Inslee signs order aimed at keeping former inmates from ending up back in prison
Washington State plans to deepen a commitment aimed at making it easier for former prison inmates to write new chapters of their lives and reduce the chance they’ll end up back behind bars.
Gov. Jay Inslee signed an executive order Monday that seeks to remove some of the barriers advocates say get in the way of someone re-entering society after completing their prison time.
Inslee said the order intends to guarantee official state I.D., housing assistance, Medicaid coverage and educational help for eligible people after they get out of prison.
“I think this combines two Washington values that we feel very deeply,” Inslee said. “Number one, we're against crime. And number two, we believe in human potential, to be able to go out there and be productive. And that positive viewpoint is one that is positive about reducing crime at the same time.”
The executive order lets Washington join a bipartisan national effort called “Reentry 2030.” Its goal is helping people who exit prison, stay out of prison. Washington is the sixth state to join the project.
Inslee says Reentry 2030 would build on the work Washington has already done to lower its recidivism rate, which fell from 33 percent in 2015 to 22 percent five years later.
WSU hears from Spokane campus as presidential search gets underway
Washington State University is looking for input as it searches for the school’s next president. An employment search firm and university committee are holding a round of community meetings this week in Spokane and Pullman.
Spokane is WSU’s designated health sciences campus. People who work in its Colleges of Pharmacy, Nursing and Medicine said Monday they want a president who understands and supports that mission. They also want someone who not only understands their role as teachers, but also as researchers who bring in outside money.
They want someone with experience as a university president and with multi-campus systems. Others want someone who approaches difficult financial situations with more than just a cut-cut-cut mentality. Still others want the president to spend a little more time thinking about academics and a little less about athletics.
The university hasn’t set a firm timetable for naming a new replacement. Current president Kirk Schulz is due to vacate the president’s suite next July. Over the last two weeks, a search firm and university committee has held community meetings in the cities that are home to WSU campuses. They’ll finish with several more today and tomorrow in Pullman.
The search committee will then interview several finalists and recommend up to four of them to the Board of Regents, who will make the final selection.
Boeing considering cost-cutting moves during strike
Boeing is considering possible furloughs and other measures to cut costs during the machinists' union strike.
Approximately 33,000 workers walked off the job Friday, after rejecting a new contract offer.
Richard Aboulafia, managing director of the consulting firm Aerodynamic Advisory, told KUOW public radio the company's cost-cutting moves are somewhere between understandable and draconian.
"They're obviously under the gun with the great revenue machine that is, you know, jetliner production shut off. In addition, over the weekend, you had two of the premier credit agencies talk about downgrading their debt rating,” Aboulafia said. “So I think they're quite mindful of that, as well as the cutoff of revenue from jetliner production.”
The machinists are demanding higher wages and the restoration of pensions lost in previous negotiations.
Boeing said some cost-saving moves will go into effect immediately, including a hiring freeze, limits on travel, and parts purchasing reductions.
Drought watcher tells lawmakers WA needs more water storage
Much of Washington has officially been in a drought since April. That’s nothing new.
State drought coordinator Carolyn Mellor, of the Department of Ecology, said drought has been declared during six of the last 10 years.
With warmer winters, Mellor said, precipitation often falls as rain rather than snow, leading to less snowpack in the mountains that melts and is available for irrigation later in the season.
“When we're talking about drought, we’re not talking moments in time when it's drier than normal,” Mellor said. “We're thinking deeply about impacts on water supply and understanding for farmers and irrigators the way in which they have their practices are often set up around water being instream or in storage at certain points in time.”
Mellor spoke Monday to a joint legislative committee on water supply, which held a work session in Olympia.
She said future planning should look into more water storage options, such as reservoirs in targeted areas of the state.
Partial lunar eclipse visible tonight
As we head into the last full week of summer, night sky-watchers have an opportunity to see a celestial event.
The full harvest moon arrives Tuesday, and along with it, a partial lunar eclipse.
For Spokane area viewers, the moon will already be partially in the outer shadow of the Earth as it rises Tuesday evening shortly before 7 p.m.
This eclipse is very partial and only a small section of the moon will darkened by the central part of the Earth's shadow known as the umbra.
The darkest shadow will make contact with the moon about 7:12 and last for a little over an hour. But the moon will remain slightly darker from the earths outer shadow, the “penumbra” until 9:47PM.
There won't be another lunar eclipse visible in Spokane until the total eclipse of March 14 of next year.
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Reporting was contributed by Brandon Hollingsworth, Doug Nadvornick, John O’Brien and Steve Jackson.