Thoughts from a Back Bencher!
Last Saturday night, Noreen and I attended an event held in the new gymnasium at Everett Community College. It was well attended even though it was not sold out. The atmosphere was like a rock concert since half the attendees appeared to be in costume.
The event was a competition between skilled athletes; four teams of them. It was a tournament of sorts.
From what I can tell, the emergency getting the most attention in Japan is the fear of melt-down in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex. For sure, it warrants a lot of attention since the lasting impacts of a catastrophic nuclear failure may be around longer than the devastation from the tsunamis. It’s ironic that the only country in history to actually endure a nuclear attack now suffers another. Let’s hope the outcome in 2011 is kinder this time.
As we investigate the cause and scope of this perfect storm of tragedies we need to stay focused on relief for the suffering refugees; whether from shaking land, monster waves or other perils. The legacy of this series of events will be born by real people who have to live in the aftermath. God Help Them! I pray that help is on the way.
When we think about the earthquake in Haiti, pictures of Port au Prince in shambles come to mind. More recently, the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand brings to mind substantial buildings in shambles.
We remember the Christmas tsunami in Cambodia that killed hundreds of thousands, but who remembers whether the earthquake produced a town in rubble?
Surprisingly, the videos from Sendai that I saw showed few buildings with earthquake damage we might expect from the most powerful earthquake in modern history. Isn’t that amazing?
Maybe the tsunamis came so quickly there wasn’t a chance to adequately document how well the city and surrounding countryside weathered the four or five minutes of violent shaking, but I think it merits investigation. Sendai was not in ruins when the waves came ashore and it didn’t appear that the nuclear power plants were either.
The political discussions about the future of nuclear power in countries around the world should be based on events following the earthquake, not directly caused by the earthquake. I think that is an important distinction.
Everyone wants to attribute the nuclear emergency in Japan to the earthquake but it appears that the plants survived the 9.0 temblor with few impacts. From what I can tell, the real culprit at Fukushima Daiichi was the loss of electrical power to the pumps that cool the reactors. It appears to me that the failure of the infrastructure in the region caused by the tsunami is the cause of the emergencies. Or perhaps the design of the power plants without adequate internal back-up power is the cause of the tragedy.
If that is the case, then the criticism of nuclear power may be somewhat premature.
In the mean time let’s stay focused on the relief effort for the hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees of coastal Japan regardless of whether they fled from a tsunami or a nuclear accident.
Today was a sad day in Snohomish. One of the most respected coaches in the history of our community passed away last week. No, one of the most respected citizens ever in the history of our town passed away last week.
Keith Gilbertson certainly was a legendary coach at Snohomish High School and his athletes will attest to that, but there was so much about Coach Gilbertson that touched lives away from athletic fields.
I have known Keith Gilbertson about 45 years. He was never my English teacher, he was only my coach for a short time but he was a friend for a lifetime. I saw him last at the memorial for my wife’s uncle Lawrence “Maggie” Bryant who died last fall at the age of 99. Coach Gilbertson came to see some of the older residents at Sunrise, the health care facility every week just to visit. I used to say that he was dropping by to see the old folks, but the truth was that several of them weren’t all that much older than he was. They were just friends.
That was what Coach Gilbertson was to most of the folks who knew him. His relationships with his friends may have had their roots in sports, but they friends forever.
I can’t say how many times he met people in my restaurant to catch up on old times or to talk about problems. Coach was there for his friends.
The outpouring of love for Coach Gilbertson was felt today at his memorial. Keith Gilbertson didn’t pass without notice.
Coach Gilbertson built character in generations of Snohomish athletes and that character will be his legacy more than any record for years or wins or championships. Coach Gilbertson was well known as a coach, but he is loved as a friend and mentor to thousands of us.
God Bless you Coach Gilbertson!
No Loss for Words 
Less is More!
by Steve DanaPresidential Chief of Staff designate, Rahm Emanuel recently responded to comments about the new president coming in during tough economic times. He said that difficult times present opportunities for change we might not get otherwise. Is that making lemonade out of lemons? It’s a great suggestion public officials should consider at every level of government.
Now is a good time to rethink how we commit to spend public funds. Tight budgets force us to slash our workforce. As we adjust to the loss of public employees, the prudent thing would be to evaluate the work being done by all our public employees. If we look at both productivity and processes we can determine whether we can permanently adjust to a smaller government.
Salaries with benefits for employees is very large component in the growth of government. Even if we have a “no growth” stable workforce, the cost of government goes up based upon the ‘cost of living’ index plus whatever extra is built into negotiated labor contracts. If the number of workers goes up, the cost increases compound. Our goal should be to keep the actual number of employees low and make sure we can afford down-the-line impacts of labor contracts we approve today. If revenue growth is not keeping pace with the cost of indexed commitments, we are falling further behind.
Hiring new public employees should only happen when we are absolutely sure there is adequate sustainable revenue to pay for them. Hiring and laying off employees is poor usage of public resources and unfair to employees and their families.
How often have you been to any government office where you could see employees in their work environment and you wondered what work they were hired to do? Sometimes you see staff just wandering around. I don’t want to characterize all government workers as slackers, but we have set low productivity expectations for many of them so it takes more of them to get a job done.
Competitive wages and benefits should produce high quality productivity. There have been occasions where private sector contractors were allowed to bid on government work and government managers had to bid to keep the work. If government managers operated like a business and were forced to produce a competitive product, we might get more efficient government for our tax dollar.
Elected officials are responsible for fairly managing the resources of government, balancing the needs of the taxpayers with the needs of public employees. If either one gets out of whack, the operation breaks down.
If all we do during this down-turn is wait for the economy to turn and get back to business as usual without adopting any meaningful change we will have lost a great opportunity. Let’s see what happens with our local favorites and decide whether they should stay or go.
Posted in Partisan Politics, Political commentary, Snohomish County Council, Snohomish County Political Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »