March 2017

information from the City of Seattle

The Seattle Office for Civil Rights (SOCR) today announced a new hotline for people to report harassment in Seattle. The Hotline is part of the City of Seattle’s Bias Hurts Campaign for Seattle residents and business owners who are the targets of discriminatory harassment, including threats, slurs, intimidation and cyberbullying.

“We’ve set up the hotline so people in Seattle can contact the Office for Civil Rights immediately if they are harassed or discriminated against,” said SOCR Director Patricia Lally. “But more important, we want to join with the community to develop actions that we can take to protect and support people over the long term. As a community, we need to take care of one another as much as we can.”

The campaign includes three key components: a hotline (206-233-7100) to report harassment, meetings with community groups from across the city to learn what people are experiencing and how the City can proactively address them, and a media campaign to publicize the City’s efforts. The media campaign will include print ads, social media, ads on buses and trains, radio and direct outreach to community groups.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

Bowen McConville of Kennedy Catholic High School led the area contingent at the recent Mat Classic XXIX state wrestling tournament, taking second place in the 195-pound class of the Class 4A boys competition.
McConville battled all the way to the final, where he took a loss to Kione Gill of Tahoma by fall in 1 minute, 37 seconds.

Three Highline High School and one Tyee High School wrestler placed in the Class 2A boys competition.
Kevin Plenh-Romero of Highline took third place wrestling at 106 pounds and teammate Kyle Herbruger snagged seventh place at 126 pounds.

Lazaro Lombillo of Tyee took eighth place wrestling at 120 pounds and Jonavan Omar of Highline placed eighth in the 195-pound class.

Two area athletes placed in the girls competition, which mixed all classifications.

Caylee Collins of Highline finished fourth at 170 pounds and Giulian Pepe of Mount Rainier secured seventh at 155 pounds.

by Lindsay Peyton

Construction crews usually begin working before the crack of dawn on the site of the new Puget Sounds Skills Center, located on 18010 8th Ave S. in Burien.

Things were at a standstill, however, on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Starting at 5 a.m., strikers from the Heat and Frost Insulators Local 7 picketed in front of the building, waving signs that read, “Insulation Specialists pay less than area standard wages and benefits to its workers.”

The group’s business manager Todd Mitchell explained that workers are concerned about the contractor Insulation Specialist NW LLC, from Spokane, which was hired by Highline Public Schools’ general contractor FORMA Construction.

Mitchell said the company is in violation of the prevailing wage laws administered by the State.

“We came out and talked to the employees on site, and they have no idea what they’re being paid,” he said.

Mitchell added that according to state law, the wages must be posted on the site and the workers must be informed before the job starts.

By Ken Kagan

If, like me, you are of a certain age – and by that I mean, for example, that you remember where you were when you heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot, then your early association with Italian wine was almost undoubtedly the modestly-priced Chianti that was brought to your home by well-meaning guests.

Sometimes the bottles were shaped like a regular wine bottle, sometimes they had extremely long, skinny necks, and sometimes they were truly oddly misshapen, but almost always, the bottles were covered in straw, and the wine was most often bone dry, tannic or acidic.

For the last 20 – 25 years or so, and more and more every year, we here in the States are blessed with an abundance of some of the world’s greatest wines, at prices real people can afford, from all over Italy, with no woven straw in sight. Italy boasts more than 20 very significant, world-class wine producing regions, within which are literally scores of smaller regions producing fabulous wines – red, white, rosé, and sparkling.