Governor comes to Port Townsend

Our esteemed governor will be at the Public House this Friday at 3:30. The gathering is being touted as a meet and greet with local government officials to celebrate the NW Maritime Center and its recent appropriation.

Gregoire has been one of the most controversial governors in recent memory. Her election over Dino Rossi was incredibly close, and wrought with scandal and numerous accusations of wrongdoing on the part of King County elections.

The issues that she has had to address as governor have flummoxed her predecessors, but it appears that she will be the governor to finally address transportation solutions (520 bridge, 99,and the light rail) in the Central Puget Sound region as well as numerous social issues like gay marriage or civil unions or whatever.

For the local folks of rural Jefferson County, the instream flow rule making process has been poorly received by everyone except for environmental groups who do not seem to care about anything other than the fish in the stream. Port Townsend is so wildly liberal to the point where they may accuse Gregoire of being "too conservative," but the rest of the rural areas of Jefferson County are not like minded.

I'm a little ambivalent about the governor currently, I still like her better than Dino Rossi, but I'd like to see her reach out a little more to people outside of the party. The democrats are riding pretty high after the last election, but they have the burden of the majority and coming up with policies that the people can get behind, or at least not get upset over. What I have observed is that the party is trying to become more liberal, or at least the more liberal wing of the party is trying to exert more influence over some of the more moderate party members.

I am predicting that there will be some local detractors showing up, I just wonder how many it will be.