Candidates Come To Town Loaded With Ideas Rice Talks About A Mobile Capitol; Waldo Goes After Taxes; Maleng Tackles Crime

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng thinks 17-year-olds who commit crime should be tried as adults.

Tacoma attorney Jim Waldo thinks the state should change the 6 percent limit on annual property tax increases.

Seattle Mayor Norm Rice thinks the heads of state agencies should hit the road once a month.

Those three seemingly unconnected ideas have something in common: Each was floated Tuesday in Spokane by a person whose other job is running for governor.

In the span of three hours, three candidates criss-crossing the state looking for votes showed up less than three blocks apart.

For Maleng and Waldo, it was all they could do to avoid bumping into each other as they held competing campaign breakfasts at Cavanaugh’s Inn at the Park.

Maleng used his breakfast with some 20 supporters to discuss ways to get tougher on juvenile crime, which he said is increasing even though overall crime figures are dropping. He wants to scrap the 1977 law that covers most juvenile crime in the state.

“It’s a joke,” he said of the current system that prosecutes and punishes juvenile criminals.

Among the changes he would push if elected governor is dropping the age when a person is tried as an adult. The current age is 18; Maleng would follow the lead of five other states and lower it to 16.

The state should also try youths of any age as adults after their third conviction in juvenile court, he said. Maleng called that a variation on the state’s “Three Strikes, You’re Out” law, which sends adult offenders to prison for life without parole after a third conviction.

Juvenile convictions also could be considered by judges if a former juvenile criminal is later convicted as an adult. Under current law, juvenile convictions are not considered when adults are sentenced, Maleng said.

While Maleng was discussing juvenile crime, Waldo was telling a group of about 150 supporters the state’s tax and regulatory systems need an overhaul.

One of his main targets would be the levy lid, which allows property taxes to increase by as much as 6 percent a year.

“That made sense 20 years ago, when we had double-digit inflation,” Waldo said. But in current years, when inflation has been low, the lid allows local and state governments to raise property taxes faster than the cost of living.

He would limit increases to 6 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. The inflation rate would be determined by the state’s Economic Forecasting Council.

Waldo also promised a massive overhaul of state regulations by bringing together agency directors and asking which rules are essential.

“The object isn’t to get rid of all rules,” he said. “The object is to focus on which rules you need.”

Shortly after the GOP breakfasts broke up, Rice met with about 30 supporters in front of the Big Red Wagon in Riverfront Park and promised to institute a “capitol for a day” program if he’s running the state’s executive branch.

“I’d want to take the office on the road to cities all across the state,” he said. Local programs that might be useful around the state would be examined by cabinet officials and department heads would be available for a town hall meeting.

Rice didn’t know what that would cost but said, “I think it’s fairly cheap.”

The idea isn’t new - Booth Gardner proposed it in his 1984 campaign, but didn’t make good on the promise until 1991. At the time, it required the state’s three airplanes to transport Gardner and 22 cabinet secretaries and department heads, plus staff and security, for a daylong stay in Spokane.

At a news conference, Rice said he would not promise a tax cut at the beginning of his term. If the state has a surplus under the current revenue limits, he’d prefer to “invest it wisely in education.”

Candidates are more active because this is the week they file for office. But because most have been running for months, they looked for new proposals to attract attention as they traveled around the state.

In Seattle, GOP gubernatorial candidate Dale Foreman unveiled his new education plan during a news conference at a playground.

Foreman, the state House majority leader from Wenatchee, wants to make sure all students have basic reading and math skills before entering fourth grade. He said he would cut unnecessary regulations and develop job training programs to give marketable skills to students not going to college.

, DataTimes