Vancouver ballot box fire is an opportunity to make voting more secure, says Hobbs
As officials continue to investigate the fires set at ballot drop boxes in Vancouver and Portland this week, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs is looking toward improving security in the future.
Hobbs said his department is already working with Clark County officials to increase security resources, such as around-the-clock monitoring of drop boxes.
This may be an opportunity to examine ballot drop boxes around the state to see if some need to be upgraded to include fire suppression systems, he said.
"The one that was hit with an incendiary device — apparently, it had an extinguisher system, but did not go off," Hobbs said. "Not sure if it would have helped anyway, depending on the type of explosive that they used."
State department officials are also coordinating with the FBI to investigate the matter.
But once more is known about the fires, Hobbs said his office may need to go to the state legislature to meet security needs for future elections.
"It's going to take time for us to do a little ‘lessons learned’ and put a bill together. But then we'll be ready once session starts in January," he told SPR News. "It takes a process, but the good thing is that by the time the legislature's over, that gives us plenty of time to get ready for the next election."
The fire in Portland singed only three ballots before it was extinguished, but officials say the drop box fire in Vancouver burned hundreds of voters’ ballots.
Voters with questions about the status of their ballot can visit votewa.gov to get updates.
Hobbs also urged people to report any suspicious activity or devices at drop boxes to their local law enforcement and county auditors.
Spokane’s mayor wants more people to apply for a tax credit
Spokane city officials are encouraging more residents to apply for Washington’s Working Families Tax Credit.
The credit is the state’s version of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. Despite its name, single people and those with no children can also apply for it. People who meet the income guidelines can apply for refunds of some of the sales tax they’ve paid in a previous year, up to $1,200 dollars.
The city is working with several community organizations to spread the word and provide support, including Nuestras Raices. Ivan Torres, the director of its Working Family Tax Credit program, says his organization will provide free help with online applications.
“The program is free and everything, but where most people fail is trying to understand the tax questions that are asked, which are worded a bit confusing,” Torres said. “We’ve talked to the Department of Revenue a few times about trying to reword these questions so they’re simpler, so that someone who doesn’t prepare taxes can answer them.”
Mayor Lisa Brown says 30,000 Spokane families are eligible for refunds, but only about 17,000 have filed. The city will spend $250,000 dollars from its federal Rescue Plan money for a media awareness campaign.
NW tribes want WA lawmakers to help reduce jail deaths
Native American tribes are calling on Washington lawmakers to help incarcerated Indigenous people who have been dying in local jails.
At a recent meeting in southwest Washington, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians unanimously passed a resolution on preventing Indigenous loss of life in local jails.
The consortium represents about 50 tribes across the region, from western Montana to Alaska. It said Native Americans have died at disproportionately high rate within local jails, especially in cases involving substance use and opioid withdrawal.
The tribes want better standards in jails, and more training on substance withdrawal management, suicide prevention and cultural competency toward the tribes.
At least seven Indigenous people have died by suicide in Washington jails in the last five years.
Two decades in the making, Bigelow-Forker connector opens to traffic
For years, people driving the shortcut from north Spokane to the valley negotiated a twisting, two-lane road through farm country. What was once a humble farm-to-market road has now been straightened and widened to handle nearly 40,000 vehicles per day.
Spokane community leaders yesterday celebrated the opening of the eight-mile long Bigelow Gulch-Forker Road Urban Connector.
“This corridor not only connects the cities of Spokane and Spokane Valley, it also ties an overall regional transportation plan that includes Interstate 90 and the North Spokane Corridor,” County Commission Chairwoman Mary Kuney said.
A cost benefit analysis for the project estimates the new connector will lead to 30% fewer accidents over the next 20 years, save drivers more than five million hours of travel time and reduce tailpipe emissions by 30,000 tons.
Design of the project began in 1997 after county officials saw that traffic volumes on the two roads were rapidly increasing as farms were sold and housing projects replaced them. Construction started in 2005. But Bigelow Gulch Road’s origin goes back much farther.
“We’ve actually learned quite a bit about this road over the last couple of months. We found out that, back during the New Deal era, it was a county engineer, Clarence Griggs, that actually got the original funding to pave what at that time was just a dirt and gravel road,” County Commissioner Josh Kerns said.
Bigelow Gulch and Forker Roads gradually evolved from two-lane routes for commercial traffic that bypassed the city of Spokane to become today’s four-lane affair that officials believe will be safer and faster for the heavy volume of traffic.
The cost of the project is $75 million with local officials pulling in money from several state, local and county sources.
Nearly 45 years after eruption, movement at Mt. St. Helens still causing problems
Not long after ash, rock, mud and debris from Mt. St. Helens’ 1980 eruption blocked Spirit Lake’s natural outlet to the Toutle River, the Army Corps of Engineers built a mile-and-a-half tunnel to drain the lake.
Now movement along two rock layers is causing the tunnel to buckle. If ignored, pressure from the lake could cause the volcanic debris dam to rupture, sending millions of gallons of water cascading into towns below.
The U.S. Forest Service is working on several possible fixes. The options include building a new, stronger tunnel, a new channel above ground, keeping the old tunnel and reinforcing it when necessary.
But perhaps the most original idea is to install a long pipe just underground along the surface and gradually shorten it, so the water spurting out the end washes away the soil, creating a new outlet.
“Rather than cutting a giant open channel all at once, and taking all of that fill material somewhere,” Forest Service manager Ryan Cole told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “We can allow nature, i.e., water flowing across that debris blockage, to slowly start cutting its way back.”
The cost of any of the potential solutions is unclear, but the Forest Service is asking for public comment.
Congress has yet to appropriate money for the project so it’ll be years before any major work starts. Meanwhile, the tunnel will continue to get fixed every time it buckles.
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Reporting was contributed by Owen Henderson, Doug Nadvornick, Troy Brynelson and Kristian Foden-Vencil. Stories were edited by Brandon Hollingsworth.