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"Your Voice" features longer and distinctively personal commentary from readers on topics that don't seem to fit in a letter to the editor. Try to limit submissions to about 600 words.
Send proposed articles to chief editorial writer Patrick O'Callahan, The News Tribune, PO Box 11000, Tacoma, Wash. 98411 (or e-mail Patrick O'Callahan). Articles may be edited and republished in any format by The News Tribune.
Failing to disclose public records can get expensive, as the state keeps finding out.
The resignation of Judge Michael Hecht Monday didn’t just rid Pierce County Superior Court of a malodorous scandal. It quickly exposed serious fault lines in county government.
The distinction of being the first state in the nation to approve equality for same-sex couples was supposed to go to the live-and-let-live state of Maine. Instead, it will belong to Washington.
Health care reform wasn’t on Tuesday’s ballot, but it might as well have been.
It’s not just that Initiative 1033 lost, but the margin by which it lost: 12 percent, as of Wednesday afternoon.
Change is often what elections are about, and this one didn’t disappoint.
President Obama’s decision on deploying more troops to Afghanistan has been complicated by an ugly reality: suicide.
If you’re a judge, you’re a lawyer. If you’re a lawyer, you’ve probably had to defend the indefensible at some point in your career.
Voters should always take care when making their election picks, but some parts of the ballot deserve more attention than others this year.
Day four after Judge Michael Hecht’s convictions, and he still hasn’t resigned from the Pierce County Superior Court. A bad omen.
For many Americans, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are far off in the distance, with little impact on their own lives. But here in the South Sound, they resonate as clearly as the sound of artillery during training exercises and as visibly as the transport planes that fly overhead.
John Alexander comes across as an impressive candidate for the Puyallup City Council: soft-spoken, earnest, thoughtful, articulate. Just the guy you want on a council where reason and level-headedness have been in short supply at times.
We are not counting on Judge Michael Hecht’s sense of decency. But if he still possesses any vestige of one, he will resign immediately from the Pierce County Superior Court bench.
Politicians may play the eternal optimists, but even they couldn’t feign surprise at Wednesday’s announcement that Boeing will begin assembling commercial jets somewhere other than Washington state.
From its beginnings as a fishing and boat-building village, Gig Harbor has been one of the most distinctive and picturesque communities in Washington.
“We do have a vaccine that works.” – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
No union likes having its back against the wall, but that seems to be where the Machinists union stands right now on the question of keeping 787 Dreamliner production in Washington.
Kerry Killinger said he wanted to create the Wal-Mart of banks. He attempted to do it in a curious way, by ruining the very customers he said he wanted to serve.
In 2004, Washington Secretary of Sam Reed was at the center of the firestorm created by one of the closest gubernatorial races in U.S. history. Two recounts, multiple lawsuits and six months later, Reed – a Republican – declared that Democrat Chris Gregoire had beaten Republican Dino Rossi by 133 votes out of nearly 3 million cast.
That didn’t take long.
The theory behind Initiative 1033 – tying the growth of government to the growth of population, plus inflation – strikes us as sound. What worries us is the impact of its peculiarities.
Sumner’s citizens will find two city contests on their Nov. 3 ballots. They’ll also find the luxury of four decent candidates in those contests.
There’s just no polite way to put this: The state Supreme Court blew it.
Leaders of the Port of Tacoma, including Executive Director Tim Farrell, have blamed the global recession for the failure of the massive NYK terminal project. The story turns out to be far more complicated – and far less flattering for the port.
Lakewood voters are particularly fortunate this election cycle for two reasons.
The races for Federal Way school board took on additional significance last week when Superintendent Tom Murphy, a respected 20-year veteran of the district, announced his retirement.
A funny thing happened to the Pierce County auditor’s office in the two years since citizens voted to make it nonpartisan: It seems to have become more partisan than ever.
The Bethel School District gets the prize for having, if not the most vigorous school board campaigns, at least the oddest. It’s remarkable that the races are even contested.
The campaigns for and against the three proposed Pierce County charter amendments both seem to be operating on the KISS principle: “Keep it simple, stupid.”
In University Place, one issue overshadows this election: the achingly slow progress of Town Center, the public/private development on Bridgeport Way the City Council envisions as a way to expand the tax base.
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