Community Leadership Summit on Transit
Earlier this month, I participated in a transit summit with other elected officials, non-profit and business leaders and other transit riders. We completed a challenging transit planning exercise and expressed our priorities for transit in Spokane.
Organized by the Spokane Transit Authority, the goal of the planning exercise sounded simple enough: To play transit Czar (or planner) and design a network for the fictional town of Prairieville. I learned a lot about the many worthy community transit priorities competing for service in a world of finite resources but, needless to say, I’ll keep my day job and leave the transit planning to the pros!
The robust discussion was facilitated by Jarrett Walker, the author of “Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives” and it was exciting to get his take about the future of transit in Spokane.
One of the biggest takeaways was the strong support for the Central City Line, Spokane’s planned electric trolley bus service. I believe this project not only offers a great transportation solution to our region but it also promises to bring economic development and job opportunities that would not occur otherwise.
KSPS Expert Panel on Early Learning
I was honored to be invited to join an expert panel appearing on Spokane Public Television to discuss the importance of investing in early learning programs.
The dialogue was part of an hour long special titled “Raising America.” It has been demonstrated repeatedly that investment in high quality early learning reduces the learning achievement gap, which is one of the most pressing challenges the public education system faces. If we want to improve outcomes for children in school and in life, high quality early learning must be a key component of our state’s overall education system.
I was joined on the panel by Dr. Bette Hyde, director of the Washington State Department of Early Learning; Lee Williams, director of Child Care Aware of Eastern Washington; and Dr. Vincent Alfonso, dean of Gonzaga University’s School of Education. The full program is available online and can be accessed by clicking the following link at KSPS.
Senate Committee Assembly
Last week, the Senate returned to Olympia for the two day Committee Assembly. It’s like the legislative pre-season, an important time to work on legislation, meet with other legislators, and hear the policy and budget updates in our respective committees in advance of the 2015 session.
The 2015 regular session of the State Legislature is scheduled to begin on January 12 and end on April 26, 2015. To see what committees were meeting last week and to watch tapes of hearings, you can visit TVW’s programming guide HERE.
Keeping In Touch
If you have a comment, idea, question, please let me know. I would love to hear from you!
You can reach me by e-mail (andy.billig@leg.wa.gov) or by phone at 509-209-2427.
And if you know someone who would like to get their own copy of my weekly e-newsletter, tell them they can go to my website at http://www.senatedemocrats.wa.gov/senators/billig/ and click on the link to “Sign up for my e-newsletter.”
Onward!
Andy
