PICTURED right (from left):Maria Maravilla, Rebecca Withrow and Tammy Masters hold up photos of loved ones lost to gang violence. Rebecca Withrow, a Community Corrections officer for the Department of Corrections in Yakima and a member of Local 1326, lost her nephew Jason Baldoz, an innocent bystander shot to death this past October outside a Halloween party.
A gang member was later arrested for what Withrow called the execution of Baldoz, 34.
“I never thought in a million years this would happen,” Withrow said.
“And it is something you will never forget.”
Her nephew’s widow, Maria Maravilla, broke down when testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.
Maravilla called Baldoz the “heart and security” of her and their four children.
“After he was taken from us, everything fell apart,” she said.
“What haunts me every night and day is knowing that he will never be in our lives again,” Maravilla said. “Also, that my kids will have to grow up without their dad by their side.”
Joining Withrow and Maravilla was Tammy Masters, an attendant counselor 3 at Yakima Valley School in Selah and a member of Local 1326.
Her 18-year-old son, Mo Adams, was shot and killed Feb. 19, 2008, by gang members outside a Yakima home. He, too, was an innocent bystander who had no connection to the gang members.
“As a mother, I relive the scenario over and over in my mind -- I will for the rest of my life,” Masters said.
“My life and my family’s life will never be the same.”
Masters, Withrow and Maravilla joined to support a pair of bills (HB 2413 and HB 2414) allowing greater authority to seize property and goods used for street gang-related offenses.
The bills’ sponsor Rep. Norm Johnson, R-14th Dist., said the bills aim to “hit gangs in the pocketbook” and remove the “profit motive out of gang activity.”
“These are senseless acts of violence,” Master said. “These people are terrorizing our neighborhoods….I believe this is a stepping stone in controlling these senseless acts of violence on innocent people.”
“I am in support of the proposed gang bill that will be an effort to limit the illegal gang activities,” Maravilla said.
“Hopefully, it will prevent another senseless act of violence like the one that happened to Jason.”
Passage of the bills would be some consolation to Jason Baldoz’s aunt, Rebecca Withrow, who passes the site of his murder every day on her way to work at the Yakima Community Corrections office.
“Please, I’m begging you…give the law enforcement officers and the courts the tools to do something about this,” Withrow said.
INSTITUTIONS MEMBERS AGAIN UNITE TO OPPOSE CLOSURES
The governor’s plan to close state institutions and an almost parallel consultants report came up for a series of additional hearings the last few days.
Ahtanum View and Pine Lodge
Julianne Moore, an activist out of Yakima Valley School in Selah and Local 1326, and Ton Johnson of state Community Corrections Local 308 in King County, joined Wednesday night to urge lawmakers to slow down the train already speeding down the tracks to close Ahtanum View Corrections Center in Yakima and Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women in Medical Lake.
Ahtanum View was opened to house vulnerable offenders and that need hasn’t gone away, Moore said.
Now the governor is using her administrative authority to shut it down by March. The Legislature needs to review it as part of the overall budget debate, Moore said. The closure will likely raise costly liability issues for the state, she said.
The Ahtanum View workers are members of her local. “So we would ask that somebody, somehow have the Department of Corrections slow down, take a look at what they are doing (because) it really doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“Ahtanum View is very cost-effective. They have an excellent staff there.” Johnson echoed Moore’s comments when opposing the fast-track closure of Pine Lodge, due to close this spring.
The consultants report did not recommend closing Pine Lodge.
“We are concerned at the rate of which they are closing it,” Johnson said. “One, it wasn’t in the (consultants’) recommendations and now the Department of Corrections isn’t giving you the time to even consider closure before they consider the process.”
Besides, Pine Lodge is unique, Johnson said. “It has successfully integrated the co-occurring disorder and chemical dependency program with a mental health component,” he said. Plus, it has “the lowest per offender cost of any female institution in the state,” Johnson said.
Moore and Johnson testified before the House General Government Appropriations Committee Jan. 13.
Frances Haddon Morgan Center and Rainier School
Closing residential habilitation centers makes no fiscal sense, Federation members testified at two budget hearings.
The governor’s closure plan for Frances Haddon Morgan Center and Rainier School will cost $1.8 million just for starters, and consultants never identified the costs “to provide comparable care in the community,” said Sola Raynor, a Spokane Local 1221 member who gave up her day to speak on behalf of RHC members who couldn’t make the hearings because they had to work.
The governor’s plan relies on moving residents to a non-existent community supported provider network that consultants said would require “substantial refinancing” to create, Raynor said.
The downsizing of Fircrest School in 2003 that moved 61 residents cost $10 million and cost six lives.
With 370 at Rainier School and more than 50 at the Morgan Center, Raynor asked: “How much is it going to cost to move over 400 people?”
She testified Thursday (Jan. 14) before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Earlier, Julianne Moore of Local 1326, said if there is no cost savings, “then this must be a policy decision, a decision to close and downsize the institutions at any cost. We need to put an end to this destructive ‘community’ versus RHC debate.”
Moore testified Jan. 14 before the House Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee.
FEDERATION BOOSTS HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS
The governor is proposing to buy back the state need grants in higher education but more needs to be done to save state colleges and universities in these times, Federation staffer and former Centralia College activist Pam Carl told the House Ways and Means Committee Jan. 13.
“Does it make sense to give a tax break for maintenance costs of condominiums and yet cut $90 million in programs that will mean fewer course offerings and larger class sizes and cut the many support services that make our colleges and universities first-class institutions,” Carl said.
“The truth is when the economy is bad, people go back to school. And currently, we are at record enrollments at a majority of colleges.”
CAPITOL NUGGETS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Nugget No. 1: Sen. Margarita Prentice, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, today introduced a bill that would force state employees, with some exceptions, to give up 16 days of pay. SB 6503 would close state agencies on 16 days from March 12, 2010 (the day after the Legislature adjourns) to June 10, 2011. Employees would be temporarily laid off on those days and lose pay. Collective bargaining rights would be honored. It’s unclear if the bill covers colleges and universities—it speaks to bargaining rights there as well.
Nugget No. 2: Monday is the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, but hundreds of Federation members are taking a “day on” to bring their message to Olympia. It’ll also be a busy day for hearings. The Senate Ways and Means Committee holds a 3:30 hearing on the governor’s proposed supplemental budget and the House Ways and Means Committee takes up natural resources and general government parts of the governor’s budget, also at a 3:30 hearing.
Nugget No. 3: Also on Monday, Rep. Christopher Hurst, chair of the House Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee, holds a work session looking at the events surrounding the murder of the four Lakewood police officers in November. Federation Corrections members are set to participate in the 6 p.m. hearing Monday in House Hearing Room A of the John L. O’Brien Building.
Nugget No. 4: The Federation’s Matt Zuvich testified in favor of HB 2403 that would grant military leave for state employees called up for duty with the National Guard. The measure would clear up “creative interpretations” by some agencies that have denied this leave. HB 2403 came before the House State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee Thursday (Jan. 14).
Nugget No. 5: The Federation’s Ton Johnson urged passage of HB 2447 to prohibit the release of photographs of state employees or their dependents that are in personnel records and other public employment documents. The bill gets at harassment by prisoners who make public records requests. The bill “reduces the potential for employees to be targeted or victimized because of performing the work of the state,” Johnson told the House State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee Thursday (Jan. 14).
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