OLYMPIA — Tart on the tongue but with a sweet finish. Robust. Displays a palatable aftertaste of — egad, it’s pork!
That’s how the 2015 legislative vintage might taste to voters in the 24th District, including its delegation.
Although they might not call it pork, they’re proud nonetheless of the bacon they brought home — environmental cleanups, a new building at Peninsula College, repairs to structures at Fort Worden State Park, and salmon-restoration projects that will employ people while they improve fish habitat.
And while some issues seemed lost in the state Legislature’s triple-overtime session that still failed to reform education funding, certain bills loomed large for the North Olympic Peninsula contingent.
State Rep. Steve Tharinger sponsored a measure that appropriated $16 million for rural residencies at clinics such as Family Medicine of Port Angeles.
Records show that if a doctor completes his or her residency in a community, he or she is likely to remain there to practice, Tharinger said.
Tharinger and Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, both of Sequim, and Sen. Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam serve the district that encompasses all of Clallam and Jefferson counties and most of Grays Harbor County. All are Democrats.
Tharinger also succeeded with a bill permitting practitioners of Asian medical procedures like acupuncture to treat chronic ailments such as cardiac conditions if they consult with primary care physicians.
“The focus is to improve capacity in the health care area,” he said.
And Tharinger was prime sponsor of a measure that boosted funding for the state Department of Health to test more quickly for shellfish toxins and monitor them more closely.
The bill also provides money for the Olympic Natural Resource Center in Forks to study algal blooms that close beaches to clamming.
Another Tharinger bill pried loose $29 million for state parks, although it fell short of restoring the $45 million chopped from parks spending in the previous biennium.
For Hargrove, a tax break for log trucks was “pretty gratifying.”
The mileage-based measure, he said, grows more important as trucks must transport logs over longer distances because mills in Forks and Shelton have shut.
“It’s a critical piece of our infrastructure to get our products to market,” Hargrove said.
The senator also was proud of a tax on marriage dissolutions that provides “a more steady stream of resources” for programs to prevent domestic violence.
“I really felt good about that one,” he said.
And while Hargrove, ranking minority member of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, spent much of his time wrangling a budget, he also introduced a bill that created a memorial highway honoring four winners of the Medal of Honor, each with a mile of U.S. Highway 101, two on each side of the Clallam-Jefferson county line.
It memorializes Navy Seabee Marvin G. Shields of Port Townsend, a hero of the Vietnam War; Cpl. Francis A. Bishop of Port Angeles and Cpl. Thaddeus S. Smith of Port Townsend, Union soldiers of the Civil War; and Marine Pfc. Richard B. Anderson of Agnew, who died saving three comrades in World War II.
Van De Wege’s “win” column included a bill that outlawed computer-controlled mass buying of admissions to popular entertainment and sporting events, commonly called ticketbots.
He also sponsored successful legislation that ensures that health investigators have adequate training to interview victims of sexual assaults.
Almost unnoticed in the partisan budget battle — but beginning to be felt in coastal communities, legislators said — is a marine trades bill sponsored by Tharinger and Van De Wege.
It tacks another 60 days onto the two months that nonresident-owned vessels already may operate permit free in Washington waters.
That gives them four months to moor and to be repaired and outfitted, a boon to boat yards like Platypus Marine in Port Angeles.
“That’s one of those things that’s not costing the state anything, but it can really help our district and our Washington waterfront as a whole,” Van De Wege said while crediting Tharinger’s persistence for the bill’s success.
“It’s something we’ve worked on for a number of years. It will be neat to see if it has as good an outcome as we hope it has.”
Not all of the legislators’ wishes came true.
Tharinger cosponsored a bill to tighten exemptions for vaccinations required for school children.
It failed despite a measles outbreak in Clallam County that caused one woman’s death.
Clallam County and state health authorities said the outbreak could have been prevented had more people been immunized.
Tharinger also lost a bid (another repeated attempt) to establish the mid-level designations of dental therapists and dental hygiene therapists — dentistry’s version of medicine’s nurse practitioners — to expand dental care and reduce its cost.
The Washington Dental Association opposed the measure. It died in the House Health Care and Wellness Committee without reaching the chamber floor.
Tharinger, though, will continue to promote issues for elders as chair of the Joint Executive Committee on Aging and Disabilities.
“We’re working on an Alzheimer’s disease plan for the state,” he said, and addressing issues of guardianship, plus funding for long-term care.
The 24th District, Tharinger said, is “the oldest district in the state per capita. We’re what the state’s going to look like in the next 10 years.”
Hargrove will fight another day — probably as soon as legislators reconvene in January — for his Justice Reinvestment Initiative.
The complex measure would shorten sentences for some property offenses but put most first-time property offenders under a year’s supervision by the state Department of Corrections when they are released from prison or jail.
Hargrove said it would give them a better shot at going straight.
Criminal justice matters have been signature issues for the Hoquiam senator.
“Most of my career has been trying to make our society safer,” he said.
The initiative passed the state senate “but got all twisted up over there” in the House, he said
“I’ll be back working on that.”
Van De Wege will make yet another bid to ban flame-retardant chemicals from clothes and home furnishings.
The substances produce toxic fumes that threaten first responders — he is a firefighter/EMT in Clallam County Fire District No. 3 — but his bill met opposition from chemical-company lobbyists, he said.
He promised to renew the issue — saying “I enjoy the fight” — and predicted Tharinger would do the same for the vaccination measure.
And Van De Wege said he withdrew his attempt to rein in music copyright-enforcement companies he claims intimidate small live-entertainment venues.
He said his bill drew unexpectedly vigorous opposition from firms like BMI and ASCAP.
“It probably could have passed, but it would have been on their terms, so I said no.
“They used some tactics that typically are not used in Olympia. They hired some high-profile lobbyists, those companies did. They were not fully truthful.”
Van De Wege said the companies’ strategies might have backfired.
“I’m very much energized to see that legislation passed in the future,” he said.
He said he’d also continue his effort to make illegal campaign contributions a felony, a measure he introduced after Olympic Ambulance owner Bill Littlejohn of Sequim was caught donating under his employees’ names to fight a tax levy for paramedic services in Fire District No. 2.
Littlejohn paid a $60,000 fine imposed by the Public Disclosure Commission that was later cut in half, but Van De Wege wants to see similar offenses punished with jail sentences.
Although the bill made it to the House floor, it had been amended from a felony to a misdemeanor, and Van De Wege said he decided to drop the issue.
For now.
“That was what I was passionate about, seeing people who break he law — and know they break the law — to that extent should be felons.
“It’s a form of laundering money.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
