| Rechanneling gifts: Legislators shift cash donations
Although 2007 was not an election year, special interests donated $827,000 in campaign funds to Utah legislators. With no campaigns last year, lawmakers converted about a third of that cash to what appear to be personal or other uses that have little to do with campaigning, according to Deseret Morning News analysis of the 104 part-time legislators' campaign disclosure forms. That included paying for new clothes, dry cleaning, car repairs, high-occupancy vehicle lane passes, passports, baby-sitting, travel, Utah Jazz games, parking tickets, wedding or birth gifts, concealed weapons permit classes, wages to a spouse for campaign work, repaying themselves tens of thousands of dollars in earlier campaign loans and even paying themselves for lost income during the general session.
Plea in Plot to Kill U.K. Soldier
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Past its prime: Bangor Auditorium
Early estimates on the price of a new arena run as high as $100 million with costs expected to rise rapidly with each passing year. As officials contemplate a future facility, the history of the existing structure serves as a reminder of the importance of planning well. A grand debut A dream 25 years in the making, according to news accounts from the time, the Bangor Auditorium was built over 17 months at a cost of $1.4 million. It was built at Bass Park after the city explored and rejected two other sites, one downtown at Abbott Square and the other near busy Dow Air Force Base. The first 155 days of the 17-month construction project were plagued by weather problems, including 48 days of rain and two hurricanes. When it finally opened on Oct. 1, 1955, the auditorium was considered a state-of-the-art facility.
McENTIRE SWORN IN AS PORT LEADER
Managing strait and air transportation means more than keeping ports of entry operational; it means being ready to facilitate a better economy and way of life, according to Jim McEntire.
McEntire, sworn in as Port of Port Angeles commissioner Jan. 14, has some ambitious plans for the Sequim area that he hopes to align with port operations.
The ports function is to provide economic infrastructure, mostly by transport in the past but has expanded into real estate and tourism development, McEntire said. Ive been researching what the state requires from port authorities and what those leaders are allowed to do with their operations, and I see a lot of potential in Clallam County and especially Sequim.
McEntire ran for the position unopposed last year.
Jeff Thelen's Blog
Does "the media" reporting on a terrible crime cause other people to go out and commit that crime? You could probably find people who would argue it does and those who would argue it doesn't. I honestly don't know. I do know we have a lot more media now than we used to, so what you used to see on the evening newscasts and read in the paper is now on 24 hours a day on cable networks, on your computer and even on your cell phone. So even if the coverage of something is not over the top, it might seem that way because it's just on so many places.JHi Jeff, and thanks for responding to my comments on the media coverage on these tragic killings in schools, the mall etc. You asked if the media reporting on these crimes "causes" someone to repeat a similar one. Well the fact is, it certainly "contributes" to it.
Rock holes fiscal rules
And now the Northern Rock debacle is set to blow out of the water a resonant manifestation of his financial prudence, the sustainable investment rule. This was one of two so-called fiscal rules designed to stop any Chancellor from spending and borrowing too much. Under the sustainable investment rule, public-sector debt must be no more than 40 per cent of British economic output or GDP. Though Mr Brown has frequently been accused of creative accounting to prevent the rule being broken, the ratio has always been below 40 per cent under his tenure – and is currently forecast to be 38 per cent in April. But if Northern Rock were nationalised, all the troubled bank's liabilities, minus its liquid assets, would come on to the public sector balance sheet.
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