December 10, 2007 by Stuck In Spokane.

Chris Gregoire has an important deadline coming up, a blackout period during which she cannot raise money for her re-election campaign, this is due to the legislature going into session. She has put out a plea to good Democrat’s to help her maintain her fundraising lead over Dino Rossi, and I for one intend to help her maintain that lead.

Click Here to Contribute to Chris’ Campaign

Every dollar will help her maintain a lead on the slime machine that is Dino Rossi and the state Repuglican party. We know that Chris has done great things for this state and will continue to do so in her next term, we just don’t want the start of her second to kick off on the same note as the last one. So please, everyone, donate what you can be it a dollar, five dollars, or even their maximum of 2,800 dollars!

There are many good Democrats running for other offices in the state that will not be limited by the legislature being in session, one of which is Peter Goldmark. He is running for Commissioner of Public Lands, a post that usually does not get much attention, despite how important it is to the environment around us. Peter is running to unseat 2-term incumbent Doug Sutherland, a man who has sold off our public lands to timber interests at Black Friday sale prices, and if re-elected will continue to rape our poor state to the point that we can no longer claim to live in the “Evergreen State.”

Click Here to Contribute to Peter’s Campaign

Please, do what you can to help these two worthy candidate out, they both are working to make the Washington we live in a better place to live.

Posted in Christine Gregoire, Dino Rossi, Governor, Democrats, Peter Goldmark, Elections, Commissioner of Public Lands, 2008, Washington | 1 Comment »

July 17, 2007 by Alpha.

Yesterday we broke the news that Dr. Peter Goldmark is will mount a campaign against incumbent Doug Sutherland (R - Lacey) for the post of Commissioner of Public Lands for the great state of Washington.

I will readily admit that until very recently I knew very little about what the Commissioner does, and even less about Mr. Sutherland. I am familiar with Dr. Goldmark’s qualifications for the job, so in an effort to paint a deeper picture of the race, I spent today in research mode.

Here’s what I’ve been able to find out about Mr. Sutherland. According to his official bio, he was born in Helena, MT then lived briefly in Vancouver, WA before settling in Spokane in 1946. In 1959, he received a B.A. in History from Central Washington University. He worked for Boeing from 1960-71, then bought up the Tacoma Tent and Awning Company, which he passed to his son in 1989.

Sutherland served on the Tacoma city council in 1980-81, before being elected Mayor of Tacoma. He held that post until the end of 1989, when he took the job of City Manager in the newly incorporated SeaTac. He was there until 1992, when he took over as Pierce County Executive. That post he held through the end of 2000, when he began his first term as Commissioner of Public Lands. In his first campaign he defeated former Governor Mike Lowry, after successfully painting Lowry as a left-wing eco-nut. I recall that election season in Eastern Washington for the great deal of hysteria about endangered owls and whether they “really mattered” to “real Washingtonians.” In 2004 Sutherland fended off a challenge from Democrat Mike Cooper.

The big confusion for me, concerning what the Commissioner of Public Lands does, precisely, was greatly clarified when I realized two things. He is (1) the manager of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and (2) the chairman of the Board of Natural Resources.

Once I rightly placed the Commissioner at the pinnacle of the DNR I realized just how tremendously important this job is, no matter where in the state you live. In fact, I grew up with a plot of DNR grazing acreage literally next door. From the same biography of Doug Sutherland, we get this: DNR oversees over 2.8 million acres of public lands, and over 2.4 million acres of “aquatic lands,” helpfully enumerated as creeks, river, shorelines, and a whole mess of “land” under Puget Sound.

I’d always known how important DNR policy was east of the Cascades, but I didn’t realize that they, well, owned the Sound. Now maybe Mr. Sutherland has done his part to keep the Sound healthy, but if the policies we’ve seen on the east side are anything to go by, we’ve all got reason for concern.

The problem isn’t that Sutherland is stupid, though I can’t vouch for his intelligence. The problem isn’t that he’s corrupt, though I can’t speak to his integrity. The problem is that he sees his job as balancing the interests of industry (particularly timber, mining and land development interests) against the understandable urge to conserve and protect our limited natural resources.

I remember toward the end of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” there’s a sequence where he discusses a relatively recent high-level conference on environmental protection. The conference banner featured an image of a scale balancing, on one side several bars of gold and on the other a nice blue-green Earth. This, sadly, is how Sutherland sees his job. He takes his task as one of extracting as much revenue as possible from Washington’s forests, mountains, rivers and pastures. The problem is that, from his past behavior, there are long-term costs that he hasn’t factored in.

What is the spotted owl worth? How much would we be willing to pay to bring back the dodo? Which is worth more: a gold mine that may produce a few tons of the stuff, or a system of lakes and streams that supply water, irrigation, habitat and recreation forever?

From the framing of those questions, I’ll bet you can see where I’m at. One last thing: I’d like to see someone ask Mr. Sutherland who he’d rather see take the position of Commissioner of Public Lands: a man with a B.A. in History and a background in municipal government, or a man with a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and a background in ecology and agriculture?

For God’s sake, Dr. Goldmark has a lab on his ranch. He grows his own strain of wheat. The guy’s what you would get if you crossed Wyatt Earp and Reed Richards.

Ask Commissioner Sutherland what he thinks. Here’s his work contact info:

Commissioner of Public Lands
Department of Natural Resources
PO Box 47001
Olympia, WA 98504-7001
Phone: 360.902.1004
Fax: 360.902.1775

[Ed. to remove even more idocy] 

Posted in 2008, Commissioner of Public Lands, Elections, Washington, Campaigns | 5 Comments »

July 16, 2007 by Alpha.

I received a press release from an email list managed by Betty Fry. It is floating around the Intarwebs announcing that Dr. Peter Goldmark, rancher, former WSU regent, State Director of Agriculture and Congressional Candidate, is running for Director of State Lands.

I honestly cannot think of a better candidate for the job. Peter’s been a rancher all of his adult life, in part because he loves the land so much. He’s from Okanogan, a town (and county) that is very sensitive to the importance of protecting Washington’s resources. The last decade has been one drought year after another there, with declining snowpacks leading to ever-increasingly short supplies of water for people, livestock and crops.

I see public land use policy as an important opportunity to invest in the future. By using and maintaining our state land wisely, we can be certain that it continues to provide revenue and balance our region’s ecology. By thinking long term, we can get a win-win situation. Or we can sell off our pulic lands, license them to irresponsible logging firms and basically cash out. Sure, we might be able to forestall some budget deficits, but what are we getting in return? Increased erosion, degrading water quality and a future that looks bleaker than ever.

Dr. Goldmark’s website hasn’t been updated yet, and still wears the sad (but hopeful!) face it put on last November. Soon, no doubt, that location will be a hub of knowledge and activity around the new campaign.

Posted in 2008, Commissioner of Public Lands, Elections, Washington, Campaigns | 3 Comments »