Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
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California lawmakers addressed their COVID budget situation back in June. Oregon lawmakers are meeting this week in a special session to do the same. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), COVID related special sessions are also scheduled or have already occurred in: CT, ID, IL, KS, LA, MN, MO, NV, NM, SC, TN, UT and VA. Several other states are also reconvening regular sessions this summer. With other states across the country acting to balance...
That actually happened in the course of the last month. The result would undoubtedly please the legendary U.S. Senator Henry ”Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) – the master problem solver. In March, President Trump signaled he supported legislation that would fund the backlog of National Parks and natural resources maintenance work. The money would come from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) which was established in 1964 when Jackson, a prominent Democrat, sponsored legislation...
One of the great benefits of living in a rural community is our ability to enjoy food grown locally. Families appreciate easy access to high quality nutrition. Many farms and ranches depend on these local sales. Like so much of our daily life, this system was disrupted by COVID-19. When work is interrupted at industrial processing facilities, commodity producers flood local meat lockers with their product. With already limited reservation space being taken up by large...
Hopefully you’ve already voted or are soon heading to ballot drop box. Now let’s work to reduce the number of statewide elected offices. At present the people of Washington elect officials to nine statewide offices (not counting justices to the state supreme court). These offices are Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor, Attorney General, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Commissioner of Public Lands and Insurance Commissioner. Yet for man...
Dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers provide an appropriate balance between the economic needs of Eastern Washington and fish protections. While we already knew that here in Eastern Washington, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers came to that conclusion, too, after completing yet another environmental study this spring. The results of that new study were released last Friday, and they support keeping things essentially the way they are on our rivers. The dams will stay, for...
Records obtained through the public records request process show that officials in the Governor’s office knew on May 1st that the Employment Trust Fund balance would be eventually depleted but did not admit this publicly until June 30th. Prompted by an article published by Washington Policy Center on May 1st, Senator Christine Rolfes, who serves as Chair on the Senate Ways and Means committee responsible for overseeing the state budget, forwarded the WPC article to the G...
Gov. Jay Inslee may order quarantines and business shutdowns, but he cannot enforce them. In agreeing with that argument – presented by attorneys for the governor – U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle ruled last Friday that Gov. Inslee cannot be sued for the “unconstitutional” quarantine of healthy residents, shutdown of otherwise viable businesses or mask mandates. According to the judge, state officials can only be sued if they are connected to enforcement of an alle...
DAVENPORT - "9-1-1 What is the location of your emergency?" This phrase is used multiple times a day in the Lincoln County Communications Center, where nine full-time dispatch/corrections deputies and two supervisors provide 24/7 coverage. At least two dispatchers are on duty at all times in the Communications Center, working days, nights, weekends and holidays, responsible for answering all 911 calls made within Lincoln County or transferred from neighboring counties and agen...
Gov. Jay Inslee continues to extended the state of emergency related to the COVID pandemic and is re-issuing his prior coronavirus emergency orders. I initially believed that under state law, the "four corners" of the Legislature (House and Senate majority and minority leaders) were required to give consent to any extension of an emergency proclamation lasting longer than 30 days. That legislative check, however, is limited to only certain types of actions taken by the...
The Odessa Record publishes letters to the editor of civic nature relating to area, state and national issues and politics. Letters should be limited to 250 words, and cited facts should be attributed to the source of information. Letters may not contain personal attacks, profanity or cite other media. Please keep letters to a single subject. We do not publish "thank you" letters; contact our advertising staff. Writers will be limited to one letter per month. No chain letters...
Welcome to the segregated public schools of Washington state. According to the “Reopening Washington Schools 2020 District Planning Guide,” some public school students are more equal than others when it comes to returning to the classroom in the fall. The previously released guide from the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has come under fire on social media for its discriminatory approach to restarting schools this fall in the wake of the coronavirus sca...
What once seemed inevitable is now growing unlikely – a special session to balance the state’s budget. This is why it was so important to act before the new spending increases took effect on July 1. Once we started the new fiscal year, the likelihood of a special session dropped. By waiting until August, the September revenue forecast is just around corner. Then after September, the November election is just a jump away. Then the temptation to delay until January becomes eve...
Perhaps 2020 will be best described in history books as the year a virus from China caused a global pandemic, massive riots erupted across the country, the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum, and there was an attempt to rewrite American history - all leading to what is sure to be an interesting November at the polls. If you are like me, you've likely been trying to tune out the national media to retain a little bit of self-worth and delay the onset of manic...
This letter to the editor might trigger some folks to extreme discomfort. Today, as I was driving to Lincoln Hospital, I noticed a large sign posted just outside the parking lot that stated “Black Lives Matter, Believe It, Live it.” I fully support the individual (or group) right to free speech as enshrined in our Constitution and I also believe in vigorous debate without engaging in threats, violence or vandalism. Therefore, I feel the need to respond to this sign as it seems to be a command to the reader. Personally, I hol...
I was disheartened to learn of Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza’s dismissal of Gov. Jay Inslee’s order requiring facemasks. Heeding the advice of experts makes you wise, not a sheep. I have family in Odessa, and I have visited many times. I grew up in Chehalis and am now a graduate student of University of Texas-Austin. I have studied how airborne particles move around and do important research on air quality and environmental health. It is my profession to learn about air quality, and with that, airborne disease tra...
Teaching psychology for 20 years at Spokane Falls Community College was such a learning experience for me. I hope the students also learned a lot about the “scientific study of behavior and mental processes.” When teaching the section on evolutionary psychology, it was always interesting to ask the classes if anyone knew about the Darwin Awards. Sheepishly, some students, especially boys, would raise their hands, grinning from ear to ear. For those of you who don’t know, every year people are selected for so-called "Darw...
Since Gov. Inslee has decided to rule the eastern colonies of Washington by decree and considering the apparent acceptance of “free zones” in Seattle, perhaps it’s time to start calling ourselves the "East Washington Autonomous Zone." Terry L. Hoffman Davenport...
On July 4, 1975, America proudly celebrated its Bicentennial as the world’s greatest nation while Poland was a suppressed Soviet satellite state. Poles had no right to free speech, were hungry and impoverished. If you wanted a job, you played ball with Communist Party bosses. If you disagreed with their ideology, you likely were imprisoned. Poland was a rather bleak land which had not recovered from the German Blitzkrieg in 1939. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Business Week p...
Educators nationwide scoff at the idea of homeschooling children. Those in unions, especially those in the Washington Education Association in our state, say parents can’t provide the same educational opportunities at home as are available in public schools. A large part of their reasoning are social interactions. Indeed, those in the union have long argued social interactions are more important than allowing advanced students to move up a grade or substandard students from being held back. Even educators in our community c...
Planting and emergence progress for both corn and soybeans are currently ahead of the five-year average across the Midwest. But, still fresh in farmers’ minds is the 2019 planting season, which was severely delayed due to record-breaking precipitation that led to flooded fields and excess soil moisture. According to USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, on June 2, 2019, corn-producing states had completed only 67% of planting. In addition, NASS reported the soybean-producing states had only completed 39 percent. T...
In early June, the financial website WalletHub released its rankings of “Best and Worse State Economies” and Washington led the field of 51 as best by a healthy margin. WalletHub economists viewed the states from three key dimensions—-economic activity, economic health and innovation potential. Then the analysts from Dartmouth and Carthage colleges and the University of Texas-Austin looked a 28 key indicators of economic performance and strength when comparing all 50 state...
Are government agencies and big tech tracking your every move via your smartphone? The answer is maybe. Gov. Jay Inslee has repeatedly said the state is using smartphone data to track interactions and travel as they may relate to coronavirus exposure and spread. That data may include time, date, location and even a “marker” for each mobile device. Indeed, anytime your cellphone is turned on, it connects to towers for telephone calls or texting. Using three tower connections, i...
Whatever happened to governance of the people, by the people and for the people? We in Washington are now under martial law (according to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr). This is tyranny. Who gave Gov. Inslee the power to keep our state in lockdown past the 30-day limit allowed by law? Or to send the National Guard out to arrest and incarcerate people? Or to force police officers to arrest citizens not complying with the governor's personal orders? Gov. Inlee has installed...
Due to the coronavirus, there are a lot of questions on what school will look like next fall. On social media, a number of memes suggest public schools will be very different. They often cite new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. There’s no doubt public education will be very different in the fall. But at this point, the center’s guidelines are only guidelines. As such, there is no force of law behind them. What are some of the things the CDC is pushing? Rather than accept memes as gospel, I wen...
TVW recently interviewed the top budget writers in the Senate about the state’s outlook and the possibility of a special session. In one interview, Sen. John Braun (ranking member of Senate Ways and Means Committee) said the governor needs to re-open state employee contracts to cancel the 3% pay raises due July 1. In the other interview, Sen. Christine Rolfes (Senate Ways and Means Committee chairwoman) was asked if an income tax would be on the agenda for a special s...
