WWW . THESKANNER . COM
S EPTEMBER 12, 2012
S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON
V OLUME XXXIV, N O . 37
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
STORMY WEATHER?
Hungry:
25 % of
WA Kids
Washington is sixth
highest in family food
insecurity rates
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
By Donna Gordon Blankinship
The Associated Press
Despite a forecast for continued sunshine, Seattle just missed breaking an over 60-year-old record for the longest
dry spell in city history, when 0.01 of an inch of rain fell at Sea-Tac on Monday, Sept. 10. The current dry spell lasted
48 days missing the 1951 record by 3 days.
Court’s School Funding Deadline
Sticking point: Should school fund meetings be public, or private?
By Donna Gordon
Blankinship
The Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) — Washing-
ton lawmakers plan to argue
right up until a Sept. 17 deadline
about what they should tell the
Supreme Court about how
they’ll fix the way the state pays
for K-12 education.
In July, the court gave the
Legislature two months to file
its first report on what they were
doing in answer to a January
ruling that the state isn’t meet-
ing its constitutional obligation
to amply pay for basic educa-
tion. In the past decade, educa-
tion spending has gone from
close to 50 percent to just above
40 percent of the state budget,
despite the fact that some educa-
tion spending is protected by the
constitution.
State lawmakers have in
recent years been dealing with
large budget deficits, and earlier
this year they cut $300 million
in state funding. The spending
plan didn’t include any cuts to
education, but lawmakers will
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continue to scramble to find
money to pay for government
services when they meet again
in January.
All summer, various legisla-
tive committees focused on edu-
cation have been meeting, but
the one committee assigned by
lawmakers to report back to the
Supreme Court has yet to con-
vene.
The Senate members of that
committee wanted to meet at the
end of August to talk about the
report, but House members had
legal concerns and declined to
meet, Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-
Bainbridge Island, told The
Associated Press.
She said the debate came
down to one issue: Was the
assignment by the Supreme
Court something the Legislature
should deal with in a public
committee? Or was it an issue of
attorney-client privilege — and
therefore the lawyers represent-
ing the Legislature should han-
dle all communications with the
court?
Committee members have
See SCHOOLS on page 3
SEATTLE (AP) — The abundance of
summer fruits and vegetables filling Wash-
ington supermarkets are a colorful but iron-
ic contrast to some new statistics coming
out the U.S. Department of Agriculture this
week that show hunger in the state has
grown significantly since the recession
started.
From 2008 to the end of 2011, the number
of hungry families in Washington grew from
about 88,000 to 163,000. Only six other
states had hunger growth rates that were
higher than Washington between 2010 and
2011, the USDA reported.
Hunger in Washington state is now above
the national average, and worse than hunger
levels in both Oregon and Idaho. In 2011,
15.4 percent of Washington households
reported some level of food insecurity,
which means they regularly struggle to get
enough food for their families, according to
the USDA.
About 6.2 percent of Washington resi-
dents reach a higher threshold and are con-
sidered hungry, which means they are going
without some meals because there isn’t
enough money for food.
The national numbers are 14.9 percent for
food insecurity and 5.7 percent for hunger.
The Children’s Alliance, an advocacy
group for children, youth and families, esti-
mates that 440,000 children in Washington,
or 25 percent, live in households where
there’s not enough food for everyone to eat.
The number of kids qualifying for free- or
reduced-price lunches at Washington public
schools has increased from about 390,000
kids in May 2008 to about 470,000 in May
2012, according to statistics from the Office
of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The new numbers are not surprising to
Linda Stone, food policy director for the
Children’s Alliance. Since 2007, the advo-
cacy group has seen more evidence of
See HUNGER on page 3
Northwest Gasoline Consumption Drops
New report shows despite less driving, money spent on gas is up
By The Sightline Institute
A
new report shows our appetite for
gasoline a waning. After more than a
decade of rising and volatile prices
at the gas pump, northwesterners’ consump-
tion of motor fuel is now on the decline. But
high oil prices meant that the region still
spent a record $22 billion on petroleum in
2011.
Last year, each resident of Oregon and
Washington burned an average of 7.2 gal-
lons of gas per week—the lowest level in
nearly 50 years. And per capita consump-
tion has dropped even lower in 2012.
Total gasoline consumption in the two
states hit a plateau in the late 1990s, and
started to decline in 2008—mostly because
northwesterners have been driving less. In
2011, Oregon and Washington residents
travelled 13 percent fewer miles per capita
on state-owned roads than the peak year of
2002. “The high price of gas has taken a bite
out of our driving,” said Clark Williams-
Derry, Research Director at Sightline Insti-
tute and principal author of the report.
Young Americans have led the way in cut-
ting back on car travel. In 2009, employed
See GAS on page 3