Coming clean on driveway carwashing
OLYMPIA – Despite a recent USA Today headline, state environmental officials say, the state has not banned washing cars in driveways.
The Department of Ecology says it “provided guidance” to cities and counties last week, warning about the problems caused by polluted runoff from streets.
The newspaper then published a story headlined “No driveway carwashes, Wash. state says.” Saying that washing one’s car in the driveway would soon be as endangered as some wild salmon, the story quoted an irate Vancouver SUV owner vowing to wash his Highlander that very weekend in protest.
Hold on, state environmental officials said.
“Ecology said it would take a public education approach to proper car washing and it urged local governments to do the same and not issue tickets, fines or other penalties,” the agency said.
Ecology says it’s primarily worried about soapy, oily water pouring into storm drains, which generally empty, untreated, into creeks and streams. It suggests washing the car over grass or any surface where the water soaks into the ground. Or laying something on the ground to divert the runoff from pouring into a storm drain.
Influx of money didn’t happen
After months of predicting that they’d be overwhelmed by a massive influx of Catholic dollars, the two groups backing Initiative 1000 are more than holding their own. In fact, they’ve collected more money than all this year’s other ballot measure groups combined. The Death with Dignity measure, which voters will decide within weeks, would allow late-stage terminally ill people to get a lethal prescription.
True, there has been an 11th-hour influx of cash from dioceses and other Catholic organizations, but it’s nowhere near the amount that was predicted. Proponents of the measure have outraised opponents nearly 4-to-1, according to campaign finance reports.
This same phenomenon occurred with 2005’s Initiative 901, the nation’s strictest public-smoking ban. Health groups and other proponents for months predicted a David-and-Goliath fight with Big Tobacco.
In the end, however, fans of the ban outraised foes nearly 50-to-1. They faced only a very feeble $33,000 war chest, primarily from indignant tavern owners and smoke shops.
The smoking ban passed overwhelmingly.
Unemployment system sound, state says
As some states nervously eye their dwindling unemployment insurance coffers, the woman in charge of Washington’s system has this message for laid-off workers concerned about getting their checks: Don’t worry.
Washington’s unemployment trust fund – a pool of money paid into by employers, then tapped to send weekly payments to newly-jobless workers, is “in good shape,” state employment security commissioner Karen Lee says. “In fact, it’s the largest and one of the healthiest in the nation.”
The fund contains more than $4 billion which the Employment Security Department says is enough to pay nearly two years of benefits during a severe recession.
More than 200,000 Washingtonians have gotten payments this year.
The average check, according to the ESD, is $350 a week. The maximum: $541 a week.
To apply for benefits online, go to www.esd.wa.gov.
Economy rains on Democrats’ plans
In the face of a predicted multibillion-dollar budget shortfall over the next two years, Gov. Chris Gregoire in August called for state agencies to tighten their belts by $90 million. Within weeks she called for $200 million more in savings, then ramped that up to $240 million.
The changes – the governor’s press release manages to say “savings” 10 times and “cuts” just once – include stalling some groundbreaking new programs championed during better economic times by leading Democrats, including Sen. Majority Leader Lisa Brown.
A multimillion-dollar computer system for a new paid family leave program, for example, has been suspended. The system would have issued state stipends to offset lost wages for workers who take time off to bond with a new child.
And the Working Families Tax Exemption – a 5 percent to 10 percent state match for low-income families who qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit – is “slowing,” according to Gregoire’s office.
In your mailbox soon
Look for a fat voters guide, if it hasn’t already arrived.
That booklet’s no small feat. According to the Secretary of State’s office, there are 43 versions of the thing, ranging from 80 to 264 pages. Several Central and Eastern Washington counties get a Spanish/English version. Thousands more copies are printed in Chinese for King County voters. (Korean and Russian versions are coming soon.) And then there are the Braille, audio and large-print versions.
Despite the work and expense (which you’re paying), Secretary of State Sam Reed has championed the booklets, saying they’re a key tool for many of the state’s more than 3.5 million voters. That’s particularly true, he argues, as voting in Washington has changed from polling places to the kitchen table: 37 of the the state’s 39 counties vote almost entirely by mail.
State to contractor: Don’t keep the change
A West Side contractor faces criminal charges for allegedly collecting sales tax from her customers – and then apparently keeping most of it.
Coleen A. Escamilla, a 49-year-old Auburn woman, formerly owned C’s Construction Labor Security and Cleaning, according to the state Department of Revenue.
In court papers filed Monday in King County, the state says Escamilla collected more than $14,000 in sales tax on construction projects in 2005, but reported less than 10 percent of that to state tax officials.
Under state law, that 8 or 9 cents per dollar that you spend is considered a state trust fund, temporarily in the hands of the merchant. Failing to ship that money to Olympia can draw up to 10 years in jail and a $20,000 fine, the agency says.