Jesse (Robert, "The Traveller" Hill) sponsors OPEN HOUSE for campaign.

Jesse (Robert, “The Traveller”) Hill – candidate for Pierce County Sheriff – emailed The Melon at 12:11PM today with an invite for an open house at the “new office” of the Elect Jessie Hill for Sheriff of Pierce County 2008 campaign. This “open house”, which begins at 1:00PM today and ends at 3:00PM today is apparently happening at “the first floor of the building located at 7030 Tacoma Mall Boulevard (South). It is on the west side of I-5, next to the Vern Fonk Insurance building.”

Mr. Hill says that “Volunteers will be present to help put out a mailing to new voters in the 27th Legislative District.”

Mr. Hill also included a PDF press release in his email invite which reads as follows:

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Welcome to the Neighborhood

Wednesday morning I woke to discover that I had been robbed. The previous evening someone had decided to smash through the passenger-side window of my Volkswagon to steal the portable GPS system I had carelessly left on the dashboard. This is not the first time this has happened to me.

In 2005, while living on K Street, someone similarly decided to smash the passenger side window of my car - though for no apparent reason. Since then, I’ve made a point to be careful about parking in well lit areas and not leaving any property in overnight. But, because I’ve spent the past seven months in one of Puyallup’s gated/patrolled community’s – I’ve gotten lazy. I just moved back to Tacoma this week, and yesterday’s thievery wasn’t exactly the welcome I was expecting.

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Arts Update - 9/18/08

There's much to report since our last Arts Update.

Margaret K Williams Awards

During our August meeting, the Pierce County Arts Commission (PCAC) awarded the prestigious Margaret K. Williams (MKW) award to the following artists in the attached categories.

Gig Harbor’s Mardie Rees has become the first recipient of the MKW Career Award – a subcategory I am proud to say I played a significant role in designing on behalf of Tacoma artist Elana Lindquist. The Career Award goes to the nominee who “has demonstrated success in pursuing a professional career as a visual, literary, and/or performing artists.” Miss Rees received the career award following the PCAC’s recognition of her successful career as a sculpture.

Tacoma’s Carla Barrgán received the MKW’s Excellence in the Arts for dance. The parameters for receiving this award include being “actively involved in the creation, production, and/or performance of works of significant quality in any artistic discipline.”

Finally the Tacoma poet and TCC professor, Amelia Haller, earned the Arts Education Award for a lifetime of service to Tacoma’s literary community. Applicants for the MKW’s Arts Education Award must have “achieved excellence as a teacher, student or administrator in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.”

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The Melon Interviews: Mike Lonergan

Yesterday, The Melon sat down with candidate for Pierce County Executive Mike Lonergan. In our extended, 52 minute interview, we covered a range of topics, from domestic partnership benefits to transit and spending issues. Mike Lonergan is a nearly seven year veteran of the Tacoma City Council and has served on numerous local boards. Find out more about Mike at his website: http://electmike2008.org

This interview with Mike Lonergan is part 2 of 4 in our Pierce County Executive Candidate Interviews. A couple months ago we spoke with Calvin Goings. His interview can be found here.

The Melon 9/11 Narratives

On September 11th, 2001, two airplanes hit the World Trade Center buildings in New York, a third plane hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania killing a total of at least 2,974 people. Not since Pearl Harbor had America witnessed an attack on its soil, never before had it experienced such direct detrimental damage, and never would it be the same.

Over the next few days leading up to the seventh anniversary of 9/11, contributors from The Melon will be posting narratives recounting their experiences. We ask you to join us in remembering those who lost their lives, honoring the families and friends who lost loved ones and thanking those heroes who fell, and those who worked tirelessly, sacrificing their health to clear rubble and save lives.

Tacoma School Board Meeting 08/28/08

And so begins The Melon's video coverage of the Tacoma School Board.

This week features discussions about the No Child Left Behind Act, the state of the Tacoma Education Association, a visit from Robert Hill and Rep. Troy Kelly, a generous donation of backpacks by Bank of America and more.

We apologize for cutting this video short at the end. We ran out of tape. Also, the audio is slightly off, we will try to fix this soon.

An Open Letter to President Ron Thom

I have a confession to make. Prior to achieving the legal age of twenty-one, I occasionally acquired and consumed malt beverages. I didn’t do it to “fit-in” or convince people that I was cool; I did it because I was bored and drinking is the collegiate pastime. Unlike many of my classmates I never carried a fake ID, had my stomach pumped on Halloween, nor did I ever bother to trek up to Vancouver B.C. where the drinking age is 18 because – frankly – it isn’t too hard for “minors” to get alcohol in the United States: especially in and around college campuses. As an underage minor, I never feared getting caught by a RA or CA or any other acronym, nor was I intimidated by campus security because – like the RAs and CAs – most of the people on patrol were fellow classmates who either similarly disapproved of the laws and university policies as written, or were too weary to actively enforce them on a campus as small as the University of Puget Sound where everyone ultimately knows everyone and poor reputations spring up almost as fast as tuition. Finally, I never feared about my parents finding out that I was drinking illegally because they were already fully aware and – although cautious enough to remind me to “drink responsibly” – were otherwise supportive of my decision. After all, both of them had been able to drink by 18.

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ROBERT "The Traveller" Hill Wins Election!

It's official, Robert "the Traveller" Hill seems to have successfully overcome an organized effort by the Democratic Party to keep him from winning the usually non-competitive "precinct committee officer" (PCO) seat. Mr. Hill is currently leading in the polls with 67.85% of the vote, though rumor has it that the 27th District Democrats - fearing that Mr. Hill's behavior would bring their organization into ill-repute, organized a phone-bank "write-in opponent" - namely, a member of the very Tacoma City Council mister Hill is known to harass. Since the county auditor has not fully tallied all the write-in votes yet, it is still too soon to know for certain, but this Melon columnist is ready to call the race a lock.

Here's the stats:
Precinct Committee Officer 27-322
D- Robert Hill: 95 votes
R- Edward L Bryant, Jr: 29 votes
Write-In: 16 votes

Truth to Power

The following email was sent yesterday from the office of Pierce County Councilman (and Democratic candidate for County Executive) Calvin Goings. It was drafted in response to an email that more or less reflected the most recent Arts Update.

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ARTS UPDATE

Last Saturday – August 9 – I had the opportunity to speak at Tacoma's Museum of Glass during the second of two free recitals Dance Theatre Northwest's (DTN) preformed that day. As many of you may know, DTN is a county-assisted dance troop dedicated to making the world of dance accessible to those traditionally marginalized by the fine arts. Specifically DTN seeks to inspire "low income and at-risk youth as well as schools, retirement/nursing homes and senior centers." The Pierce County Arts Commission has been supporting DTN for well over a decade now through a series of modest community grants, and in 1998 we awarded them the Commission's Margaret K Williams Arts Award for taking the initiative in being a leader in the community's artistic development.

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