Washington: Tacoma

Harold Moss, the first African American mayor of Tacoma, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Puget Sound on Sunday during its graduation ceremony.

For those who aren't familiar with Moss' contributions to the Tacoma community read on, they're spelled out in the citation that was read aloud:

Civic leader, civil rights activist, selfless citizen, you are the architect of equality for the city of Tacoma. A son of Texas and a child of Detroit, you came to this city when your service in the United States Army stationed you at Fort Lewis. Here in the beautiful Northwest, you encountered once again the familiar face of discrimination you had met before in the rural South and the urban Midwest.

In her own words:

For Immediate release

Tacoma, WA – May 18, 2009 – Catherine Ushka-Hall, a long time education advocate, has announced her candidacy for Tacoma School Board. Catherine is seeking position #2, currently held by board member Connie Rickman, who is up for re-election this fall.

Catherine’s history of education advocacy includes membership in Tacoma Citizens for Schools, Stand for Children, working on levy and bond campaigns. She has represented the community on education issues ranging from programming, to the sale of school property at school board meetings, and at Tacoma City Council. Ushka –Hall has been involved with education issues since 1989, and the decision to move from advocate to School Director is one she does not take lightly.

The Senate transportation budget, which came out yesterday, got me to thinkin' about the late 1990s. That's when the state had Todd Shipyards in Seattle build three Jumbo Mark II Class ferries.

Curiously, the vessels were named after the hometowns of the then-current leadership in the Legislature.

(The only one who got short-changed in the deal was then-Sen. Dan McDonald. Otherwise, one of those ferries would have been named "MV Yarrow Point.")

But we do have the Wenatchee, Puyallup and Tacoma.

I thought of this because the Senate budget would let the Washington Transportation Commission decide (with some help) what to name the next batch of ferries that will built over the next several years.

State Rep. Brendan Williams, D-Olympia, is looking at the state law which the state Public Disclosure Commission will be looking at after the State Patrol forcibly handed off the whole "e-mail" case to the elections watchdog agency.

If you'll recall, the State Patrol announced yesterday it couldn't find a state law that was violated by the e-mail the was CC'ed to four legislators, an e-mail in which the Labor Council laid out its strategy for lobbying the Worker Privacy Bill.

I'm posting Williams' e-mail because he cites the same civil statute that PDC executive director Vicki Rippie mentioned yesterday when I asked her if the PDC had requested the material from the WSP.