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Backers of three new initiatives to the people of Washington state have around eleven weeks to gather signatures if they hope to qualify for the November ballot.

“It’s a heavy lift,” said Washington State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh, who is also a state representative from Aberdeen. “I went around the state holding town halls, and these are the three main things people frankly ranted about.”

The new initiatives would repeal House Bill 1589 that phases out natural gas, eliminate sanctuary state polices that prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agencies, and put an end to squatters' rights.

Repealing House Bill 1589

“The main one, the biggest one by a long stretch, is this issue of banning or beginning the process of banning natural gas as an energy source," Walsh said.

The governor reportedly had to lean on members of his own party to find enough votes to get the controversial measure passed.

“Inslee used what little bit of fleeting capital he has left to push HB 1589, when even his own party didn’t want to support it,” Walsh said.

He noted HB 1589 doesn't ban natural gas per se, “but it begins the process that would move us to eventually ban natural gas.”

The new law, he said, is concerning for the general public.

“Of most concern for working families now is it puts in place a series of mechanisms that allow utilities, namely Puget Sound Energy, to raise rates both for natural gas service and for electricity, basically to fund the destruction of existing capital assets that are involved in the supply of natural gas," Walsh said. 

That means, according to Walsh, PSE will have to write down its assets, including the pipeline system, the hardware and the trucks that deliver natural gas.

“It creates a paper hardship for PSE," he said. "Then they use that loss as justification for raising all rates, not just natural gas, but all of it.”

PSE and supporters of the measure argue the Utilities and Transportation Commission is nonpartisan and designed to look out for the public when it comes to rates.

Walsh isn't buying that.

“The UTC is, frankly, instructed by the bill to rubber stamp what the utility would say," he contended.

Rolling back Washington's sanctuary state status

“People are frustrated by Washington’s so-called sanctuary state and policies, and they want those basically overturned or undone," Walsh told The Center Square.

Walsh went on to explain, “Sanctuary state policies are primarily a series of executive orders that the outgoing governor, Jay Inslee, has made.”

That's not to say there is no mention in state statutes concerning sanctuary policies, “but mostly it’s been these executive orders," according Walsh.

In 2019, Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a bill that restricts state and local authorities from asking about people's immigration status. 

Sanctuary-state opponents argue the policy has allowed wanted felons to escape justice and led to community harm. 

Doing away with squatters' rights in Washington

“Another issue people said they care a lot about is this matter of squatters' rights, with a couple of high-profile stories and cases in the Puget Sound that have really brought this issue to point," Walsh noted. 

In Bellevue, Sang Kim, who along with his family, moved into a $2 million home owned by Jaskaran Singh Sarao in early 2022. Kim put a stated income on the rental application of $400,000 and then, after paying the first month, stopped paying.

“The idea that someone can illegally occupy another person’s property or legally rent it, but then violate the lease and continue to live there, just rubs people as wrong," Walsh said.

Supporters have less than three months to gather about 324,500 valid signatures to get each initiative on the ballot. The signatures are due by 5 p.m. on July 5.

“Time is so tight here and we may not be able to do all of them, so we’re trying to use our experience with the six from last year and figure out what the best approach is," Walsh said, referencing three of six conservative-backed ballot initiatives passed and adopted by the state Legislature. The fate of the three remaining initiatives will be decided by voters this November. 

The Center Square reached out to the Washington State Democratic Party for comment on the three new proposed initiatives.

“It’s clear that the Washington GOP has given up on recruiting candidates who can inspire voters and win elections so they are instead focusing their turnout operation on putting forward divisive initiatives that will take our state backwards," Shasti Conrad, party chair, said in an email. "These new initiatives are transparent ploys to muddy the waters and hide from the GOP’s shameful record on the environment, human rights, and keeping our communities safe. We know the GOP wants dirty air, dirty water, and doesn’t view undocumented people as human beings with needs and rights. We won’t stand for it and we don’t think Washingtonians will either."

The Adna girls golf team competed in a league meet on Friday at Oaksridge golf course in Elma, and Kalli Christen set a new season-best by shooting a 51.

Christen finished the day fourth among all golfers, which included Wahkiakum, Mary M. Knight, Ilwaco, and Rainier. The only three golfers who shot better than her were from Wahkiakum.

Among the other Adna golfers was Jessica Wickert, who shot a 56, and Jaylee Humphrey was right behind with a 57.

Lilly Naillon shot a 59, and Charissa Schierman logged a 60 to round out the Adna scorecard.

On Monday, the Pirates will head to Alderbrook to compete in the Sibley Scramble, which will include all of the 2A EvCo teams and Montesano.

According to the American Automobile Association, as of Friday, Washington state drivers are paying an average of $4.67 a gallon for regular unleaded gas — 34 cents higher than a month ago, making Washington’s gas prices the third highest in the nation.

The nationwide average is $3.67 a gallon.

Several factors account for the Evergreen State’s painful price at the pump, including refineries switching to a more expensive blend of fuel in the spring and summer months and the rising price of crude oil.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has raised its forecasts for oil prices for the rest of 2024 and into 2025.

EIA estimates oil prices will average $85.30 per barrel in the second quarter of this year and $86.84 per barrel in the third quarter before going down to $85.17 in the fourth quarter.

These higher prices will likely drive up costs not just for Washington motorists, but drivers throughout the nation.

Washington's cap-and-trade program under the Climate Commitment Act is also a factor in Washington’s high gas prices.

The CCA was passed by the state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2021. It established a cap-and-trade program requiring emitters to obtain “emissions allowances” equal to their covered greenhouse gas emissions. Similar to stocks and bonds, these allowances can be obtained through quarterly auctions, which started last year, hosted by the Department of Ecology.

Quarterly and special auctions have brought in more than $2 billion so far.

Critics of the program claim it raised gas prices in the state last year by up to 50 cents per gallon.

Voters will decide the fate of the program this November via Initiative 2117 to repeal the CCA and prohibit state agencies from implementing any type of carbon tax in place of the repealed CCA.

According to AAA’s metro average prices, the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett metropolitan area has the highest price for a gallon of gas in the state at $4.83 a gallon, while Clark, a city in southeastern Washington, has the lowest price at $4.15 a gallon.

The Clark County Sheriff’s Office on Friday publicly released the names of the four officers involved in the fatal shooting last week of a suspected carjacker in Vancouver. The office also released body-camera footage showing the shooting.

Deputies Jim Payne, Michael Gonzalez and Enrique Cordero, along with Sgt. Fred Harrison, confronted Benjamin Steven Woods in an American Legion hall in Vancouver on April 13, according to the sheriff’s office.

After chasing Woods into the building, Payne and Gonzalez fired on Woods after the suspect appeared to point a gun at them. The sheriff’s office named Cordero and Harrison as witnesses.

All four deputies were placed on critical-incident leave immediately after the shooting, which is standard procedure for the sheriff’s office.

Body camera footage released Friday by the sheriff’s office shows deputies Payne and Gonzalez follow Woods into the American Legion building after he refused officers’ commands to stop and give up in the property’s parking lot. The deputies, along with a police dog, pursue Woods through a building packed with people. Their guns drawn, they corner Woods near a bathroom. In the footage, Woods steps toward the officers and points what appears to be a gun.

Payne and Gonzalez shoot Woods multiple times, according to the video.

The bodycam footage then shows deputies providing first aid to Woods. Medical first responders declared Woods dead shortly after they arrived.

The Vancouver Police Department’s Independent Investigative Response Team (SWIIRT) is investigating the shooting.

©2024 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Requesting college financial aid has not been easy this year because of technical glitches and processing backlogs with the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

But Washington state college experts urge applicants to not lose sight of the benefit: getting more money to attain a higher education.

Ruben Flores, executive director of the Washington State Council of Presidents, said the calamitous rollout of the new FAFSA — a streamlined form with fewer questions and restrictions — has added more worry to a state already wringing its hands over an overall decline in the number of college-bound students. (The council represents the state's five public universities and one public college.)

Application rates nationwide are down this year. As of April 5, only about 28% of the nation's high school seniors completed a FAFSA, according to the National College Attainment Network's tracking tool. Only about 22% of Washington seniors have submitted a completed form.

The Evergreen State ranks 44th in completions among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Historically, Washington has had some of the lowest tallies of FAFSA completion rates in the nation.

But state officials say that when the forms go through, the applications could lead to aid that will offset student debt down the road.

"Awards will come through eventually, so please don't give up!" said Katie Tallman, a spokesperson for the Washington Student Achievement Council, via email. "About half of families in Washington qualify for aid, and for many students, tuition could even be free with WA Grant," the state's college aid program.

More people eligible for aid

Expansion of the federal Pell Grant fund made nearly 15,000 Washington students eligible to receive federal money this year. The form also unlocks opportunities for state funding. But many applicants may have to wait longer than anticipated for confirmation of this and other federal financial awards — like other grants, work-study funds and loans.

Colleges face a continuing lag and some discrepancies in data coming from the federal government that helps financial aid officers make award determinations. To meet admissions deadlines, officers must process more applications in a shorter period of time.

In a typical financial aid cycle, many students have financial aid offers in hand by April so they can make decisions by May 1, a common college decision deadline.But students and families should continue to expect delays in receiving award letters, Tallman said.

To accommodate for these changes, all of Washington's public institutions extended their admissions decision deadline to June 1, as did many private colleges, including Gonzaga, Pacific Lutheran, Saint Martin's, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle and Whitworth universities as well as University of Puget Sound.

Heritage University is accepting enrollment decisions on a rolling basis until late summer. Whitman College is awarding financial aid packages based on information collected without the FAFSA.

As part of the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., strongly advocated for FAFSA reform and worked on the FAFSA rewrite.

But as the rollout faltered, she joined her legislative colleagues in calling on the U.S. Department of Education for swift resolutions. Back in February, Murray co-signed a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona requesting an updated timeline for resolutions and details about how the department is communicating with prospective students and campuses about these issues. The letter also asks whether these implementation challenges have been caused by a lack of resources.

The Department of Education deployed some personnel, funding, resources, and technology to support the rollout and processing of what the department calls "Better FAFSA." The department said in a February news release that these resources are focused on "lower-resourced schools that may have a smaller number of administrative staff and may utilize older software systems."

In an emailed response this week, Murray called the overhaul "no small feat" but said she understands the frustrations felt by the delays. "It's imperative they are addressed as soon as possible so that students across Washington state and the country get the full aid they are due — and have the information they need to make big decisions about their futures," Murray wrote.

Take action, despite delays

While families wait for official offers, they can go to the Washington Student Achievement Council website to calculate a potential financial aid award for the 2024-25 school year for the Washington College Grant, a generous state program that could pay for tuition. The tool is available in multiple languages and asks users to enter family size and income information. That information is not collected by WSAC, according to the website, portal.wsac.wa.gov/a/aid-calculator.

Grants, unlike loans, do not have to be repaid. That means there are thousands of dollars to help students pay for tuition and fees at four-year colleges and universities, most two-year community colleges, and many career, trade and online schools. This year, about 24,000 Washington students will be eligible to receive the maximum Pell Grant amount of $7,395.

Getting that money in hand, however, depends on a FAFSA being filed and processed correctly.

Under the new law that led to FAFSA changes, IRS income verification information is now automatically provided to the Department of Education instead of students having to request tax records themselves. But Flores, the Washington State Council of Presidents leader, said he's heard of local students encountering technical issues with how IRS data is fed into the new form.

"The student didn't put it in wrong, but the information is wrong the way we received it. So, they have to redo those applications," he said.

Flores said colleges are also experiencing delays in receiving data from resubmitted applications, adding more work and pressure on financial aid office staff to meet deadlines.

It's been a months-long wait for students and families to be able to file corrections in the FAFSA system. But the corrections feature is now updated at StudentAid.gov and appears to be functioning. Once a student submits a correction, it should be received by schools and states within one to three days. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it has "successfully processed more than 100,000 corrections."

Of the some 7 million FAFSA forms submitted, the department said last week that as many as 16% of applications require a student correction. Of the 20% of forms requiring a tax information correction, the department aims to reprocess and return the results to schools by May 1.

The department also launched its "National FAFSA Week of Action" on Monday to mobilize schools, athletic and extracurricular programs, and other youth-oriented organizations to get high school seniors in particular to file a FAFSA.

For the record, there's no age limit on receiving federal college aid. But, as Flores noted, the majority of Washington's college students are between high-school age and 24 years old.

While students have a lot of time to submit a FAFSA — June 30, 2025, is the federal deadline for the 2024-25 school year — Flores and other college experts advise people to submit their forms as soon as possible and to check with their prospective schools and colleges about decision deadlines.

"We want students to be aware that we are going to continue to be flexible throughout this process," he said.

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     (c)2024 The Seattle Times

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The Rochester softball team couldn’t take advantage of a quick start on Friday, as the Warriors fell to Aberdeen 15-6 in a non-league matchup.

The Warriors (6-6) came out strong, as a Layna Demers RBI single, a Macey Fluetsch two-run double, and an Arissa LeBaron two-run single gave them a 5-0 lead in the first.

Aberdeen took over in the second, though, scoring eight runs to take the lead, and another big inning in the fifth put the game out of reach.

Demers didn’t start the game in the circle, but she ended up pitching five and a third, giving up nine hits and four earned runs while striking out seven.

Rochester will head to Montesano on Saturday for another non-league contest before heading to Aberdeen for a league matchup on Wednesday.

SPOKANE — An aggravated crowd of delegates at the statewide Republican Party convention chanted an expletive and yelled in opposition Friday afternoon after GOP officials initially announced they did not intend to endorse a gubernatorial hopeful, "in light of some information" that candidate Semi Bird was not "forthcoming" in the party's vetting process.

Roughly 1,800 delegates showed up to the three-day political gathering at the Spokane Convention Center, marking the annual event's highest turnout in history, officials said. People drove from across Washington, many of them anticipating the event's big-ticket item: Who will the party endorse for governor?

The GOP's last-minute attempt to forgo making an endorsement in the governor's race came after The Seattle Times reported earlier this week that Bird was convicted in 1993 of a misdemeanor for lying on a credit card application.

The attempt by party leaders was ultimately thwarted when the largely pro-Bird group of delegates reversed the decision.

When party leaders announced their decision to skip making an endorsement in the governor's race, "boos" and profanities erupted from the crowd speckled with the red MAGA hats that have come to illustrate the party's tie to former President Donald Trump.

"Please, if you could respect me enough to let me complete the report," GOP Vice Chair Lisa Evans announced in an attempt to stifle the angry sea of screams.

The delegates showed strong support for Bird over his opponent, former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert. Reichert did not show up to the convention Friday. In the midst of the raucous developments, Reichert publicly announced online that he was withdrawing his name from the GOP convention's endorsement process, condemning party leadership.

"Some in the Washington State Republican Party are in such disarray that they're considering making no endorsement for governor," Reichert wrote. "This, after they continually changed rules, broke rules, and twisted the process to accomplish their desired outcome."

In the announcement, Reichert also clarified he is still running for governor and seeking the endorsement of Republican Party members statewide.

In a phone interview Friday night, Reichert told The Spokesman-Review that he showed up to the conference Thursday "fully intending" to go. The candidate was scheduled to give a speech Friday.

Then party officials attempted to change the rules, Reichert added, and "find a way" to disqualify him after they tried to disqualify Bird.

"They decided to change the rules again and take the gubernatorial race off the agenda," he said. "There was no point to show up because they canceled the vote and canceled my speaking role."

Reichert called the process "deceptive" and "deceitful."

"The party's been taken hostage by a group of people," he said. "You can see that happening across the state."

Bird was seated in the front row of the auditorium as his supporters pushed to get his name back on the endorsement ballot.

"Now that'll show them," he said as an official told the crowd that Reichert had officially withdrawn his name from the endorsement process.

"This is called self-governance," Bird told The Spokesman-Review in an interview, "where we the people take a stand for all the people of Washington state."

Bird later told a group of reporters that he takes "full ownership" of his past.

"What about human decency and civility?" the candidate said. "A man can fall and falter, and still get back up."

Friday's drama was unprecedented in the history of state GOP conventions, said party chairman and state Rep. Jim Walsh.

"It's never been like this before," Walsh said. "This is all new. The whole thing is new. That's what people wanted: They wanted a real, live convention. So that's what we got."

After the commotion died down, the delegates voted to overturn the decision by GOP officials. The party's endorsement vote is scheduled to take place Saturday.

Along with the gubernatorial race, the GOP on Saturday is slated to endorse candidates in state races including: attorney general, auditor, commissioner of public lands, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction and a soon-to-be-vacant state Supreme Court seat.

All the Republican candidates seeking endorsements were asked to sign pledges that they would drop out of their respective races if the GOP didn't endorse them.

Reichert refused to sign  the pledge, party leadership said.

Fourth-grade  teacher Debbie Ogura traveled from Yakima to attend the conference in support of Bird. It was the first GOP conference she'd joined, and she said she was disappointed that Reichert didn't show up.

"It reflects poorly on the entire party," Ogura said while sitting in the lobby between events. "I'm not particularly interested in politics, but I want to leave a better place for the younger generations. And having a candidate not show up delegitimizes the party."

Washington's primary elections for state offices will be held Aug. 6. The general election this year will take place Nov. 5. Along with state offices, seats in the Washington Legislature and U.S. Congress will also be up for grabs.

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     (c)2024 The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.)

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