Cascadia today: WA legislature wraps up + feds want to log western WA forests + award-winning BC mapmaker
WA legislature about to adjourn
The Washington legislature is scheduled to adjourn later today, ending its short session after passing a millionaires tax and are in the process of wrapping up their budget, which cuts child care subsidies, dips into the rainy day fund and pays more than $1 billion in legal settlements, mostly because of the state's troubled child welfare system. The legislature also failed to pass a "mosquito fleet" bill after the house refused to concur with senate changes to the bill. The measure would have made it easier for local governments to build and run systems of passenger ferries.
What's clear is that Washington and Oregon need to pay our legislators a full salary and extend the session throughout the year so that we can do the work of building autonomy and resiliency in Cascadia.
OR gas tax measure OK's for spring ballot
A Marion County Court ruled that Democratic legislators can move a ballot referendum on a gas tax to the May primary election rather than the November general election. Republicans, known for their steadfast support for more people voting (ha!) complained that moving the measure to May might decrease turnout. Never mind that their Dear Leader is attempting to force states that vote by mail (like Oregon and Washington) to stop the practice.
A dangerous Spokane intersection
RANGE Media reports on several dangerous road intersections in Spokane that are the site of multiple fatal speeding accidents, many of them involving teens. Meanwhile, Seattle transportation crews removed a utility pole blocking a crossing light in the Capitol Hill neighborhood after a pedestrian was crushed and killed by a driver there in February.
Feds want to revive logging on western WA forests
Columbia Insight reports that the Trump administration is quietly working to drastically increase logging on the Mount Baker Snoqualmie national forest in Washington's western Cascades. After revoking the 2001 roadless rule, forest officials have be quietly pursuing plans to potentially open 400,000 acres of the forest to logging, where the Northwest Forest Plan drastically reduced cutting to preserve spotted owl habitat. The feds can take their greedy plan and go home. Cascadia can better manage its forests on our own.
One of BC's best cartographers
CBC profiles Jeff Clark, an award-winning map-maker in North Vancouver who has been making elegant maps of British Columbia, from interior mountains to Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea.
“I just love doing it, so whether I'm good at it doesn't really matter to me,” – mapmaker Jeff Clark
