Podcasts about Paine Field

On Monday's Daily Puck Drop, Jason “Puck” Puckett is joined by the Go-2-Guy, Jim Moore and they start off the show recapping Puck's golf trip to Arizona, his new love affair with Paine Field and is Waymo experience in Arizona.  Waymo is the self driving car like Uber and Puck says it's an absolute game changer.  Puck and Jim chat about the M's and there current road trip and they wonder if it's sustainable the way the offense is playing?  Jim is turning the corner on his thoughts about Dylan Moore and Randy Arozarena.   During the live show, news breaks that girls flag football has been approved by the WIAA and Puck and Jim react to the news and Jim wonders if you'll be able to bet on it?  They turn their attention to the NFL draft and laugh and shake their heads that Cam Ward will be the top overall pick.  Jim says goodbye and Puck replays his interview with The Athletic's Dane Brugler from last week as he mocks the entire first round of the NFL draft.   Puck wraps up the show with, “Hey, What the Puck!?”  Puck discusses the transfer saga with Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava. (0:00) Puck and Jim (1:04:37) The Athletic's Dane Brugler (1:34:03) “Hey, What the Puck!?”  

President’s Trump’s tariffs against Canada and Mexico went into effect today. Dozens of Democrats are using the exact same talking points verbatim to attack Trump. King County Metro is reopening some bus stops that were previously closed due to safety reasons. // Big Local: The good news is that Paine Field is getting a new airline, the bad news is that it’s Frontier. A Bremerton teacher’s pets were possibly spared from a house fire due to her doggie door. Despite Pierce County throwing money at the problem, homelessness keeps getting worse. // You Pick the Topic: Some Westerners are visiting North Korea now that its economic zone is open.

The Heritage Museum of Flight at Paine Field has a new exhibit that highlights the "Animals of War" with stories about parachuting dogs, pigeons and even a skydiving monkey!

Today on the show, Paul and Ben talk about their 400th episode, their endurance performances, the zoom update, therapy appointments, the new speaker of the house, the terrible things happening in the country today, gun control, Paul gonna guess the news, the pilot on mushrooms out of Everett's Paine Field, … Continue reading →

This week we are unpacking the most recent news on an Alaska airlines pilot who had a mental health breakdown during a flight from Paine Field to San Francisco. Joseph Emerson is a 44-year-old Alaska Airlines pilot who was jump seating on Horizon Airlines and was quoted saying “I am not ok” before he pulled two T handles known as fire handles that shut off fuel to the engines. Emerson was successfully subdued by the crew and taken into custody where he shared he had not slept for 40 hours, had just attended a friend's funeral a few days prior & was suffering from depression. Listen know to hear more… If you or a loved one is struggling, help is available. Dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. SOCIAL LINKS- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/thepilotspandemic https://instagram.com/emneonicon https://Instagram.com/thefitaviatrix Link for aeromedical reform petition: https://www.change.org/apilotspandemic WEBSITE: https://msha.ke/thepilotspandemic/ SPONSORS: www.avi-foods.com @avi_foods_co Code:pilotspandemic --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thepilotspandemic/support

WHAT'S NEW AT 10! with Diane Radischat, resident at Arrowhead Gardens, which is being cleared today; Paine Field rebrands // GUEST: Ted Buehner on whether we'll hit 100 this year and wildfire weather // SCENARIOS!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former U.S. Attorney Nick Brown on his campaign for State Attorney General // Feliks Banel with the story of a shipwreck from 150 years ago // Chris Sullivan with the renaming of Paine Field in Everett // Eleftheria Roumeli, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UW on biodegradable plastic Pt. 1 // Dose of Kindness -- Shaquille O'Neal plays with some lucky kids // Eleftheria Roumeli, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UW on biodegradable plastic Pt. 2See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

RUNDOWN       At the top of the show the guys read listener emails before regaling the Fred Couples prank story with Fish. Next, Mitch and Scott chat about Hotshot's overly burdensome trip to Paine Field, the M's falling barely short of a sweep, and the excitement level heading into the NHL postseason with the Kraken locked in. A four-pack of featured guests including Seahawks insider Brady Henderson, former pro golfer Rick Fehr, and RJ Eskanos & Darren Brown for the Kraken No-Table. Today's “Other Stuff” topics range from the Mavericks under investigation for draft position shenanigans, Puff Daddy's financial mistake from many years ago, and recent athlete arrests.      GUESTS       Brady Henderson | ESPN's NFL Nation Seahawks reporter    Rick Fehr | Former PGA golfer  RJ Eskanos | Emerald City Hockey   Darren Brown | Sound of Hockey  TABLE OF CONTENTS       9:18 | Mitch reads letters from listeners whom are mixed on their love of golf chatter on the podcast.  12:11 | In light of The Masters tournament, the guys recall the infamous Fred Couples interview prank.  17:20 | The Rays are red freaking hot to start the season!  26:36 | Scott got roped into entering the Paine Field Airport lobby after dropping her off for a flight.  37:07 | The Mariners stole defeat from the arms of victory for a series sweep against the Guardians. 43:40 | Will the guys follow the Kraken along their postseason journey?  48:54 | GUEST: Brady Henderson returns with the draft looming to discuss position groups with greatest need following the offseason free agency moves.  1:10:40 | GUEST: Rick Fehr is back to share his Masters experience as a player and reaction to John Rahm's victory.  1:30:38 | GUEST: RJ Eskanos and Darren Brown joined Mitch on Thursday in the wake of earning their first trip to the NHL postseason.  1:53:52 | The “Other Stuff” segment features stories such as the Mavs under scrutiny for benching stars for potential draft implications, Diddy's cumulative royalty mistake to Sting, and criminal activity for notable sports figures.  

On this midweek show, Ryan Packer returns for a round-up of regional transportation issues with Crystal. Ryan's efforts to raise public awareness around traffic safety issues through in-the-minute reporting of cars hitting pedestrians and bicyclists sparks conversation about the Legislature's aim of changing driver behavior through bills currently under consideration and their funding of bike and pedestrian safety improvements in last year's transportation package. They then address the issue of the Columbia River Crossing Megaproject being pushed forward with a decades-old scope, an uncertain funding plan, and non-consideration of climate change or equity. Finally, Crystal and Ryan highlight the disconnect observed in two regional planning bodies with the Puget Sound Regional Council adopting a transportation plan unaligned with our 2030 climate goals and the Sound Transit Board making decisions uninformed by transit rider experience. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Ryan Packer at @typewriteralley.   Ryan Packer Ryan Packer has been covering transportation and land use at The Urbanist since 2015. Their work has also appeared in the Seattle Bike Blog, BikePortland, and PubliCola. They don't own a bike.   Resources “State Proposals Aim to Lower Traffic Deaths by Improving Driver Behavior” by Ryan Packer from PubliCola   “Navigating the Move Ahead Washington Transportation Package with Ryan Packer” from Hacks & Wonks   “Washington State Is Losing Control of the Columbia Interstate Bridge Replacement Megaproject” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   “Adopted Regional Transportation Plan Isn't Aligned With 2030 Climate Goals” by Ryan Packer from The Urbanist   “Elected Leaders Must Press Forward With Study of SR 99 and I-5 Everett Link Alternatives” by Stephen Fesler from The Urbanist   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am excited to be able to welcome Ryan Packer to the show, who's been covering transportation and land use at The Urbanist since 2015. Their work has also appeared in Seattle Bike Blog, Bike Portland, PubliCola. They don't own a bike, but they cover transportation and related issues as well or better than anyone else in the region - an absolute impactful reporter that we have here. Welcome to the show, Ryan. [00:01:07] Ryan Packer: Thanks so much for having me. [00:01:09] Crystal Fincher: So what got you interested in the first place in reporting on these issues in particular? [00:01:16] Ryan Packer: Basically it was being a transportation user in Seattle. I worked for a restaurant company close to downtown and lived in Capitol Hill, and basically all the ways to get to work that the City was trying to encourage people to use - walking or transit - were unpleasant or infeasible basically. And once you start picking at threads as to why that is, you quickly learn all the different elements of the transportation system that most people aren't aware of - what I like to call the government ecosystem around transportation - and all the ways that it's very broken. [00:01:59] Crystal Fincher: Definitely very broken. One of the things that you've become known for is the unique style of reporting that you have for pedestrian-involved collisions by cars and other vehicles. How did you get started doing that? And what is the kind of feedback that you've received about your reporting there? [00:02:22] Ryan Packer: Yeah, so I basically started noticing that there wasn't a lot of in-the-minute reporting on people getting hit by cars, basically - people walking or biking. Essentially The Seattle Times, or daily newspaper even - in Washington or elsewhere - is only going to cover someone getting hit when ultimately it leads to someone's death. And I started to think about how this leads to a disproportionate - started to think about how this leads to a wrong perception in public at large, in terms of how safe it is to walk around and bike around. Obviously it's not intended to scare people or make people not want to walk or bike, but just to give people an accurate read of how often this is happening. Because the information is out there and once I started pulling it out and realizing this is happening right around the corner from me - I might not have even known this had happened - the reception has been pretty positive in terms of people wanting this information, wanting to know what's happening particularly on their own neighborhood streets. [00:03:41] Crystal Fincher: And there's a lot of action being talked about in response to the crisis that is pedestrian and bike safety. What is being talked about - I guess we'll start off at the state level - just in terms of safety, and then we can talk about general, other transportation-related issues, but what's on the docket there? [00:04:04] Ryan Packer: This session is not a big transportation year, but the traffic safety crisis is the big transportation issue. And so there are a number of bills that are being considered and most of them are trying to directly go after driver behavior. And so we have a lot of bills that are aimed at, say, specific types of drivers. There's a bill to lower the blood alcohol content threshold for a DUI from 0.08 to 0.05 - making people think a little bit more closely about how much they're drinking when they get behind the wheel of a car. There's a bill to target 18 to 25-year old drivers who don't have to take a driver education course - 18-year old doesn't have to take a driver's education course that their 17-year old sibling does. It doesn't make a lot of sense and it shows in the data in terms of the crash rates for young adults like that don't end up taking that course. There's a bill to target older drivers - a little bit less prescriptive - but there's some data that suggests that once you hit a certain age, your capabilities behind the wheel should be assessed a little bit more frequently. A bill to give people a warning label on their car, before they purchase it, in terms of - This vehicle is large and more likely to severely hurt somebody walking or biking if you hit them. And that bill would also impose an additional fine if you were involved in a crash like that. And so all these bills are looking at individual behavior, what I would call bad driver targeting. Ultimately this is just one aspect of the sort of national best practices that everyone's moving toward in terms of what's called a safe systems approach. But the important thing to note - while everyone's talking about driver behavior this session - last session was the transportation investment year. And you actually had me on the program to talk about the Move Ahead Washington package last year. But just to go through what we know about it since then and what it's going to do, it includes a lot of money for cities to ask for for bike and pedestrian safety. The problem with that is it is relying on people to raise their hands and also doesn't require that the funds go to the most impactful areas. So for example, a city like Kent doesn't have to request funds for the intersection, say, that the most people are getting hurt at. They can say, Oh, we want to do a project over here. And there's not a lot that the state can say, Oh, you should do something different. They have to pick the projects people are asking for. But there's another very important provision in that bill, which is a new complete streets mandate for state highways. And so we're getting into a mandate - sort of a blanket change - it's going to be much more impactful. It basically says that any time that the State Department of Transportation goes out to fix, or repair, or maintain a state highway - they have to look at whether or not that state highway is up to current standards - whether or not it has sidewalks, bike lanes, and whether drivers are currently driving really the appropriate speeds on that highway. So the Legislature allocated $1.5 billion in Move Ahead Washington to overall highway maintenance, so it's a lot of money but it's also not a lot of money in terms of how much maintenance our state highways need. But since the passage of that law, the State Department of Transportation has announced that they expect to use about half of that amount to upgrade safety infrastructure for people walking and biking on state highways - about $750 million, which if it ends up coming to pass would be the biggest investment in safe infrastructure in statewide history - possibly in a lot of states. [00:08:42] Crystal Fincher: And that was some positive news, hedged positive news. Seems like we're making progress but there is so much to do that sometimes it feels like we're trying to mop up the ocean a little bit. You talked about some of the best practices and some of the bills going after one dimension of that, which is driver behavior. What are the other recommended best practices? What are things that legislators should be talking about? [00:09:12] Ryan Packer: One element that has not quite made it to the Legislature is vehicle design in terms of - I talked a little bit about that warning label - but in terms of actually requiring that cars not be designed to hurt people is one aspect of this sort of safe systems approach - the actual design of our vehicles. It's gotten larger over the past couple decades - the trend toward SUVs, which has led to negative direction in terms of the pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities. And so when you're talking about that, you're talking about something that would impact everyone on the road as opposed to the so-called bad driver. Even if you're putting a warning label - that's putting the onus on individuals like - Oh, you bought this car so you should know what it's like, as opposed to this car is on the market and it's a systemic issue in terms of offering these for sale. And so, but once you start to get into sort of how many different drivers would be impacted, the political will to actually make the changes is diminishing. For example, in terms of driver's education - when you talk about making drivers age 18 to 25 do the driver's ed course, that's one change but a 24-year old who is tested in another state can also just go ahead and transfer their driver's license into Washington without having to do that driver's ed course. Or a driver who's 35 and maybe needs to have that driver course again. Roger Millar, the State Secretary of Transportation, likes to note that the last time that he was tested for his driver behavior was in the 1970s and that there's been a couple of changes in state laws since that time - and that's true for a lot of people on our roads. But once again, that would apply to a lot of people getting back in the queue for driver's testing. [00:11:10] Crystal Fincher: Does road design play a role in the safe systems approach? [00:11:15] Ryan Packer: Absolutely road design plays a role. It's a key component, and that's what I was getting at with the complete streets requirement doing a systemic look at whether our state highways are designed to standards. There's not really a requirement for local jurisdictions to do that - cities like Seattle have complete streets ordinances, but there's a lot of ways that they can get around those. But you're talking about the need to - number one, make sure that people are driving at the appropriate speeds - one of the biggest factors in terms of whether or not someone is likely to be hurt or even killed in a crash is the speed that they're going. And you often have cities lowering speed limits, but the design speed - the speed that drivers feel like they can appropriately go on a road - may still be a lot higher. And so you have a lot of streets where those speeds remain very high. And then you also have the issue of distance for crossings for pedestrians - whether or not someone is likely to be able to safely cross that street is a big determinant of how safe it is, and whether or not there's safe infrastructure for people to walk along it or bike along it. One thing I like to always notice is - one of the biggest impacts that adding protected bike lanes to urban cities is - is the impact on pedestrians. You're often - one, separating cars from pedestrians with another lane in between them which is always great and makes things safer, but you're also adding protected turns - making sure the drivers aren't turning across the bike lanes - also great for people walking. So these kind of have these compounding effect, where it improves everything for everyone on the street not just someone on a bike. [00:13:15] Crystal Fincher: Now there are a few other things going on in the Legislature, even besides some of these pedestrian-related and safety-related enhancements. One of those issues is one that they thought they dealt with and maybe mostly wrapped up last year, but that has come back with a vengeance - that a lot of people are looking at with concern - and that's the Columbia River Crossing Megaproject. Where does that stand, and what has happened that they need to tackle now? [00:13:48] Ryan Packer: So this project has been around for almost two decades - it's a needed project to replace the two spans of the I-5, between Washington and Oregon - one of which was built in the 1910s. The previous attempt to replace this bridge, which is called the Columbia River Crossing, included seven miles of highway expansion, five interchanges, light rail as a component - several sort of huge projects within projects - that made the project very expensive and expansive. Ultimately in 2013, it was the Washington State Senate that didn't want to pony up the money for that project - in part because of light rail's inclusion, in part because of a opposition to having tolls from the Washington side to go into Oregon. That project languished for several years until it was restarted by Governor Brown and Inslee in 2019, and has been moving forward - but the key thing to remember with this is that we're still using the federal approval from the Columbia River Crossing, even though we've now rebranded it with a very flashy campaign called the Interstate Bridge Replacement, or the IBR. It has the environmental approval of the Columbia River Crossing and that includes the scope - and so the seven miles of highway, five interchanges - it basically is still in there. And we went through a whole process to look at how we might tweak that, whether or not we might include climate change as an actual purpose and need to address with this project, or whether we might want to include equity as an actual thing to address. Ultimately they decided that that would disrupt the project schedule - they're very intent on replacing this, starting construction by 2025 - it's not entirely clear that's going to happen, it being 2023 already, but that's what they're aiming for. And at the end of last year they just came up with a new project cost estimate based on all the new tweaks that they want to do to this thing, and it could end up costing about - $7.5 billion is the high end estimate. It would ultimately be the most expensive single highway project in the Pacific Northwest and among the top 10 in the nation. And so the question is whether the scope is too wide and expansive for - what we're talking about is a very needed bridge, not a highway. [00:16:55] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And with that expanded cost estimate and the now inflated cost that we've seen, that puts them at least a billion dollars under budget - and there's a question about where that billion dollars is coming from. Where does that stand? [00:17:11] Ryan Packer: So they have a financial concept plan that assumes that they're going to get a lot of money from the federal government - the bipartisan infrastructure bill included a mega-grant program, kind of orchestrated by Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, that kind of had the IBR in mind when they were looking at this grant program. And so they're counting on an incredible amount of money from the federal government - around $2-3 billion - which is wild. They've already gotten $1 billion from the State of Washington in last year's Move Ahead Washington package, but they're banking on Oregon chipping in another billion dollars this year - which would get them to have that matching funds for the federal grants. Interestingly enough, new governor of Oregon Tina Kotek released her budget very early this year and didn't actually have a billion dollars in it for that project, which is very interesting because it was a very big priority of her predecessor, a very big priority of sort of her old colleagues in the Oregon Legislature - and so she clearly sees it as not one of the top priorities. She's currently allocating a lot of money for housing and not highways. [00:18:41] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, an interesting conundrum which has definitely been scrutinized and continues to be challenged - because of the broadness of the scope - does it require that many lanes, that much impact on the local area? You talked about equity being put aside in terms of - because they wanted to stick to their timeline. And certainly people in that region who are familiar with the impacts of the type of pollution that's created by cars being spewed in the neighborhood and what those health impacts, like asthma and other things, are for local communities and schools there in that area. [00:19:25] Ryan Packer: So that also gets into the issue of tolls, which I mentioned were a sticking point with the old project. They're banking on a lot of money also coming in from tolls. The first point with that is obviously we don't quite know what the actual impact on traffic volume on the bridge is going to be from those tolls, and so it has a - do we need to have all that capacity to - if we're going to put the tolling on the bridge, what is that relationship going to look like? But also, as we've seen in Washington with the SR99 tunnel and some of the other tolling programs that the state has undergone in the past couple years, sort of banking on a high number of toll users to pay back your project is not necessarily the most sound financial plan. [00:20:20] Crystal Fincher: It is not, as we have learned in those other situations that you referenced. I also wanted to touch on one of our regional bodies at the moment - the Puget Sound Regional Council. And we have a number of bodies that are involved in transportation planning, a number of regional bodies - this is one of them - but a number of these have also talked about their commitment to addressing climate change, to reducing greenhouse gases, setting targets and we have a 2030 target that they're attempting to hit. And recently they announced that they are not on track to hit the 2030 climate goal. Where do they stand on that, and are they talking about anything that will put us back on track to meeting those targets? [00:21:09] Ryan Packer: Yeah, so this is a body that not a lot of people pay attention to - it's the four county - King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap County - regional planning body. Its biggest role is figuring out where to allocate federal funds, and so it's a conduit for a lot of federal money - and so that's how it's how it gets the power that it does. Ultimately they have to approve a regional transportation plan that kind of looks at the entire region's goals around transportation. They did that last year, and originally it was just looking at the climate impacts by 2050 - sort of the long term goals around reducing transportation emissions. Thanks to a lot of the leaders on the regional council, including the president - King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci - they were like, Hey, we should actually be looking at 2030 to see if we're on track or we have to do a lot more work. And that analysis just came back and shows a pretty big gap in terms of where we're expected to be - 13%, which is a huge emissions gap. It doesn't sound huge, but it's - when you talk about the emissions of the entire region. And they also looked at sort of some models around how to fill that gap. And that's the frustrating thing about their models - which is basically they showed that transit, expanding transit, is not really going to close the gap. And in terms of - because our growth strategy as a region is not quite going to catch up to where we need to be by 2030 in terms of having actual people close to transit. First of all, should give some direction to our local leaders in terms of what they should be doing around transit access and station planning. But also the model seems a little bit behind the times in terms of being able to actually account for sort of the actual behavior of people. It also noted that if we put a hold on sort of the roadway expansions - which add capacity, add cars, add emissions - that it would - their models are showing that that wouldn't have an impact. And a lot of people are questioning that, including Claudia Balducci [00:23:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, a lot of us questioning that - with some of the justification that they're giving essentially being we add lanes but that's gonna help traffic. And if people spend less time in traffic, then that's going to neutralize the emissions that come from the increased traffic somehow. [00:24:05] Ryan Packer: The same arguments that we've been hearing for a couple of decades - just haven't borne out. [00:24:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - kind of challenging there. Also Sound Transit, another regional body that is very involved in our regional transit system - they operate our light rail and heavy rail Sounder system. Where do they stand in terms of climate goals and their kind of overall operation? [00:24:33] Ryan Packer: Ultimately, Sound Transit isn't really charged with making sure that the region's holding to its climate goals. They're being asked to build a regional spine to our transit network, which is - it's very expensive. It's gonna be a lot of years of work to get that sort of spine from Everett to Tacoma. And ultimately, it's not going to be as impactful as it could be if regional government - cities, counties - don't do the maximum to ensure that people are living by the stations, people can access those stations. And so that's one way that the sort of siloed system of our transportation ecosystem in central Puget Sound is not optimizing outcomes in terms of climate and also just all those other more immediate impacts - livability, air quality, things like that. Sound Transit is tasked with building the system, and the way that its political board is structured - the incentives are basically to make sure that your community is getting some transit and not that the region as a whole is set up for success. One way that that's epitomized is the planned deviation over to Paine Field in Everett - that a lot of people are questioning the sort of utility of making a detour on light rail to go to an airport that not a lot of people are really going to be able to utilize by the time it's done - and so, it's adding a couple like 10 minutes to every trip to Everett, as opposed to other ways to serve that. But it's seen as - taking away that would be seen as bad for Everett. [00:26:30] Crystal Fincher: And this is a challenge that we see with this board overall and some of the confounding decisions that are made. What is the composition of this board, and what kind of investment do its members have in - personal investment - in public transit? [00:26:47] Ryan Packer: The board is made up of local leaders from around the region, so ultimately you have people whose investment in transit is tied directly to their own performance as an elected official, not necessarily their own experience as a transit rider. It's not clear how many of our transit board members are actual daily transit riders or, in terms of their ties to the overall transit community. And so, like I said, it's all about making sure that you're delivering the projects for your city. And so there's just a lot of sort of bartering and siloing. [00:27:26] Crystal Fincher: Overall, with your perspective on transportation and transit in the region, what do you think are the most important things, I guess, on the docket for people to address and ways to address them? What would your words of wisdom be for those involved in the policy making? [00:27:45] Ryan Packer: I think the first thing I would say is that people involved in transit decision making should get out and ride transit - see what it's like - use that experience to actually make decisions. And get away from the map on the screen, in terms of looking at the actual impacts. I think a lot of people are getting very cynical about the decision making processes in central Puget Sound at all levels of government - from the City of Seattle to the highest echelons at Sound Transit - in terms of where the priorities of the decision makers are. I do think we see that party shifting a little bit, possibly - even at the City of Seattle level - toward people-centered projects, but ultimately the status quo bias is so embedded into - a lot of these - I don't want to say infrastructure, but the actual decision making processes - that it's very hard to turn that ship very quickly at all. [00:29:05] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much, Ryan, for your time today. Thank you for just enlightening us - and your coverage - it's just been so impactful. I know that even for people who follow these issues and like you talked about - looking at the data, seeing maps on the screen and this happening - it's just impactful in a different way to see it reported in live time. And just the way that you get around our region and connect the dots on how what we do across the region impacts each other, and how we should be addressing transit and transportation overall. So thank you very much. [00:29:48] Ryan Packer: Well, thanks so much for all that you do, Crystal. [00:29:50] Crystal Fincher: Thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Post-Production Assistant is Bryce Cannatelli. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow me @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered right to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

On this Hacks & Wonks week-in-review, political consultant and host Crystal Fincher is joined by friend of the show and today's co-host: metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll! They look at the battle over a potential Pierce County airport, racist housing covenants, pushback against expanding ballot access to people in Washington state jails, WA police pursuit legislation, and the ongoing debate over middle housing.  In Pierce County news, Matt outlines how potential plans for a new airport in the area seem to have been squashed by their opposition for now, but the needs for a new airport remain. He also informs us about the existence of thousands of racial housing covenants, homes that were originally built at the exclusion of people based on their race, in the region. It's a grim reminder of the racist history of our country, and how discriminatory practices continue today. In election news, Khawla Nakua from Bolts did some excellent reporting last month revealing that, despite the creation of new state funding to bring voting access to eligible voters in WA jails, only a handful of counties have applied for the funding, and some local officials have blocked attempts to utilize the funds.  In public safety news this week, the WA legislature is currently debating over whether to expand the situations in which police officers can utilize vehicular pursuits. While there are many anecdotes or concerns about restricting officers' ability to chase suspects, data shows that vehicular pursuits are inherently dangerous to all involved. Finally, Matt and Crystal close the show looking at the current state of Washington's battles over middle housing. They discuss recent successes for pro-housing legislation in Olympia and a poll that shows the majority of Washingtonians are ready for housing reform, despite what critics claim. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Matt Driscoll, at @mattsdriscoll.   Resources “RE-AIR: Restoring the Right to Vote with Cyril Walrond and Kelly Olson of the Washington Voting Rights Restoration Coalition” from Hacks & Wonks   “Are plans for a new Pierce County airport already dead? It's starting to feel that way” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “Pierce County Adopts anti-airport resolution. Here's what the Council wants to happen” by Sea Johnson from The News Tribune   “Seattle needs a new Sea-Tac-sized airport. No one wants it near them” by Dominic Gates from The Seattle Times   “There are 4,000 racist housing covenants in Pierce County. You can find them on a map” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “Efforts to Expand Ballot Access in Washington State Jails Face Local Pushback” by Khawla Nakua from Bolts Magazine   “Don't believe the smears. A fact-based police pursuit law makes Washington safer” by Rep. Sharlett Mena and Sen. Yasmin Trudeau from The News Tribune   “Middle housing bill passes major milestone in Olympia” by Joshua McNichols from KUOW   “Poll: WA residents want more multifamily housing in their neighborhoods” by Claire Withycombe from The Seattle Times   “Poll: Strong Majority of Washingtonians Support Middle Housing Options” from Sightline Institute   “OPINION | I-135 Isn't Just About Housing, It's About Our Students Too” by Otis Golden from The South Seattle Emerald  Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed Tuesday's midweek show, we released a re-air of our conversation with Cyril Walrond and Kelly Olson of the Washington Voting Rights Restoration Coalition. Cyril and Kelly told us about the coalition's successful efforts to pass HB 1078, which restores those rights to all formerly incarcerated people in Washington and took effect on January 1st, 2022. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's cohost: metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. [00:01:29] Matt Driscoll: Hello - thanks for having me back. I'm honored. [00:01:31] Crystal Fincher: Hey - welcome back once again. Happy to have you back, always enjoy it. I wanted to start off talking about an issue that has been high on the minds of many people in Pierce County - has created a lot of attention and opposition - the airport discussion, about a potential new airport sited in Pierce County. How did we get to this point and what is going on? [00:01:59] Matt Driscoll: Yeah - the short and sweet of it is - it's really difficult, as it turns out, to find some place to put a big, gigantic new airport. And people don't want it in their neighborhoods, believe it or not. But yeah, so it's kind of the brief history. The footnotes on this is - there's a belief in the Legislature and amongst the folks who think about such things that the Puget Sound region needs an additional airport. They say SeaTac's maxed out, we've already done some expansions at Paine Field. If we look 20 years into the future, we know this region is going to need more air travel capacity than it currently has. And so they've set in motion a process to potentially identify a new site. So they basically appointed a commission - created a commission - that's been studying it now for many months, narrowing down lists of potential places. The most recent official act of that is they've narrowed it down to three greenfield locations - is what they call them - which is essentially locations in the middle of nowhere, locations where you could build a new airport. Two of those are in Pierce County, rural Pierce County - in the Roy-Graham-Eatonville area - one's out by Northwest Trek, would be out by Northwest Trek. The other is the tail end of Meridian there, if you're familiar to the area. And that has created a whole lot of opposition. The other greenfield site's in Thurston County - there's plenty of opposition down there too. So you've got a whole bunch of local constituents, local residents that are freaked out about the prospect of this commission maybe deciding that Pierce County is the best place for a gigantic new airport. Pretty much every local official on every side of the aisle has come out in opposition of this idea. Like I said at the outset, nobody wants a big airport in their neck of the woods, despite whatever perceived economic benefit might come from that. And so it's just gotten really interesting from there. There are some other more recent kind of developments and some opposition that I can get into, but that's the lay of the land. We're waiting for this commission to deliver its recommendation on where they think the new Puget Sound Airport should be built. [00:04:23] Crystal Fincher: And it has received a lot of opposition from a variety of different corners. This is a unique coalition in that it has lots of people from both sides of the aisle for various reasons, even those calling into question the necessity of a new airport anyway. Is it actually been determined that there is a substantiated need for an airport, another airport? [00:04:49] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, I think a lot of people are rightfully questioning that assertion. I think it was certainly generally believed in the Legislature when they created this commission that it was - there was a very real possibility. Dominic Gates - Pulitzer-winning Dominic Gates - did a piece in The Seattle Times a few months back that generated a lot of opposition just around the idea that it's just assumed that we would need this airport. There are a lot of people that want to look into other options, perhaps expanding rail to regional destinations could take some of the load off - those sorts of ideas. And of course, in the background, they're selling this idea that this would be an airport of the future that would be greener and all that sort of stuff. But, there's no such thing as a green airport. And I think, particularly in an area that's highly concerned about climate change and those sorts of things, a lot of people are asking tough questions about that assertion. And no, I don't think we have a definitive answer that you definitely need a new airport. I know the economic projections of not having additional airline capacity, both for cargo and passenger, are pretty dire. There's estimates of how many jobs and how many millions of dollars that the area would lose. So I think there's a lot on the table. But no, that's just one of many questions hanging. You mentioned some of the other opposition. JBLM [Joint Base Lewis-McChord] has come out and said that a new airport in that area - all three of the greenfield locations, including the Thurston County one - wouldn't mesh with necessary base operations and training. That's a big - in my mind, that's a big red flag. It's hard for me to imagine that they're going to go against JBLM. There's another site near Enumclaw that the Department of Transportation has maybe suggested could be a better site. King County sites were prohibited from this process by the legislation - for understandable reasons. King County already has an airport. It's not like obliterating Enumclaw is any better than obliterating Graham or Orting - none of these options are great. And simultaneous to all this, there are calls in the Legislature basically to start the process over. So start from scratch. They're saying that the process sucked during COVID - people weren't given the opportunity to participate, all those sorts of things. I don't know how much of that is true. I don't know how many town halls you need to hold to determine that people don't want an airport built in their rural community. My guess is that's what you're going to find either way. But it's sure looking to me like the prospect of them choosing a Pierce County location and saying this is going to work, or them choosing one of those greenfield sites and saying this is going to work - it seems unlikely at my point. And I should add and now I just feel like I've been talking - this is a hot issue down here in Pierce County, so forgive me. But the acting chair of that commission has basically come out on several occasions and said, Hey, there's big red flags about all these sites. I don't think - he's anticipated - he's a non voting member - but he has anticipated that he doesn't think this commission is going to come back and recommend any of these sites as a good spot for a new airport. So long story short, I think you're looking at this conversation continuing for likely many years into the future. Yakima has expressed some interest in perhaps being home to an airport - that doesn't exactly, wouldn't seem to exactly solve the Puget Sound region issue. But maybe - if you're creative, who knows? So I think we're going to be talking about this for a long time. [00:08:17] Crystal Fincher: And it is worth the conversation. It has been a very hot topic with lots of hot opposition to it - but from a number of different corners - and the opposition isn't only from people in Pierce County either. Talking about just the environmental impacts of these - climate change is a reality that we are experiencing negative impacts from right now. And looking at different factors - one, just that the air pollution from a greenhouse gas emissions perspective is vast from an airport - some of the most polluting places that we have in the state. In addition to that, so many reports and studies have come out over the last several years talking about the impact of the change in air quality in flight paths on people who live under them. Here in South King County, I live near a flight path. Certainly people in Des Moines, Tukwila. Life expectancies are different - it's one of the mitigating factors - childhood asthma, inhaling these particulates from these is not wonderful. And then talking about preserving farmland, preserving green space, preserving our rural areas - preventing sprawl and development in those areas is what we're trying to do. We're trying to concentrate development in areas where it is already, and paving over such a broad rural area just does not seem like it is aligned with our climate goals for the long term and what we're trying to do there. So it will be interesting to keep following this conversation. Representative Jake Fey has a bill that he introduced in the Legislature that would rewind the clock a little bit - say, Hey, let's restart the study of this and consider things that maybe there wasn't the opportunity to consider before because of COVID getting in the way, really understanding what all of the environmental impacts, the impacts on people would be, what it would mean in terms of losing this ground. And as you mentioned before, concerns from JBLM really saying that we cannot - makes it definitive that anything that would negatively impact practices going on at JBLM would be a nonstarter for an airport site. Do you know if that legislation looks likely to pass? Is there broad support for it? [00:10:48] Matt Driscoll: I would hazard a guess at this point - or wouldn't hazard a guess - but my gut tells me, Yeah, there's support for it. It's certainly within - what I can say for certain - it's certain within the Pierce County delegation. I think Republicans and Democrats are all aligned around this issue. I don't think there's any - really - hesitations on that. I have never spoken to any elected leader in this area that wants the airport. It's a tricky situation because you've got the rest of the state that doesn't want an airport in their area, too. I was on the radio with the Gee and Ursula show a few months back and they're like, Yeah, Pierce County seems great for - from a more King County, or more north perspective - they're like this sounds great. But yeah, certainly from the local delegation - I don't think there's any support for the airport at this point. I think there is support for restarting the clock, looking at all those options, looking at those things that haven't been considered yet, looking at alternatives. I agree with everything you said related to climate change. And I would just note - about the quality of life issues - certainly, your area up there in South King County knows the impact of airports. We've already got JBLM - I've already got massive military jets over our head every day or two. So yeah, it's just a tricky situation. And you mentioned everything about airports, and I agree with that and yet travel. I'm not an expert on these stats, but my layman's understanding suggests that people keep traveling by air - they like it - so it's a sticky one. [00:12:37] Crystal Fincher: That they do. That could put us into a tangential conversation about regional high speed rail, which could be very useful in situations like this and might be a wonderful alternative consideration. But we will see how this conversation continues to unfold. The News Tribune has been covering all angles of this for months, since it's been bandied about. And so please continue to stay tuned to that coverage to get more information about that. Something else that was covered by The News Tribune this week is the history of racist housing covenants in Pierce County. What happened here? [00:13:20] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, this is a - it's an interesting column I wrote - thank you for bringing it up because it is, it's really interesting. I think it's important - for King County listeners might be slightly more familiar with kind of this process, so I'll just give the brief back story. There's a team of researchers at University of Washington, Seattle, that have been basically researching and uncovering these kind of old racist housing covenants for many years - nearly two decades in the term in the experience of the lead professor there, Professor Gregory. And in 2021, the Legislature put some funding and money and organization together basically to expand that research across the state. So earlier this week, the UW released kind of preliminary results on that work from five counties across the region, including Thurston as well, but including Pierce County. And here in Pierce County, the team uncovered more than - so far has recovered more than, or uncovered more than - 4,000 old racist housing covenants. And just to back up - and for folks that don't know - back in the day, the earliest one here that they found in Pierce County is 1907. But really, between the prime years of 1920, 30s and 40s, these racist housing covenants - and not just racist, but exclusionary and religious and in other ways, too - were fairly prominent with new housing developments and new subdivisions. It was pretty straightforward - it would say, whites only or would say, people of color can't live here or whoever can't live here. And of course, it used the crude language of the time. In 1948, a Supreme Court decision made those unenforceable. A couple decades later, Fair Housing Act made discrimination on the basis of race and a whole bunch of other things in terms of housing illegal. But the uncovering of these covenants is really about understanding the legacy and the lasting impact of what that had done. So that's really what the UW researchers talked the most about and most passionately about is - we still see the impacts of these housing policies and the redlining that went along with it and the lending practices that went along with it in our world today. If you look at the percentage of white homeownership versus Black homeownership, it's nearly double in Pierce County, in terms of white families and Black families. If you look at the wealth gap, it's pronounced everywhere, including Pierce County. And the researchers talk about it, and rightfully so - I think this kind of matches most people's experiences out in the world, at least most average people. But if your family is going to build wealth, it's often through real estate, unless you hit the stock market or win the lottery or something. It's because - generations ago, land was purchased or a home was purchased and that appreciated value. And then you find yourself with wealth that can be passed down. And you're talking about huge segments of our population that were basically disqualified from that or barred from that for many, many, many years. And it certainly stretched well past that 1948 Supreme Court decision, because they were still talking about it in 1964. And really the impacts of that span for decades. It's only fairly recently that I think we've - if we've made any real strides in that - that we've started to make them. But, in Tacoma, you still see it. Look at the difference in demographics between North Tacoma and the East Side - just, that's not by accident. That's how this stuff was orchestrated in many ways. And so it's really about - so basically, they've uncovered more than 4,000 of these old racist housing covenants, but the importance of this work is it really draws attention to the lasting impact of that segregationist housing policy. [00:17:13] Crystal Fincher: Well, and it does have a lasting impact. As you just said, homeownership is how most Americans have built their wealth. And even for Black people, other people who were allowed to buy houses in other areas that weren't redlined - that didn't have these housing covenants - those were in areas deemed to be less desirable - to the point that they did appreciate, they appreciated less than the other ones. And so you have a built-in institutional gap, once again, that is driving this inequality. And it basically is putting people in a spiral where - where you're allowed to live is a less desirable area. If you can purchase, it is for less, it appreciates less. And of course, there's going to be less wealth generated in that area and the inequalities remain. Moving forward, what should people take from this or what should result from it? [00:18:14] Matt Driscoll: That's an interesting question. I think the biggest thing and we struggle with this is as a society - it's just acknowledging the reality of it. I think I've already gotten several emails from people that are like, These are old, this is old, why are you covering this now? And so I think we have to get past that, right? We have to understand the nuance and how we got to the place where we are today before we can do anything about where we are today. So I think that's the most important thing - just recognizing that this was a real thing that happened - it's not some sort of dream that was made up. These were real things that happened. You mentioned the redlining. My former colleague, Kate Martin, back in 2018, did a really important story about the history of redlining in Tacoma and interviewed former mayor Harold Moss, who's now passed away, but Tacoma's first Black mayor. And just getting anecdotes from him about how they eventually were able to buy a home - and I think it was in the fifties - and they would literally have to trick the realtor into showing up first before they proceeded in to see the home, because if the realtor saw a Black family, they would just get out. That's a real thing. That still has an impact today. But then, other than that - I guess what I would say, and I'm interested to hear your take on this, too - is I think it bleeds into our conversation that we're having regionally about housing, expanding housing and allowing - put this diplomatically - allowing neighborhoods to change, right? I think a lot of the pushback we see from areas that are fighting densification or those sort of things, I think there was some coded - you go back, and some of the researchers forwarded me some of the ads in The News Tribune that we would run - and, they wouldn't say, This is a whites only subdivision. It would say, This is a restricted division, right? And I think in many ways, we still have that. We still don't say it, but we still have that. And so I think a lot of the pushback that you see, consciously or subconsciously, is along those kind of - I want to live in a exclusive restricted area, which is code for - I don't want renters and I don't want people who don't look like me, or people who are not in my socioeconomic stratus. So for me, I think it's an important, it's a helpful lens to look at those sorts of conversations through and what can we read into some of the pushback that we see from efforts to increase housing in all sorts of neighborhoods. But I'm interested to hear your take - I don't know - how do we fix this, start to fix this? [00:20:55] Crystal Fincher: I think to your point, it is critical to understand how we got here, and how what happened then impacts what we're seeing now. Now, on talking about the coded conversation and talking about how this manifests today, we're in a situation where a lot of areas have absorbed growth, where previous growth management acts - a lot of cities identified what they called urban villages or growth areas and surprise, surprise - these are where a lot of lower income people already lived, this is where high density development was already allowed. A lot of this is apartment buildings were in lower income areas and they've absorbed a lot of the growth so far because the other areas are restricted - to your point - in the type of growth, the amount of growth that can be there. This entire conversation that we're having about where can we build multifamily housing - because it was restricted from being built in the areas that were previously redlined, that had these restrictive covenants, that were viewed as more desirable - higher income. And in many of these housing conversations that we see, it is people from those areas. It is higher income people who have the financial ability, the time, the experience within institutions, and connections and expertise to steer development away from them and to make other people absorb the impacts - oftentimes of their consumption - and to deal with that. Density is great. Housing is great. We also need to recognize that environmentally - that people's neighborhoods come with those impacts. If we put a dense building on a busy arterial, those small particulates from that arterial are impacting people's health. The health benefits can actually be negated by being on an arterial - of some of the benefits usually associated with dense housing, walkable cities, that kind of stuff. We're already putting people in less healthy situations - situations where the life expectancy ultimately is lower because of the environment they're allowed to exist in. And now the conversation is really saying we shouldn't concentrate the impacts of our community, of our consumption on these particular communities - usually lower income people of color filling these communities and wealthier, whiter neighborhoods being more exclusive and restricting themselves from experiencing those kinds of impacts or even the responsibility to mitigate those impacts. I certainly see it at play in these discussions that we're having now and the impacts that we're having now. I've talked with several friends - and many people who know me, know my father passed away year before last - but the differences in life expectancy, lots of people hear that and that's a statistic to them. That's my dad. I've talked to other friends - that's their dad. We feel this. There's a recent article, actually I read this past week, talking about the grief gap and what that creates because of earlier death, earlier disruption to families. This is an all-encompassing conversation, but I see this at play everywhere and there's definitely a throughline from those racist covenants to the conversations that we're having today. And a lot of what we're talking about is just coded versions of who deserves to live in clean, safe areas and who doesn't. [00:24:50] Matt Driscoll: Yeah - really well said and I think maybe I'll just forward a link to the podcast to the emails that come in - because I think that's why this matters, right? That's why these old dusty documents matter. [00:25:03] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Also wanted to talk - just really quick an update. We ran our voting rights coalition show earlier this week and talked about some of the great progress we made in this state with legislation passed by Representative Tarra Simmons and others to expand access to the ballot, where people who are released from custody automatically have their voting rights restored. But also there was action taken to help people who are currently incarcerated, especially in jails - county jails - to vote. There was a piece in Bolts that actually was sent to me this week - much appreciated, from Guy Oron - talking about the challenges we've had with some of the implementations of these. And in particular, when it comes to extending the right to vote to people who are currently incarcerated, causing us to deal with some of the toxic terminology, and people's impressions of people who are currently in jail, and the reality of it. And most of the people who are in county jails have not been convicted of anything - they're in there because there is bail set that they can't afford, they're in there on technicalities, they're in there because they can't afford to get out. They haven't been convicted of anything under our laws, our legal system. We have an innocent until proven guilty approach, so their right to vote hasn't been impacted in any way - they still have it - and they should be able to vote even if they're incarcerated. There was money allocated by our legislature to say, Hey, helping train people to make sure they understand how to provide access to people who are currently in county jails to do this. A few counties took the state up on the offer and applied for the grants to be able to do this. Several other counties declined, basically saying, Yeah, we don't want to help them. How did you read this and what are your thoughts surrounding this? [00:27:11] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, it's - I must admit that I was - I don't know, what's the word - what's the word for surprised when you're not really surprised? [00:27:21] Crystal Fincher: Just disappointed. [00:27:22] Matt Driscoll: Yeah. I guess I was disappointed. I think your points about the reality of the folks in our jails is really well taken - in our jails, I think that's really well taken. I think the average person doesn't understand what the population of those jails actually looks like, where those people are at in the legal process, what they have been convicted of and what they haven't been convicted of. And I - again, we just we classify people in these ways. And we come up with ways to rationalize unfair inhumane treatment. And I think this is just, this is another example of this - it's why should I care about this person? They haven't been convicted. I don't care. They wouldn't be in the jail if they hadn't done something and - screw 'em. And I think that's our, I think that's our societal outlook on those sorts of things. And I think there are people who - you were mentioning life expectancy in your father with the environmental impacts that - my dad was in prison when I was born. And so we had to go through the process of voting rights restoration with - and that whole thing. And even after people come out of prison - it's changed much in the decades since then, thankfully in some places - but we have no qualms as a society of just taking away the right to vote. And we really, we've - for decades, we made it as hard as humanly possible for anybody who wasn't a white male landowner to vote. And we still really don't have any qualms about taking that right away from people, which just flies in the face of all the patriotic nonsense we talk about - voting and the Constitution and people's rights and all that sort of thing. So yeah - disappointed, I guess, is the word. And yeah, that's how I felt. [00:29:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and these are situations - in this article, it talked about Spokane County. 70% of the people in the Spokane County jail have not been convicted of anything - there are pretrial issues, there are other issues that they're in there for. And situations where the people running the jails, the Sheriff's departments in some of these situations, corrections officers have said, Hey, this doesn't impact, this will not have an impact on our staffing, which has been a challenge in a lot of the jails. We can implement this - with the funding, the grant money - we can do this, very doable. And have had county commissioners say, Yeah, no, we don't think so, still don't like it, still have concerns. And to your point, we just seem to be okay with throwing people away once they get in there and find ways to justify that whatever happens to them - however horrific - from rape jokes that are so ubiquitous to all of that stuff - that whatever happens to them while they're in there is okay. And that's what they're not sentenced to. They're sentenced to spend their time in a way where they're restricted from areas - that is the punishment. It's not this cruel and mean and unusual and depraved and inhumane treatment that so many people seem to be happy with. And one, we just should never treat people that way. We're also having solitary confinement conversations in our legislature right now, which should not be happening and they're looking to limit that. But for the people who are in there, it also is bad for us when they come back out. These people are coming back out into our society. We say we want people to do your time, pay for the crime and come back and restart your life. But we make it really, really hard and stack the deck against people to be able to come back out into the community and embed themselves in the community, find a place to live, find a job, do the things that everyone else is doing. And we have to view people as people wherever they're at, and it actually benefits us as a community when we do that. It hurts us when we don't, but we seem to be very determined not to, which is disappointing. Another conversation that we are having in the Legislature is about police pursuits. This is a continuing conversation that we've had. Listening to some people, you might get the impression that the Legislature outlawed pursuits and it's caused mayhem to ensue. Not quite what's happened - they restricted the ability to pursue, to basically eliminate petty crimes, but if someone is a danger to the community, driving under the influence, accused of a violent crime or sexual crime, a crime against a person, police can and actually do frequently pursue here in the state. It does not seem like they have been barred from doing that, especially with news of recent chases and crashes and injuries that have resulted. But there was an op-ed by Representative Sharlett Mena, Senator Yasmin Trudeau in The News Tribune. What case did they make in this op-ed? [00:32:55] Matt Driscoll: Yeah, it's really interesting and I'll just - I'll take just a few steps back first. This debate has been going on for some time and we really, on The News Tribune Editorial Board, really got a kind of a firsthand feeling for it during our endorsement process where we talked to candidates on both sides of the aisle, from the primaries through the general election - talking about 20+ races - and this was the issue that often came up. This was the issue that Republicans brought up more than any other to paint the Democrats as having basically rushed through reform policies that resulted in huge spikes in crime in Washington. And that's still the conversation today in Olympia. There've been efforts to revisit this change, to maybe go all the way back to where we were, or somewhere in between. And so we had a op-ed from Representative or Senator Chris Gildon from Puyallup the week prior arguing in favor of changing the law. And the reason I reached out to Representative Mena and Senator Trudeau is because during that endorsement process, they were two of the officials that delivered the clearest, most succinct, most sincere defense of what was the rationale for the law and how we got here. And I really feel like that's - and maybe this is just me, but I really feel like that's lost in this conversation sometimes - because frankly, even from Democrats, you get a lot of word salad on this one. Because it's a contentious issue - because people do see it, they are aware of it. You have law enforcement across the state, prosecutors from across the state coming out and saying, You've got to fix this law. This has made our jobs harder. We can't chase anybody. It's on people's mind. There's the kind of political side of it, what the Republicans are doing by it. And so I reached out to them and just said, Hey, put 750 words on paper and tell us why this law, this new law is worthwhile and your approach to dealing with these issues. And they laid out a facts-based approach - is basically how they described it. They said, Look, we have the data to show that these pursuits are dangerous to community, to officers, to bystanders, to everybody involved. They cite examples where people have been gravely injured or lost their life during unnecessary police pursuits. And they point to the numbers that show - since the law has passed that those numbers of injuries and deaths have actually gone down. And they also point out that the vast majority of these chases, when they do occur, they're for stuff that doesn't warrant that level of risk to the community. And they advocated to taking a facts-based approach. They're open to reviewing the law and enacting best practices after some study on it. Their basic argument is, We're not going to craft policy around fear-mongering and just anecdotes. We're going to craft policy around the data that we actually have that shows us what's going on. And so I found it to be a pretty compelling argument - I think, like a lot of people, this is a tricky issue for me personally. I can understand some of the different sides of it, but that being said - in Tacoma, one thing they also pointed out is, we've had a no-pursuit policy for many years. There are many places that have very similar policies. When we interviewed Tacoma's relatively new police chief, although he's not that new at this point, he said, Yeah, I like our policy. I don't want to change it. It makes sense. What his real point was - was that more people know about the law now. And so he does think that that's increasing the amounts of people that are taking off, but basically - to be succinct, after I've already not been succinct - their argument was to take a fact-based approach to crafting policy and not give into the fear-mongering and anecdotes. [00:37:04] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. One of the arguments that I hear from people, who oftentimes start off somewhat hyperbolically, like you said, We can't chase people anymore and this is causing crime, and they know and so they're taking off - which isn't quite borne out by the data there - there are plenty of pursuits that continue to take place. And in addition, it's not just unsafe for the community. Their article goes into detail about just instances in Pierce County and South King County where people had permanent and life-altering injuries, in addition to some crashes that involved death. Here in the City of Kent, we had an officer killed during a pursuit - they are dangerous for everyone involved - and so we should be cautious. It should not be something that should, Hey, someone stole some toilet paper, hopped into a car, we're going to chase them on streets - with lots of pedestrians and kids playing - at 80 mph. That just seems like a disconnect. And to your point, these are not wacky reforms out of left field. These are based on best practices designed with the input of people in law enforcement anyway. And to your point, several agencies in Washington already implemented these kind of common sense limitations on when and where you would choose to pursue. So it seems - there's always something that you can point to and say, Hey, something changed, crime is up - we will see. Historically, there does not seem to be a correlation between whether or not people can pursue vehicles, and rises and drops in the auto theft rate - which I hear cited a lot of times - there is no correlation there. You could always pursue before this legislation - auto theft rates rose and dipped during those times, and they actually seem to be more correlated with the price for used cars than anything else. It's just common sense that - if something can get someone more money on the illegal market, that that is going to drive activity for some of those thefts - in addition to recent news about some cars being particularly easy to steal and basically just a bug of the car is that it's really easy to take off with. So we will continue to follow this, but that was a really good, informative op-ed that we will of course include in our show notes. Also wanted to talk about where middle housing stands, here in our legislature - some bills passed out of committee. And a poll showed that, Hey, Washington residents support multifamily housing in their own neighborhoods, which was - I think people, most legislators, assumed that wasn't the case as recently as two years ago, some questioning going into this year - but it looks like a lot of people are being touched by this affordability crisis and responding in kind. How did you react to that news? [00:40:35] Matt Driscoll: I think that's right. I think it really speaks to - I don't know how rapid the change on this has been, but I think it speaks to the level of desperation out there that people feel around these issues. You talked about the poll - I was looking at it and I'm not able to cite it as specifically as you - the top two issues, no surprise, not shockingly that people identified - homelessness and the cost of housing. And so I think people are freaked out about that, I think they're rightly freaked out about that. I think they feel like the government - our cities, our state - hasn't done nearly enough, is way behind. I think that's why you see big proposals coming out now, like the governor's $4 billion plan to build housing and shelter space. And I think people are increasingly having the recognition that if we don't do something, that if we don't increase the housing options in neighborhoods through density, that we're in a cycle that's going to eat a lot of people up and spit a lot of people out. And a lot of people don't feel terribly close from that. And I don't know if I was surprised to see the level of support for - I guess a little bit because, much like the airport, whenever you, at least in my experience, whenever you come down to specific - not every neighborhood - single family home neighborhoods and you start talking about density or duplexes or triplexes or condos, people freak out and oppose it. But I think in the broad sense, there's a growing recognition that we really don't have any choice. And so it leaves me optimistic. Of course, there are still lots of thorny conversations around local control happening, which will need to be navigated. But yeah, I was encouraged. What's the - so we already did disappointed - so what's surprised, but not surprised, but like from the good side, because I guess that's how I felt about it. [00:42:43] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, probably that - pleasantly surprised, hopeful, optimistic. And another issue where the public actually seems, once again, like they're ahead of where the Legislature is in terms of opinion. Pretty broad support here - three-fifths of voters support the proposed zoning law, only one-fifth are opposed - so that's over 60% there. Pretty major support, particularly high among women, Democrats, and Independents here. What this poll really uncovered was that lots of people are impacted by this. They're, as you said, their concerns to the top three are affordability of housing, the cost of living. I think for a lot of normal people, the cost of living is part of inflation. It technically is, but they're feeling that acutely. And it's always interesting to see what the public conversation revolves around - certainly necessities like eggs and milk are there. But when you see that coverage in major newspapers, sometimes on national evening news, they focus on those things or the price of gas, and have not focused as much on the cost of housing, which has increased so much and is a cost that everybody is bearing. And it's making people wonder if they can - seniors wondering if they can age in place, are they going to be able to remain in their community? It's students going to college and wondering if there's a place for them back home or whether they need to just move to a different place that they can afford. It's middle income people, it's service workers and teachers and nurses who are wondering if they can even afford to live close to where they work and adding to some of that stress and strain. So this is a societal challenge. And a majority of the voters surveyed said that, Hey, this is bigger than - over two-thirds agreed with the statement, The housing crisis spans municipal borders and is too big for cities to tackle alone, which is why we need statewide affordability solutions. 68% agreed with that - that's a big number. Something else that stood out to me in this poll was looking at the difference - a lot of times opposition to this has focused on, You say sixplexes are allowed and quadplexes and triplexes. Six is too many, maybe four is too many - maybe we just allow three. That's something that maybe people could tolerate. Invariably that disagreement leads to the failure of this and they just can't agree on what level is the right level. The general public doesn't really see a difference in some of those big levels. When you look, when you ask individually and say triplexes, quadplexes, sixplexes - the numbers are virtually the same for those. And so they're just saying we need to take action - we're okay with density. And it almost seems like a proxy, especially looking at these subgroup totals, for people comfortable with change and people who aren't. And the people who are comfortable with change are like, Bring it on. We're not quibbling about a sixplex versus a fourplex. We need change. We want you to take action and get on with it. And it seems like what is definitely a minority, but a vocal minority, tend to be conservative - those are the, that's the only group who is opposing this with a majority and seems resistant to change period. So this isn't - doesn't seem to be a conversation of nuances and about finding the right level and get everyone - agree on - is it four - it's just action or not. And the opposition, a lot of times to things like these, gets more credit than they're due and people read more into it than there actually is. And it really looks like there's just people who don't want change, who don't want to open their neighborhood up to new people to move in - that they felt they should be the last new people who should get in and no one else gets that ability. So really interesting to see, curious to see how this impacts the legislation and legislators' action on it - if they pay attention to it or not - but we will definitely stay tuned. Any final thoughts on housing and moving forward? [00:47:33] Matt Driscoll: I don't know. I thought, I think you wrapped it up pretty well. There is the interest - and we're getting into the weeds a little bit - in terms of the state action or local action. I know there was some tension last session around statewide efforts, and you even had cities like Tacoma pushing back on statewide action because they felt we were doing our own local process here of examining our zoning and doing a lot of these upzones in this area that - in these areas that we'd identified and they were hesitant to be able to pass that local control off and off to the state. What's the point of living in a city and having a city government if you don't have local control of these sorts of issues like zoning. But so here, it wasn't necessarily local leaders pushing back against mandated density. It was just simply a matter of them saying, We want to have local control over how we guide this process. We're already months and months into this process. We've been doing town halls, we've been doing all this stuff. To throw that all out and just get some mandate from the state doesn't feel fair, which I totally understand. But coming full circle, I'm wondering if this poll and if, not this poll just alone, but this kind of acknowledged that it's maybe more like you're saying - of action versus inaction - will take a little of the sting - maybe it doesn't matter as much if Tacoma goes neighborhood by neighborhood and decides that, Okay, six will fly here, but only four here, and you've got to have these setbacks here and all - maybe that's not as important as the local leaders believe it to be. And maybe statewide action can take some of the pressure off of them and can just get us over the hump in terms of zoning policy - that on a local level can be so difficult to clear sometimes because of all the opposition that you do face. So it's interesting to see how this one plays out. [00:49:28] Crystal Fincher: We will keep our eye on it. And just want to close with a reminder that we're recording this on Friday, February 10th, but on Tuesday - Valentine's Day - February 14th, there are elections happening throughout our region. Seattle, of course - every Seattle resident who is registered to vote should be able to vote on Initiative 135, the social housing initiative. You can still register for this election and participate it. If you have not registered already, we'll include information there. Also Enumclaw School District and the King Conservation District elections are happening. In Pierce County, the Steilacoom, Orting and Peninsula School Districts are having elections. So lots to vote on. Make sure your friends and family in those jurisdictions votes, makes their votes heard. These elections are notoriously low turnout, which can impact the direction - even small changes in the number of people voting can flip the situation and determine whether these levies and initiatives pass or do not pass. So make sure you get your ballot in. Hey, if you have any questions - hit me up on Twitter, email me, I'll be happy to help you get your ballot and make sure that your vote is turned in and it counts. And with that, we thank you for listening on this Friday, February 10th, 2023. Hacks & Wonks is co-produced by Shannon Cheng and Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today was metro news columnist and opinion editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Matt Driscoll. Thanks so much for being here today. [00:51:13] Matt Driscoll: Thank you for having me, as always - I don't know if I was insightful exactly, but I appreciate the kind words. [00:51:18] Crystal Fincher: Oh, you definitely were. You all can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full cast - to get the full podcast - to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

The plane, named the City of Everett, left the Paine Field runway near Everett in Washington State – about 30 miles north of Seattle – and successfully performed a number of tests before landing at ...

A state-appointed commission recently proposed expanding service at Paine Field in Everett and adding a new new airport at one of three sites in Pierce and Thurston counties. But critics say the state's airport plans contradict its goal to lower emissions.

Hello Interactors,Fall is upon us and so Interplace transitions to economics. I'll be writing about how location, distribution, and the spatial organization of economic activities interacts with and affects humanity. The current dominant economic model insists on persistent and endless growth despite acknowledgement of its role in climate change, income inequality, and disappearing limited stocks of natural resources. There's got to be a better way, and I'm on the hunt to find alternatives. As interactors, you're special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You're also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let's go…FLIGHTS OF NASTYI attended a panel discussion last Friday on environmental justice. One panel member represented a nearby Seattle community called Beacon Hill. It's a 6.5 mile long stretch just north of the SeaTac airport putting it on a flight path. Roughly 65% of flights land over Beacon Hill when the wind is out of the south. During busy times, a plane descends over their homes nearly every 90 seconds to two minutes. And because it's on a hill, they're 300 feet closer to the noise and pollution.FAA guidelines require a 65-decibel limit, and Sea-Tac claims they comply, but Beacon Hill is beyond the boundary for which they monitor. Even the U.S. Bureau of Transportation and Statistics reported in 2017 levels in this area were between 40-75 decibels. When residents organized and measured noise themselves, they never recorded any plane below 50 decibels and some hit 80. That's about as loud as a kitchen blender and too loud to hear the person next to you.But what this panel member shared, sometimes through tears, is it's not just the noise but the repetition. With each passing plane the stress mounts in anticipation of the next one. It's hard to concentrate or hold a conversation. She worries about her son. How much does this environmental stress contribute to his ADHD? His trouble at school. Her husband, who rides his bike most places, suffered from esophageal cancer. How much did the air pollution contribute to his condition?In the time between planes, the ultrafine particles (UFPs) from the last plane have already mixed with the air they breathe. Jet engines uniquely expel plumes of ultrafine particle pollution. A recent University of Washington (UW) study confirms similar studies in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Amsterdam. Flight paths are home to high concentrations of ultrafine particles raining down over unsuspecting victims. In Los Angeles, 90% of school children in the flight path are exposed to these particulates one hour out of every school day.These particulates are smaller than the PM2.5 typically found from fossil fuel combustion and tire and brake dust. They're also not as widely studied. Nobody really knows what kind of long-term effects they may have on the human body. However, there is animal evidence showing long-term exposure to ultrafine particles leads to adverse health effects, including neurological. A 2019 study published by the Washington State Department of Health reports,“UFPs have many unique qualities that make them possibly more harmful to human health than larger particles. UFPs are able to travel deeper into the lung than larger particles. They are also small enough to avoid the body's attempts to clear particles from the lungs, allowing them to stay in the body longer, to build up, and to cause damage. They can also move from the lungs to the bloodstream and to other organs.”Evidence of short-term effects on human health are conclusive. The study warns,“Certain groups of people are more sensitive to UFP exposure. These groups include people with pre-existing heart and lung disease, infants, older adults, people with diabetes, communities with a lower socio-economic status, and pregnant women.”  Beacon Hill is a place where 70% of residents identify as Black, Indigenous, multiracial, or persons of color. More than half speak a language other than English. They're also flanked by two major interstates and have another smaller airport, King County International Airport (KCIA) (aka Boeing Field), between them and Sea-Tac. The UW study showed anyone living within 150 meters of the freeway would also be exposed to ultrafine particles from passing vehicles, especially semi-trucks on their way to and from Sea-Tac.In 2021, the Puget Sound Regional Council published a Regional Aviation Baseline Study. There are 27 public-use airports in Western Washington's Puget Sound region, and the three biggest are Sea-Tac, King County International Airport, and Paine Field just north of Seattle. Scheduled passenger service is only available at Sea-Tac and Paine Field. In 2018 these two airports served 24 million enplanements. One enplanement is a single passenger per airplane. By 2027 they project this number will grow to 29 million. By 2050 it will double, 49 million at the low end and 56 million at the high end.That's just commercial passenger traffic. What about cargo? In 2017 540 thousand metric tons of cargo flew through Western Washington. Eighty-five percent goes through Sea-Tac. By 2050, it too is projected to double to 1.5 million metric tons. However, these peak loads are seasonal. During harvest time, Washington State's value crops, like cherries, increase cargo demands. So how is this increased demand to be met?FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUNTo assess solutions to growing demand, the 2019 Washington State Legislature formed the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (CACC). Their objective is to recommend a new primary commercial aviation facility and additional ways to add capacity to six existing airports across the state to accommodate future demand.To get an idea for how governments intend to shape outcomes of commissions they assemble, it's good to look at the backgrounds of invited commissioners. In an era of increased awareness and needs for environmental, economic, and social justice, a good commission should be comprised of a diverse set of points of view and expertise. Especially given the current and historical economic, social, and environmental injustices existing power structures have created.Through this lens, the list of commissioners is disappointing. Of the fourteen voting members, there are just two women, one person of color, and only one has a background in environmental law. The rest are white men, with one of Asian decent raised in England. Their bios read like a who's-who of business leaders, economic development advisors, aviation enthusiasts, airport directors and developers, military leaders, and even representatives from Southwest and American Airlines.  One member offered no bio at all and seemingly has no presence on the internet.The remaining twelve non-voting members must then balance this majority of aviation zealots geared toward economic development. Nope. More of the same – former senators, regional transportation directors, air cargo specialists, a member of the Civil Air Patrol, an aviation officer…the list goes on. They do have a state senator, Tina Orwall, who has “20 years of experience working in the public mental health system.”So, two people out of 26, an environmental lawyer and a left-leaning woman senator, may offer a voice for environmental justice and sustainable economic development. The rest will be fighting for state and federal dollars for airport and economic expansion. While public documents give lip service to ‘community engagement' and ‘the environment' history shows there is little likelihood this collection of people will have environmental justice as a top priority.Every level of government wants the number of flights to increase, despite having goals to reduce carbon emissions. With increased flight traffic comes increased ground traffic, despite also having goals to reduce congestion. If this weren't so tragic, it would be a comedy.This is the essence of environmental justice; the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized people and places to harms associated with an economy these people and places are least responsible for – an economy which disproportionately benefits the prosperous and mainstream members of society. It's an economic model, to which we're addicted, requiring unlimited growth despite relying on the extraction of natural resources which are limited.The environmental scientist, complex systems icon, and author of Limits of Growth, Donella Meadows, offers a series of questions these commissioners and elected leaders should ask whenever arguments for economic growth are put forth. She said,“Growth is one of stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture. We've got to have enough. Always ask: growth of what and why, and for whom, and who pays the cost, and how long can it last, and what's the cost to the planet, and how much is enough?”Meadows, and many environmental justice activists and scholars, are calling for system change in the fight against climate change.Reading Washington State's plans for addressing its aviation woes, it's clear system change is not on their radar. If Washington's economy were a plane, elected leaders and assigned commissioners believe this plane can climb to infinite heights.Imagine a plane gradually ascending beyond its physical limits and the bodily limits of its passengers. Now imagine cries to pilots to please level-off from suffering passengers first and most impacted. They'd be met with quizzical looks and ignored while most passengers would gleefully encourage the plane to climb faster and higher. That's what it's like when individuals in impacted communities cry and call for limits on the pain, suffering, and pollution at the hands of our economy. Apart from a few local elected officials, they mostly are ignored. Most are too busy trying to grow the economy. Which in turn will increase the number of flights to Sea-Tac, the area's economy, suffering, and the number of premature deaths due to air and noise pollution. Meanwhile, many Beacon Hill residents are too busy holding multiple jobs, too weary from the fight for justice, and too disempowered or discouraged to speak up.The assembled aviation and business experts no doubt have good intentions, but it's clear they're tasked with one thing: tip the nose of the economic plane upwards while steadily increasing the throttle. After all, the model dictates that the state must remain competitive in a national and international race upwards toward a misleadingly infinite extractive consumer economy. This assumes there is no limit to growth despite empirical planetary evidence to the contrary. What's the worse that could happen? Evidently, so far, nothing bad enough to prompt leaders to change the system.To be fair, this commission and the Puget Sound Regional Council, do consider the air quality studies out of the University of Washington. They also consider another UW study exploring alternative ground transportation, including high-speed rail. There are other ‘sustainable' elements the state is exploring, including biofuel and electric planes. However, creating a pipeline of biofuel to Sea-Tac they admit has its own challenges. Though, they pale in comparison to the struggles sourcing enough biofuel to meet demand. So that leaves electric planes, like electric cars, as the great savior.ANOTHER INLAND LOGISTICS EMPIREJust this week, the dream of electric flight made one stride toward reality. A prototype of an electric nine-seater passenger plane successfully took off, circled the airport, and landed. A Washington first and a necessary first step toward certification. The plane was assembled in Washington state, made of engines and parts largely made in Washington state, and by a Washington state company called Eviation. Their CEO, Greg Davis, said “What we've just done is made aviation history. This is about changing the way that we fly. It's about connecting communities in a sustainable way…ushering in a new era of aviation.” He may be right. But when?When asked if this flying equivalent of a large Tesla, with 21,500 battery cells accounting for half of the plane's weight of over 4 tons, is ready for passenger flights, he quipped, “The answer is no, absolutely not.” At least he's honest. I optimistically believe some of our regional transportation problems can be solved by sustainably leveraging the thousands of municipal airports under-utilized across America. But it's decades away.Meanwhile, I believe this flight was mostly a PR stunt. The airport chosen for this historic flight was the Grant County International Airport at Moses Lake. Until this flight, most of Washington state didn't know there was even an airport at Moses Lake. But it's one of the top choices by the commission for expansion and they'll need public support to pay for it.Back in 2016 a group of senators formed a ‘roundtable' to examine the growing air cargo industry. This is what eventually became the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. They noted, “The top five air cargo commodities through Sea-Tac are cherries, seafood, footwear parts, aerospace components, and aluminum alloy and graphite.” All of these serve the Washington economy except for footwear parts which likely serves Nike and the footwear economy in Portland.Knowing back then Sea-Tac had reached capacity, the attention turned to Eastern Washington. A Spokane roundtable member offered they had “Plenty of capacity and land reserved…to be developed for cargo…”, but then asked “How do we make strategic corrections?” There was a recognized need to make Eastern Washington attractive to air cargo carriers. Building or expanding alone doesn't lead to success, you need private companies to believe it will succeed. Enter Moses Lake and the Grant County International Airport.Ideas were thrown out. “Cold storage [for locally grown produce…like cherries and apples]…may be an incentive.” They imagined cargo planes could “Park in Moses Lake then” rail and trucks could “go back and get cargo.” They imagined “This would help open the runways in Sea-Tac,” but wondered “Would this financially work?” Before concluding the ‘roundtable' they agreed they needed “to hear from businesses and companies.”So, they commissioned the ‘Joint Transportation Committee' to conduct a “study of air cargo movement at Washington airports” with a 2018 deadline. In that 2018 report seven airports were identified as targets for expansion, including the Grant County International Airport at Moses Lake which is right smack between Spokane and Seattle…and close to nearby produce.In 2018, a “Washington State Air Cargo Movement Study” offered this as a recommendation:“To attract the logistics/distribution market, the State of Washington should promote to individual airports the “inland port” or airport logistics park model…branding themselves ‘Global Logistics Centers.'”This reminds me of a piece I wrote last year about Southern California's ‘One Click Buy' Empire. Moreno Valley, California is building out a World Logistics Center. Forty-five percent of the nation's imports are already trained, trucked, or flown into this “Inland Empire”, unpacked, sorted, and reloaded onto trains, trucks, and planes then fanned out again across the nation. California's South Coast Air Quality District estimates the new logistics center will add an additional 30,000 heavy-duty trucks to area roads per day.Heavy-duty diesel trucks emit 24 times more fine particulate matter than regular gasoline engines. Those living closer to the freeways will be affected more. And we all know who lives next to freeways…predominantly poor and people of color. Just like in Beacon Hill.This last August the state conducted a survey across six counties in Western Washington seeking input on potential expansion and brand-new airports around the Puget Sound region. From 56-77% of participants, depending on county, said ‘No' to new airports. Only Paine Field received support for expansion averaging 58% in favor.Environmental concerns are the overwhelming reason for why people oppose more airports or airport expansion. It seems everyone who can afford it wants cheap and available flights, next day deliveries, and fresh Washington cherries. And those lucky enough to have a 401K or stock portfolio want the market and the economy to grow, grow, grow. But nobody wants more flights or more pollution. That's particularly true for those already suffering from environmental injustices – like those in Beacon Hill and countless other homes in the path of jets jettisoning plumes of particulate pollution. Far flung fumes consumed by our lungs triggering affects unknown.How do we change this system so we all can prosper under economic vitality while minimizing the negative environmental and socio-economic impacts? If we're going to grow, what are we growing and why? For whom? Who pays the cost? How long can it last? What's the cost to the planet? How much is enough?This is what I intend to explore throughout this fall as I unpack what I believe to be the front runner for a new economic model: the circular economy. I'll look at not just the theory but attempts to put it into practice. Perhaps our economy can be like the journey of an airplane after all – take off, level off, land, take off, level off, land – an infinite circle flown within the limits of the plane, the earth, and its occupants. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

3PM - Flight cancellations continue Tuesday at Paine Field as 5G restrictions, foggy weather persist // ‘What a Stupid Son of a B*tch': Biden Caught on Hot Mic Appearing to Slam Peter Doocy of Fox News, says Biden 'cleared the air' with him afterward // Angee tells Dori Monson she's being denied/delayed a life-lengthening, pain-reducing brain surgery because of Inslee's ban on "elective" surgeries // Toddler clears out mom's online shopping cart, orders $2,000 worth of items from Walmart // Texas woman allegedly tries to buy baby at Walmart for $500,000: report See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Sullivan's Chokepoint -- the concrete worker strike's impact on light rail expansion // Chris Sullivan on Paine Field's 5G problems // Dose of Kindness -- nursing home nurse adopts resident's dog // Gee Scott on giving up data privacy // David Fahrenthold on the January 6th investigations/ the Trump-Georgia phone call // Rachel Belle speaks with five people taking part in the Great Resignation See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Propeller Airports CEO Brett Smith discusses the company's recent purchase of Castle & Cooke's FBO at Paine Field and it's foray into the FBO market. 

What's Trending: SPD is in an even deeper staffing crisis, a Seattle shop owner tells Fox News that SPD is so understaffed that they do not report to his calls when crime occurs, Rep. Jim Walsh gets locked out of the capital building due to lack of vaccine papers, and Climate Pledge Arena has a private concert as a grand opening. Big Local: Gig Harbor hospital is hiding number of beds that are available, Paine Field will not be adding new flights through Alaska Airlines, and the Puyallup Police Department pleads for a new police department. NBA's Jonathan Isaac calls out the media for poorly handling the pandemic. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Interview: Turning Points USA's Charlie Kirk on the power of the young conservative movement The Interview: Winner #2 in Jason's content to deliver a monologue on the radio: Mia Hahn LongForm:  Benny Johnson on the Texas Dems becoming super spreaders and Big Tech's assault on free speech The Quick Hit: United Airlines will halt flights form Everett's Paine Field airport later this year. The Last Rantz: TPUSA proves that the future of the GOP is in good hands. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In most of the world, airports are sterile, dark, and unfriendly to the senses. In this episode, Rachel, Jeremy, and #nerdbird David explore how we can put the fun back into functional airport design -- from the cool relaxed vibe of Paine Field to the resort feel of Singapore. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nerdbirds/support

Our beautiful Northwest early morning sunrises are worth getting up so early! In the What Are Kidding Me stories, a man is arrested for arson using stolen underwear as kindling, Kentucky’s Gov apologizes to his real citizen named Tupac Shakur, studies show that just four seconds of intense exercise can counteract sitting around all day, and some Iowa college girls are facing expulsion after putting foot skin shavings in their roomie’s shredded cheese. Rip Us A New One; instead of yelling at your kids, take your frustration out on us instead. In the Hourly Bulletin, Governor Inslee to extend Stay-at-Home order with details coming, Paine Field is pre-TSA-scanning passengers for fevers, US weekly jobless claims push past 30 million unemployed, dogs are being trained to smell Covid-19 on people, and Regal Cinemas joins AMC threatening to boycott Universal movies after “Trolls” streaming smashes box office records. The Curse of Snohomish County continues as Drew’s real estate deal is still in trouble. In the Fitz Files, Luke Combs and his fiancée don’t know when they can get married, ABC will air 3-hour “best of” “Bachelor” episodes in place of “The Bachelorette”, and FGL admits Carrie Underwood flat turned them down on a collaboration. In The Good Stuff, we meet Hollie from Bonney Lake, our Bickford Ford Community Hero who is a Respiratory Therapist that normally works for Multi-Care Tacoma but has gone to New York City to help; we hear her incredibly unique and powerful perspective. On Make Up or Break Up, Allison from Everett says her man-child boyfriend Brent doesn’t respect her working from home. Today’s Playlist Profiling is KIRO-7 Meteorologist Nick Allard! County Wars finds Sarah from Pierce winning the month in Overtime! Shade is “Throwin’ Shade” on being sick of seeing the same faces every day.

Denne episoden er sponset av Avinor Flysikring. Norge trenger flere flygeledere! Sjekk om du har det som trengs for å bli flygelder på www.bliflygeleder.no Norge har fått ny regjering, men Flypodden fortsetter med samme manskap. Det har blitt 27. januar når vi spiller inn flight 94 som tar oss til Paine Field, Dawson's Field, Sør-Korea og LofotenAktueltEndelig første flight for 777XBoeing 737MAX kanskje i luften fra juni 2020Air France-KLM en av fem mulige kjøpere av Malaysia AirlinesLOT kjøper CondorKonsolidering i det koreanske LCC-markedetAvinor og Statens Vegvesen ser på ny flyplass for LofotenEmbraer og Boeing vurderer ny turboprop Ukens tema: Dawson's Field-kapringeneI september 1970 ble ikke mindre enn fem fly forsøkt kapret av den palestinske terrorgruppen PFLP og deres sympatisører – en El Al 707, TWA 707, Swissair DC-8, Pan Am 747 og BOAC VC-10. En kapring ble stoppet, et fly ble sprengt i Cairo og de tre siste på Dawson's Field ute i ørkenen i Jordan.Ukens anbefaling: Bli flygeleder! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Good morning! I’m Imran Sheikh and it’s Friday, January 10th. Here’s your local news from The Seattle Times. Today will host periods of rain, with a high of 45 and a low tonight of 42. Our top story: You could see a few wet snowflakes this morning, especially in places like the Issaquah Highlands, Maltby, Clearview, and in Everett near Paine Field. But those aren’t the snowflakes the National Weather Service in Seattle is worrying about now.

This week on the Live in Everett Podcast we chat about the new HOV lane coming to the Everett stretch of Interstate 5, hosting the Monte Cristo Awards, an Everett couple’s time on Shark Tank, Tyler’s fashion sense in middle school and play some Paine Field trivia.

Dustin Dekle is a super fan. He and his wife have been traveling to watch comedians from the Comedy Store in L.A. to the long road trip to Boise!Through the travels they've been able to meet and hang with incredible talent and have made friends in the community. Dustin is "taking his shot" and has arranged top level talent for a super local show!Tuesday June 11th at the Courtyard by Marriott in beautiful Everett, WA the Comedy Caravan will kick off the inaugural show. Erik Griffin, Ari Mannis, and Mikey McKernan are all nationally touring comics that are flying in to Paine Field for one night of hilarity!In this podcast Dustin discusses his comedy obsession, meeting Joe Rogan, driving around Andrew Santino and the origin story of this silly idea that has come to fruition. Listen in on his vision, buy your ticket now!Here it is again https://m.bpt.me/event/4242757Oh, and there's tacos! Book now to make sure!I had a blast chatting stand-up. It'll be an awesome show. Thanks for the good talk!Facebook.com/DustinDekleInstagram.com/DustinDekleInstagram.com/StandUpSpotlight

Dustin Dekle is a super fan. He and his wife have been traveling to watch comedians from the Comedy Store in L.A. to the long road trip to Boise!Through the travels they've been able to meet and hang with incredible talent and have made friends in the community. Dustin is "taking his shot" and has arranged top level talent for a super local show!Tuesday June 11th at the Courtyard by Marriott in beautiful Everett, WA the Comedy Caravan will kick off the inaugural show. Erik Griffin, Ari Mannis, and Mikey McKernan are all nationally touring comics that are flying in to Paine Field for one night of hilarity!In this podcast Dustin discusses his comedy obsession, meeting Joe Rogan, driving around Andrew Santino and the origin story of this silly idea that has come to fruition. Listen in on his vision, buy your ticket now!Here it is again https://m.bpt.me/event/4242757Oh, and there's tacos! Book now to make sure!I had a blast chatting stand-up. It'll be an awesome show. Thanks for the good talk!Facebook.com/DustinDekleInstagram.com/DustinDekleInstagram.com/StandUpSpotlight

Surprise! We've got a BONUS EPISODE for all you AV geeks out there! This week Ed joined our friends from the Dots, Lines and Destinations podcast on inaugural flight AS 2777 to Las Vegas from Paine Field: Everett, Washington's first commercial airport! (Not...Seattle's second airport, mind you.)Once they got settled in Vegas, the guys recorded a recap of the festivities, their thoughts on the potential for growth at Paine Field and additional aviation geekery.Show NotesEd's blog post on Paine FieldDots, Lines and DestinationsDon't forget to check out the NowBoarding Podcast where we dive in deep with your favorite BoardingArea travel bloggers, learning how they travel the world with miles and points.

On August 14th, 1977, a pair of blackberry pickers were walking in a wooded area of Everett, Washington - nearby Mariner High School and Paine Field. There, they found the decomposing body of a young woman, who had been brutally murdered. Over the next week, police focused in their investigation on a single suspect: a man named David Marvin Roth, who had confessed to a friend (and who had also been arrested a few days after the murder on unrelated charges). Eventually, Roth would be convicted for the murder of this young woman... whose identity remained a mystery. Investigators have yet to figure out who she was, and what events led her to encounter Roth on the day of her murder... Written, hosted, and produced by Micheal WhelanLearn more about this podcast at unresolved.me If you would like to support this podcast and others, consider heading to patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron Music CreditsRest You Sleeping Giant - "Themes From Frost"Scott Holmes - "Feeling Sunny"noiseonport - "Spectre"ROZKOL - "Monkey and Moulage"Borrtex - "Peaceful Mind"Parvus Decree - "Thoughts About Future"Daniel James Dolby - "Yearning"Rotten Bliss - "Two Sisters"

This week on the Live in Everett Podcast we talk to Alex Lark from the City of Everett Planning Commission about the Metro Everett Plan and discuss places to fly out of Paine Field in 2019.We also highlight our event picks from the Weekly Goodness and play some Everett history trivia.

In this Episode: - Elon and Musk is with Amber Heard. Is this money conquers all or crazy seeking its own level? - Bill O'Reilly fact correction - Sexual harassment discussion. - A plane crashes near Paine Field studios in Mukilteo. - What is appropriate penalty for being the reason for a traffic jam? - Mean thoughts - All the news that's fit to print - Dancing with the stars dancer farts in partner's face. Question box questions: Lumbersexuals   Check us out on Instagram rfgpodcast and on Facebook