Public Periscope
What are the odds on this?
A recent meeting of the city board that oversees Spokane’s entertainment centers treaded into an interesting discussion about how to pay for an expanded convention center. Ric Odegard, of Farmers & Merchants Bank, suggested to members of the Sports, Entertainment, Arts and Convention Advisory Board that they dedicate the floor above a new exhibit hall to gambling. … “Gambling is legal,” read the minutes from the May 20 meeting. “The question becomes: Is there a way to take advantage of those funds for the benefit of the project?” … While the minutes are silent on the subject, the suggestion comes at an interesting time. The City Council is thinking about slashing taxes on card rooms. Would the council have a conflict of interest if a casino were going to be opened in one of the city’s facilities?
Say what?
People in and around Spokane City Hall on Thursday might have wondered about a new word that strangers seemed to be muttering. One that sounded like “ice-bump” or “icy-bump.” … A group wondering about the condition of city streets next winter? Good guess, but no. That’s the way some people arriving for a special U.S. Senate hearing were pronouncing the acronym ICBEMP, which stands for Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Plan. … Now we realize that purists would insist on calling it “icy-bemp,” but no one’s ever heard of a “bemp.” The plan, for those who hate acronyms, involves a study of the 144 million acres in seven states drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries.
At Thursday’s Senate hearing on “ice-bump,” the massive draft plan to revamp management of federal lands was met almost universally with disdain. … Five groups testified before U.S. Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and complained primarily about threats to access by private users. … Still, even though - according to their press release - Craig and Gorton had assembled the panels, the duo seemed shocked by the responses. … One panel composed of state Farm Bureau and cattle associations, representatives of an offroad vehicle users group and a member of the Northwest Mining Association asked the senators to kill the plan. … With no discernible irony, Gorton quipped, “There seems to be a remarkable degree of unanimity on this panel.”
Now that IS a surprise …
In reality, there was “remarkable unanimity” among all the people who testified before the senators - even though the groups included environmentalists and conservative county commissioners. Of course, Craig will have to take our word for that. After saving the panel of environmentalists until the end of the day, Craig was unable to hear from that particular constituency. When the environmentalists were called to testify, Craig excused himself and left the hearing, promising to “review the record” of their testimony later. In the end, he missed little. The entire panel consisted of only one person - Mark Solomon of the Inland Empire Public Lands Council.
Say where?
The White House proudly announced last week that it had appointed W. Ron Allen to the Pacific Salmon Commission. Which was nice - but would have been nicer if the White House had managed to spell correctly the name of Allen’s hometown on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Granted, Sequim is almost as hard to spell as it is to pronounce, but the White House should be able to afford an atlas. … To the White House’s credit, one of the president’s men did a better job of listing Allen’s current job: executive director of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribes.