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OPINION
Komen Comment
Some negative news
from around the world
n the news, some nagging
nuggets of negativity.
In Greece, a deputy in
the Defense Ministry says in
five years he amassed
bribes totaling $19 mil-
lion in under-the-table
payments from arms
dealers.
Former New Or-
leans Mayor Ray Na-
gin is on trial, charged
with 21 counts of brib-
ery and money laun-
dering.
A village council of
elders in Subalpur,
India, fined a woman
25,000 rupees for wanting to
marry a man from another vil-
lage, then ordered her to be
gang-raped.
To stop the slaughter of
elephants, the given wisdom in
the United States, China and
France these past four months
was to destroy by fire 15 tons of
ivory.
Those gorgeous monarch
butterflies are migrating their
way to extinction; at last esti-
mate only 1.65 acres remain of
their once 44.5 acres of Mexican
habitat.
A U.S. senator from Kansas
seemingly has migrated per-
manently to Alexandria, Va.,
where he has a palatial home
on a golf course; he is seldom
seen in his home state.
"We know everyone who
breaks the law. We know when
you're doing it. We have GPS
in your car, so we know what
you're doing," a quote from a
Ford Motor Co. executive.
A "cryptologically useful
quantum computer" is in the
works to "break nearly every
kind of encryption used to pro-
tect banking, medical, business,
and government records around
the world." according to The
Washington Post.
None of 16 government min-
istries in today's Afghanistan
can be trusted with the billions
of U.S. dollars poured into
them, says an audit published
last month.
In a 238-page report by an
oversight board: "We have not
identified a single instance in-
volving a threat to the United
States in which the (National
Security Agency) telephone re-
cords program made a concrete
difference in the outcome of a
counterterrorism program."
"The outstanding faults of
By JOHN
KOMEN
the economic society in which
we live are its failure to pro-
vide for full employment and
its arbitrary and inequitable
distribution of wealth
and incomes," John
Maynard Keynes in
1936, quoted by New
York Times columnist
Paul Krugman.
Krugman: "It ap:
plies to our own time,
too. And in a better
world, our leaders
would be doing all
they could to address
both faults."
A viral disease
known as Chikongunya fever
has migrated from Africa to the
East Caribbean, a new trou-
bling development of a serious
illness moving from one conti-
nent to another.
"An analytics service called
Chartbeat gives webmasters
instantaneous access to those
on the other side of the screen
by providing real-time data on
their mouse clicks, time spent
reading or watching, and even
their location,"wrote New York
columnist Maureen Dowd.
And in Mason County, there
is an elected county commis-
sioner who is chronically tardy
in paying his property taxes
and who declines to pay a sew-
er-system hookup fee.
Finally, a news note contain-
ing a glimmer of hopefulness.
In St. Louis, a federal judge
has given a ruling on that long-
standing surreptitious practice
of flashing your automobile's
headlights to warn oncom-
ing traffic they're approaching
a radar-equipped police car
speedtrap.
It's only a temporary action.
But let's honor Judge Henry E.
Autrey for imposing at least a
preliminary injunction block-
ing the police in the St. Louis
County town of Ellisville from
arresting drivers for flashing
warnings to their fellow motor-
ists.
You got to take solace in the
news wherever you can find it.
• John Komen, who lives on
Mason Lake, was for 40 years
a reporter and editor, TV an-
chorman, national TV network
correspondent, producer, colum-
nist, editorial writer and com-
mentator. His column, Komen
Comment, appears each week in
the Mason County Journal.
Guest Column
State legislation would bring
affordable housing to county
ason County, espe-
cially north Mason
County, has a
shortage of afford-
able multifamily
housing.
Apartments
provide flex-
ible, affordable
housing for our
workforce. Apart-
ments within our
urban growth ar-
eas (UGAs) mean
housing is acces-
sible to services,
transit and helps create a
vibrant community with
the diversity and popula-
tion we need to attract re-
tail development.
Cities and large coun-
ties have a tax incentive
available to encourage
multifamily housing in
urban centers. State law
authorizes an eight- or 12-
year property tax exemp-
tion on the value of new or
rehabilitation construction
of multi-unit housing with
four units or more. Smaller
counties are not eligible to
offer this tax incentive.
Sen. Tim Sheldon and
Rep. Kathy Haigh have
sponsored legislation to
expand this tax exemp-
tion to rural counties with
one incorporated city in
, By TERm
JEFFREY'S
unincorporated urban
growth areas served by
sewer, namely, north Ma-
son County. To
be eligible for
the tax exemp-
tion, 20 percent
of the units must
be priced so
they are afford-
able for low- or
moderate-income
residents. Thanks
to the hard work
of our legislators,
both the House
and Senate versions of
these bills are successfully
moving along the process.
House Bill 2738, spon-
sored by Haigh, has passed
out of its policy committee
and was scheduled for a
hearing in the House Fi-
nance Committee at 8 a.m.
Monday in House Hearing
Room A. Senate Bill 6330,
sponsored by Sheldon, has
passed out of its policy
committee and was sched-
uled for a hearing in the
Ways and Means Commit-
tee at 3:30 p.m. Monday in
Senate Hearing Room 4.
The intent of the tax
exemption is to encour-
age density in urban
centers. Unincorporated
UGAs in smaller counties
are in just as much need, if
not more so for affordable,
workforce housing. Rural
counties need incentives
to encourage densities in
UGAs to meet the intent of
the Growth Management
Act. It is harder to encour-
age density in UGAs in ru-
ral counties because most
of the affordable housing is
located in rural lands.
These bills would help
make sewer rates more af-
fordable in Belfair and A1-
lyn. Unincorporated UGAs
are required to have urban
services (sewers). Due to
the lack of housing, sewer
rates are extraordinarily
high making it difficult for
sewer service to be sus-
tainable. This bill would
help increase sewer hook-
ups and create economies
of scale.
Please help support af-
fordable housing in Mason
County. Contact legisla-
tors serving on the Senate
Ways and Means Com-
mittee and House Finance
Committee and urge them
to pass these bills out of
Committee.
• Terri Jeffreys
is a Mason County
commissioner. She can
be reached at terrij@
co.mason.wa.us.
Mason County
USPS 492-800
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Page A-4 - Mason County Journal - Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014
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Newsroom:
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Advertising:
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All editorial, advertising and legal
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