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Camden: Bumpy trip down memory lane for late Tom Foley
By Jim Camden
Published: March 8, 2017, 6:01am
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When I was a much younger reporter for The Spokesman-Review in the early 1980s, I covered the nuclear fiasco that was the Washington Public Power Supply System.
This was good gig because it meant writing about the faltering effort to build five nuclear plants, which was living up to the pronunciation of the WPPSS acronym — Whoops — and spiraling into the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history. But the assignment had one big drawback. Many meetings were in the Tri-Cities, which meant regular trips down U.S. Highway 395.
This was not the 395 that today’s motorists travel, on which one can set cruise control after leaving Interstate 90 at Ritzville for a pleasant drive down what’s mainly a four-lane expressway through the Columbia Plateau. This was a stretch of two-lane highway over hilly terrain, often populated by semis hauling hay, potatoes or livestock. In bad weather, it was a white-knuckle drive divided by zones of “Do Not Pass” and “Pass If You Feel Lucky.”
This trip down memory lane was prompted by a discussion in the House last week over a proposal to rename U.S. 395 between the Canadian border and Oregon as the Thomas S. “Tom” Foley Memorial Highway. The discussion did not, as a reasonable person might assume, revolve around whether the Legislature should pick either Foley’s formal first name or the name he was generally known by, but not both, to save space on the signs the Department of Transportation would put up.
Nor was there a question of whether Foley should be recognized for finding the money in a series of federal budgets to widen various stretches of the highway. As House whip, majority leader and eventually speaker, he was in a position to direct money to local projects, and he did, even when that southern stretch was mostly in another congressional district.
Instead, there were questions about the propriety of naming the whole stretch, border to border, for Foley.
“Yes, he brought money to help build this and help maintain it,” Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, said somewhat grudgingly. “Quite frankly, there were some policies that he pursued, that he ushered through under his leadership, that were not supported by some of the people in that area, who live and work along that highway.”
Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, said communities and chambers of commerce up and down the highway have passed resolutions in support of the name, and in the history of 395, none has suggested naming a stretch for anyone else, he added.
Highway naming resolutions often pass unanimously, or nearly so. This one passed 69-29. The resolution now goes to the Senate.
Different treatment
An issue can get a very different treatment in the House and the Senate.
On Thursday, the Senate spent three-quarters of an hour debating a bill designed to keep Seattle from setting up “safe injection sites” for people addicted to heroin and other opioid products. Sen. Mark Miloscia, R-Federal Way, said to do so would “literally turn Seattle and King County into the heroin capital of America.”
While no one questioned his use of literally, Democrats argued these facilities, proposed by local public health experts, were places where people with different types of opioid addiction could come for treatment and counseling.
After a pretty passionate debate, Miloscia’s bill passed 26-23, with all Republicans and two Democrats deciding this shouldn’t be a treatment option open to local officials.
Friday, the House took up a separate bill on opioid treatment. It didn’t mention safe injection sites. Rep. Drew Stokesbary, R-Auburn, thought it should, and proposed an amendment saying that no way, no how should they be allowed.
The amendment was challenged and ruled “outside the scope” of the bill’s title by the Democratic speaker pro tem. The bill, without any reference to or prohibitions against safe injection sites, passed fairly quickly.
Jim Camden is a columnist with the Spokesman-Review in Spokane. Email: jimc@spokesman.com.
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