African American and rising star, this tension is best illustrated. Black ministers were slow to embrace him because of his support of gay marriage. I empathize. My support among black ministers has remained consistently strong. But, shortly after expressing my support for gay marriage, a group of black ministers invited me to a meeting. It would be an understatement to describe that meeting as anything less than paint blistering. My public debate with Reverend Ken Hutcherson, also an African American, was quite tame by comparison. It was Rev. Dr Samuel B McKinney who reminded those present of my responsibilities to the broader community. He noted my decision was secular in nature. Whether one supports Senator Obama, it is important to understand and appreciate the tension between the expectations of the Black community and his need to appeal and serve the interest of a much larger voting public.

Is Obama the End of Black Politics? New York Times

Tim Egan, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book award winner, reported in the New York Times twelve years ago the different approaches that Governor Gary Locke (Asian American), Mayor Norm Rice (African American), and I dealt with race in politics. Even then, race in politics was far more difficult an issue.

When to Campaign With Color; An Asian-American Told His Story to Whites and Won. For Black Politicians, It’s a Riskier Strategy, New York Times

The fact that a major party is on the verge of nominating an African American for President, and two African Americans and a person of South Asian descent are sitting governors point to a positive change. Executive Isaiah Leggett of Montgomery County, Maryland, has joined me as the second African American county executive elected from a predominantly white community. America’s view regarding Black elected officials is changing. Black elected officials have broadened their appeal. Race and politics is changing with surprising rapidity.

Land use and greenhouse gas emissions intersect in the courtroom

Sometimes government needs to avoid being sued, especially when we know we’re likely to lose. The King County Prosecutor’s Office believes that the State of Washington’s existing environmental laws and a number of court decisions already require us to establish carbon emission standards. This would apply to the Comprehensive Plans and transportation plans and investments of cities, counties, and the state. So, my office developed carbon emission standards for transportation and land use. This work has received widespread support among groups and agencies interested in this highly technical field. USDOT, on its own accord, awarded us a grant to develop models to analyze carbon emissions for transportation corridors like I-90 and State Highway 520.

You would assume that a legal opinion and validation of our emissions reduction work would give us the credence to move forward. To say the least, things have not been easy. The glaciers of Greenland have been melting faster than the acceptance and adoption of measures that actually reduce harmful emissions. Major stakeholders are slowly, quite slowly coming to accept the legal need for carbon measures. The political processes would rather defer this discussion until next year or the years thereafter. All of this reminded me of the reaction to the efforts of County Councilman Bruce Laing and I when we tried to establish an office of Climate Change in 1988. It was not well received. Hopefully, the media will report the implications of suits being brought against Thurston County and the City of Seattle. You would think that in an age of global warming elected officials and others would enthusiastically embrace measuring carbon emissions of the transportation and land use sectors. Hopefully, the wheels of government will work before the Courts compel us to follow the law.

Learn more at:

• Land Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intersect in the Courtroom
• Foes back anti-sprawl measure

Expanding transportation options today

It was 86 degrees today in Issaquah for the opening of the new Issaquah Transit Center. The best part of today’s event? The christening of the facility using a bottle of Issaquah Brewhouse ale. Usually, I’d hate to see a good ale spilled, but it was for a good cause.

If you’ve ever been to Issaquah Salmon days, what used to be the parking lot is now a multi-story garage for park ‘n riders.

The new transit center will serve people commuting between Seattle, Mercer Island, Eastgate and the Issaquah Highlands. Seven of every 10 buses that stop there will be run by King County Metro, with Sound Transit providing the rest. That’s real regional transportation improvement.

I’ve been to a few of these lately: King County Metro opened the Redmond Transit Center earlier this year and just last week announced construction of an expanded transit center in Burien that will give residents there more options when construction begins on the Alaskan Way viaduct. I look forward to being able to share more news like this.

Honor at last for victims of Fort Lawton court martial

This week, our community will help heal an injustice after 60 long years. I will have the pleasure of joining other local and federal elected officials in honoring 43 African American soldiers who were unjustly accused of rioting and manslaughter at Fort Lawton in Seattle during World War II.

The U.S. Army accused the men of lynching an Italian prisoner of war, then prosecutors failed to reveal information that would have exonerated them. After worldwide publicity and the longest and largest Army court martial of the war, the court convicted 28 of the 43 men of rioting and two of manslaughter. The arrests, prosecutions, convictions, incarcerations and dishonorable discharges impacted the men and their families for 60 years, until October 26, 2007 when the U.S. Army’s Court of Appeal ruled that the court-martial had been fundamentally unfair. All 28 convictions were eventually reversed.

Mr. Samuel Snow, one of the original soldiers who faced this injustice, his family and the families of seven of the other soldiers who are no longer alive are scheduled to attend several events and activities in their honor over the coming week.

Why does this matter after all this time? Because it shows we can help make right a forgotten and terrible chapter in our community’s history and because the soldiers lived their lives carrying the burden of a court martial knowing they were punished for something they did not do. That had an impact on who they became, how they lived and how their families lived. Although they left here rightfully bitter and angry, we have a chance to erase some of the shame of the court’s decision so long ago and welcome back the lone surviving solider and the families of the others to celebrate their honorable service to this country.

For more information on the tribute events for the veterans of the Fort Lawton court martial, click here.

Summer sun, parks fun and budgets

I heard someone use the phrase “lazy days of summer” recently and realized this summer hasn’t really been leisurely at all for King County. In fact, it’s busier than ever!

Besides the diverse entertainment line up in King County Parks, we are also moving ahead with our budget process and finding the opportunities in this big challenge we face.

A couple weeks ago, all King County departments turned in their preliminary budget documents for Executive and Budget office review. Because of the magnitude of the deficit, every single department director in King County has been asked for targeted reductions in the 2009 budget. But criminal justice is both our largest expense and highest priority, so cuts in that area are significantly less than those being taken in other areas.

Still, a preliminary look at the budget submittals has already turned up some innovative proposals and partnerships that preserve services while reducing costs, increasing efficiencies, and in some cases, increasing revenue – all of which will help us close the $68 million gap we’re facing. At least for this year.

We are working closely with our department directors, separately elected officials, and labor unions in King County to create a countywide budget that takes into account all of the services we provide to county residents and employees, rather than looking at each department as a silo.

But as I’ve mentioned every time I discuss the budget, we are not alone in dealing with this challenge and the gaps will grow in years to come because for decades county governments have been given a very limited list of options for funding their services. In recent years, those options have been further limited by growth management decisions (which have rightly funneled growth to urban areas rather than sprawl) and tax limiting measures. Basically, times have changed but our funding mechanisms have not kept pace. Now many counties in the state are facing a major budget gap or looming one – only the magnitude is different.

Like rowing a boat, all oars must pull in the same direction to make progress. So we are reaching out to other county leaders in the same boat with budget gaps and enlisting their support in Olympia from the legislature to give all counties more tools for funding county services.

For now though, I turn my attention to reviewing the budgets submitted by county department directors. We’ll work them over throughout the summer to create a balanced budget for submission to the county council.

It won’t be a lazy summer, but it will be a productive one that yields a workable budget in the fall.

Why King County will appeal the Court of Appeals ruling on part of the CAO

The week started off with a major ruling from the Court of Appeals striking down the clearing limits provisions of King County’s Critical Areas Ordinance.   

 

After consulting with the Prosecutor, I’ve decided to appeal the decision to the Washington Supreme Court.  This decision undermines long-standing local government authority to regulate land use and zoning.  It’s important to note that the court didn’t dispute the science we use in making the determinations on properties or dispute the link between the amount of native trees and vegetation on a property and the health of nearby streams.

 

What’s interesting is that despite all the rhetoric criticizing the CAO, the fact is people can do whatever the zoning allows for their property.  The regulations also allow folks to clear their land to make productive use of it for forestry or agriculture.

 

This law has not proved to be the burden its opponents would have you believe.  The additional flexibility it provided has allowed property owners to avoid the expensive variance process.  It has not prevented folks from building on or making use of their property.

 

What we want to prevent is massive removal of trees that harms people’s well water and increases stormwater runoff into streams and neighboring property.  The rules protect everyone’s property rights as well as the environment. We hope the Washington Supreme Court agrees.

 

Read more here.