Washington collects $890M in first year of new capital gains tax

Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission will decide whether Let’s Go Washington, which put four initiatives on November’s ballot, was deliberately opaque in its signature-collection finances, and if it had dragged its feet in opening its books to the public. The commission held a hearing Thursday, but a date for their ruling has not been set.

The PDC staff has charged Let’s Go Washington with taking eight to 675 days to add required details to 21 original campaign finance reports. The staff alleges that Let’s Go Washington has not sufficiently addressed whether its five signature-collection contractors hired any subcontractors. And the staff has charged Let’s Go Washington with not fully opening its financial records until the PDC subpoenaed them.

Redmond hedge fund manager Brian Heywood founded Let’s Go Washington in 2022 to put initiatives to public votes during elections. The group successfully gathered signatures on seven initiatives in 2023 and 2024, three of which the Legislature passed. Washington voters will face four of the group’s initiatives in November — repealing the state’s cap-and-invest program on carbon pollution; making participation in the Washington Cares program voluntary; repealing a state capital gains tax; and forbidding any state or local bans on using natural gas.

At issue is whether the five signature-collection contractors — TDM Strategies, Your Choice petitions, All State Petition Management, Collective Voice Solutions and RM Consulting — hired subcontractors. If so, the group should have reported how much the subcontractors were paid and what work the subcontractors did.

Heywood co-founded TDM Strategies, which received $700,000 from the almost $9 million that Let’s Go Washington spent on the five contractors, said Chad Standifer, an assistant attorney general prosecuting this case. Heywood donated the majority of the $9.15 million collected in the past two years by Let’s Go Washington, which according to PDC records has spent slightly more than $12 million.

Kelly Palmer, Let’s Go Washington’s chief of staff, testified that none of the five contractors indicated they had subcontractors, but that Let’s Go Washington did not aggressively try to determine if any existed. Palmer said Let’s Go Washington tried to comply with the PDC’s requests for financial information, but its intensive campaign activities slowed it down. Both the PDC and the group testified Let’s Go Washington did not break down expenses among the first six petition drives for most of 2023, but eventually the organization told the PDC that each drive equally received about one-sixth of the money. Let’s Go Washington’s attorney, Callie Castillo, contended that the group has disclosed all its expenditures, the PDC has not proven any subcontractors existed and the group eventually complied with all PDC requests.

Phil Stutzman, a PDC compliance officer, argued that one contractor reported its use of subcontractors is “proprietary,” implying that it does use subcontractors. Stutzman also said an employee for Your Choice confirmed the use of subcontractors, though Let’s Go Washington’s Palmer said that employee was in a conflict with Heywood over money and was eventually charged in an unspecified trespassing incident.

Standifer argued that Let’s Go Washington has not disputed that it delayed eight to 675 days to fix 21 financial reports, saying that extra information was needed for the public to know how that money was spent. He zeroed in on Let’s Go Washington’s failure to actively determine if subcontractors existed. And he noted a subpoena was needed for the organization to fully open its books to the PDC. 

Let’s Go Washington faces a potential fine of up to $10,000 per violation. It is up to the PDC commissioners to determine how many violations occurred.

For those who want to see debates between the candidates for secretary of state and insurance commissioner, the League of Women Voters of Washington has you covered. 

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs (D) will face Republican challenger Dale Whitaker, and state senators Phil Fortunato (R-Auburn) and Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue) will debate over the open seat for insurance commissioner at an event that starts at 6 p.m. Oct. 1 at the Edmonds College Black Box Theater in Lynnwood.

Kuderer and Fortunato will start with the insurance commissioner debate at 6:30 p.m. Whitaker and Hobbs will follow at 7:15 p.m. The League of Women Voters of Washington and Snohomish County are organizing the debates. The event is open to the public.

Both debates will be recorded and live-streamed by TVW, and the organizers invite the public to submit questions for the candidates in advance by emailing forumquestions@lwvwa.org.

These are two of the nine statewide races that voters will decide in this year’s general election. Election day is Nov. 5 and ballots will be mailed to voters on Oct. 18.  

Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena has agreed to pay $477,917 in penalties and refunds for charging hidden fees to thousands of customers who bought food and beverages.

On Friday the Washington Attorney General’s Office announced the settlement, which still has to be approved by a judge. 

Climate Pledge Arena, a cashless venue since it reopened under its current name in 2021, added a 3% “operational” fee to food and beverage purchases, according to an Attorney General Office press release. Customers were not informed about the 3% fee prior to their purchases, although it showed up on their receipts after they bought their food and drinks. This undisclosed fee was added to roughly 183,000 purchases at 37 arena events from Feb. 27, 2023 to July 22, 2023. The AG’s office says the lack of adequate disclosure violates Washington’s Consumer Protection Act.

The AG’s Office started its investigation after a Jesse Jones report on KIRO-7 in the summer of 2023. The arena’s operator, Oak View Group, told the TV station the 3% was an “operational” fee, and it eliminated the fee after the station’s inquiries.

According to the settlement agreement, Climate Pledge Arena will set aside $162,917 to refund that 3% to each customer who puts in a claim for being overcharged, plus an additional $10 for the customer’s inconvenience. Another $315,000 will go to the AG’s Office to repay its expenses. Climate Pledge arena is also required to settle a related private class action lawsuit on the same matter.

“Washington law is simple: If you charge a fee, you must clearly disclose that fee before someone pays it,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in the news release. “Climate Pledge was not doing that. Now they are paying the price.” Ferguson encouraged people who believe a company is charging hidden fees to contact his office, which has charged companies $9.6 million in the past five years for inadequately disclosing fees and surcharges.

A Washington commission will send a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee this week on the proposed Horse Heaven Hills wind turbine farm that would leave intact more than three-quarters of the originally requested number of turbines.

The proposed turbine farm has drawn scrutiny for its possible impact on Native cultural sites and on wildlife in the area, as well as its visibility from the Tri-Cities.

With scant discussion, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council approved the recommendation 4-3 Friday.

Scout Clean Energy of Boulder, Colorado, originally made plans for two scenarios, calling for a maximum of 147 670-foot-tall wind turbines or 222 500-foot turbines along a 24-mile east/west stretch of the Horse Heaven Hills just south of Kennewick. However, the Evaluation Council decided in February to implement two-mile buffer zones around 60 to 70 ferruginous hawk nests in that area and remove turbines along the north slopes of the hills.

The company says those buffer zones cut Scout Clean Energy’s number of turbines by roughly half. At that time, the company said those changes would trim the projected 1,150 megawatts of wind power to 236 megawatts.

Inslee sent the February recommendations back to the Council, wanting to increase the number of turbines back to the original estimates. In recent months, the Council has discussed trimming some ferruginous hawk buffer zones to 0.6 mile around the nests. In 2021, the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission changed the status of ferruginous hawks from threatened to endangered.

The recommendations approved Friday call for a 0.6 mile buffer around the nests, plus a 0.25-mile buffer around historic Native American fire sites, plus a one-mile buffer alongside Webber Canyon, another culturally sensitive spot for Indigenous nations.

If 500-foot turbines are installed, that would trim the number of turbines by approximately 50, from 222 to roughly 172. If 670-foot turbines are installed, that would cut the number of turbines by approximately 34, from 147 to roughly 113. More precise figures will be calculated later.

Scout Clean Energy’s original proposal also included two 500-megawatt solar panel farms on the east and west sides of the 24-mile stretch. The Council ordered that the eastern solar farm be removed because of its proximity to sensitive Native cultural sites. 

The wind farm has drawn strong opposition from numerous Tri-Citians because the original plan for the turbines would also disrupt a currently pristine view of the hills from the urban area. This Horse Heaven Hills matter has become the most contentious disagreement among several in Washington between wind and solar farms on one side and wildlife preservation on the other.

Washington’s latest carbon auction raised $237.2 million, bringing 2024’s cap-and-invest revenue up to $561.7 million with one more quarterly auction to go.

Carbon-emitting corporations, including oil companies, bid every three months on state allowances for their pollution emissions. In 2023, the first year of the new program, quarterly auctions brought in about $2 billion. 

During 2023, quarterly auction prices ranged from $48.50 for roughly one metric ton of carbon in the first quarter to $63.03 in the third. Those prices were significantly higher than had been expected when the program was designed, and were blamed for adding 21 to 50 cents per gallon to Washington’s traditionally high gas prices.

But both auction prices and related fuel prices have gone down in 2024. 

The 2024 first-quarter auction price was $25.76 per allowance, which raised $135.5 million for the state budget. The second-quarter price was $29.92 per allowance, raising roughly $189 million. The third-quarter auction, conducted Sept. 4, ended up with a $29.88 price per allowance with 7,939,271 allowances sold, the Washington Department of Ecology announced Wednesday.

Reasons for the lower 2024 auction prices are unknown, but one theory is that bidders are unwilling to spend money on a program that could disappear at the end of 2024, after voters decide on a state initiative to repeal the cap-and-invest program. Others believe Washington’s carbon market is stabilizing and that bidders are becoming more savvy about the way they approach the quarterly auctions.

While larger auction prices have been linked to higher gasoline prices, too many extra factors cloud any precise correlations. Numerous economic, geographic and other factors affect the rise and fall of Washington’s prices at the pump. For decades, Washington’s gasoline prices have been among the highest in the nation.

On Wednesday, Washington’s average price for regular gas was $4.16 per gallon compared to a national average of $3.25, according to AAA. Oregon has economic and geographic factors somewhat similar to Washington’s, except for a cap-and-invest program. Its gasoline sold at an average of $3.76 per gallon this week. 

“Despite efforts to repeal this landmark climate law, the [cap-and-invest program] continues to bring real, tangible relief to our communities as we respond to the impacts of climate change. ... While the repeal effort may have placed slight downward pressure on the price of pollution permits during the auction bidding process, more notably, prices have remained consistent with California and Quebec’s price trajectories,” said a joint press release from Climate Solutions, Washington Conservation and The Nature Conservancy.

Washington is talking with California and Quebec to become a three-party alliance, which is expected to decrease and stabilize auction prices.

Highline Public Schools will resume on Thursday after being out since Monday due to a cyberattack.

According to the district, technology staff detected the breach and disconnected its network from the internet, disrupting phone systems and limiting access to applications required for the safe operations of schools.

In a statement on the district website, school officials expressed regrets about the disruption and noted that it delayed the first day of kindergarten. 

“We recognize the burden this decision places on both families and staff, but student safety is our top priority, and we cannot have school without these critical systems in place,” the district said in its statement.

One of the parachutes connected with the hijacker known as D.B. Cooper will be on display at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma later this month. 

It’s the first time in a decade that the parachute has been on display. It is one of the most requested items in the museum’s collection, according to a museum press release. 

The infamous hijacking took place on Nov. 24, 1971, on a Northwest Orient 727 airliner between Portland and Seattle. A man who had reserved the ticket under the name Dan Cooper told a flight attendant he was carrying a bomb in a briefcase and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes, which he received upon landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. 

The plane took off for Mexico City with only the pilots and Cooper on board. With two of the parachutes and the money, Cooper jumped from the plane – possibly over southwest Washington, where some of the money was found years later on a riverbank – and was never heard from again. After a decades-long investigation involving hundreds of suspects, the FBI closed the case in 2016. 

The parachute on display will be one of the two that Cooper left on the plane. It will be on display from Sept. 22 through March 16, 2025. The Washington State History Museum is at 1911 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma, WA 98402. 

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, a Turkish American woman and a recent graduate of the University of Washington, was allegedly shot and killed in the occupied West Bank on Friday around noon local time, a UW professor told Cascade PBS.

“I taught her once, but she’ll be forever my teacher,” said Aria Fani, UW assistant professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures.

Eygi recently graduated from the UW earlier in the spring, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, according to Fani. She was part of the university student encampment on campus by the UW Progressive Student Union and the United Front’s “Popular University for Gaza.”

Fani was not shocked to know Eygi was in the West Bank but was devastated by the news of her death. He said he is still in the denial stage after receiving the news.

“Even as she was spending time with her family in Turkey, she still remained committed to fighting injustice, and this is after a year of activism on campus that really wore her down on multiple levels,” Fani said.

University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce released a statement of condolence to her family.

“Aysenur was a peer mentor in psychology who helped welcome new students to the department and provided a positive influence in their lives,” Cauce wrote. “This is the second time over the past year that violence in the region has taken the life of a member of our UW community and I again join with our government and so many who are working and calling for a ceasefire and resolution to the crisis.”

Eygi was participating in a protest on a hilltop in the town of Beita against Israeli settlements when she was shot in the head and pronounced dead in Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, according to Fouad Nafia, the hospital’s doctor, The New York Times reported.

Eygi lived in Seattle and had recently arrived in Israel to volunteer with pro-Palestinian activist group International Solidarity Movement, according to The Washington Post. The group blamed Israeli troops for Eygi’s death.

The group released a press statement that cited a protester who witnessed the shooting, “Our fellow volunteer was standing a bit further back, near an olive tree with some other activists. Despite this, the army intentionally shot her in the head.”

The Israeli military released a statement on social media platform X that “forces responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.” They are also investigating.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew shared on X condolences to Eygi’s family and said that the U.S. Embassy in Israel is investigating the cause of her death and prioritizing the “safety and security of American citizens.”  

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Öncü Keçeli also shared an official statement on Eygi’s death: “The Israeli authorities who commit crimes against humanity and those who unconditionally support them will be held accountable before international courts.”

A hand recount in the Commissioner of Public Lands race shows that Democrat Dave Upthegrove has the votes to face off against former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, the Republican who came in first place in the August primary. The mandatory recount found nearly identical results between the second- and third-place candidates.

Upthegrove defeated Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson for second place, with 396,304 votes to 396,255 – a difference of 49 votes. The total was finalized and updated after King County certified its votes on Wednesday. Upthegrove gained six votes in the recount and Kuehl Pederson gained four. The unofficial count was posted to the Secretary of State’s website on Tuesday, and was certified Wednesday at noon.

The recount was triggered when the initial count found that 51 votes out of 1.9 million cast separated them for second and third place after the primary was certified last month. Both campaigns “cured” thousands of ballots in the weeks between the primary day and the certification deadline by contacting voters whose ballots were rejected because of fixable errors.

In a primary, the state requires an automatic hand recount when the difference between the second- and third-place candidates is less than one quarter of one percent and also less than 1,000 votes.

In a top-two primary, the two candidates with the most votes face each other in the general election, regardless of party. This year in the Commissioner of Public Lands primary, about 42% of voters chose one of the two Republicans, and about 57% of voters chose one of the five Democrats. No single candidate got more than 22% of the vote.

The Commissioner of Public Lands position oversees the state’s Department of Natural Resources, which includes managing nearly six million acres of state-owned public lands and the state’s response to wildfires.

The general election is Nov. 5.

Update 3 p.m. September 4, 2024: This article has been updated with the certified and finalized recount numbers.

All services at the Seattle Public Library have been restored after a cyberattack took down all systems in May, according to the library’s account on social media platform X.

The public can now access public computers and all services that had been unavailable since the attack on Memorial Day. Other restored services include wi-fi, printing, the online catalogue, e-books and audio books. The library is also allowing people to return their books and other physical materials, after asking patrons to hold onto them during the outage.

After the cyberattack, the library had limited service through the end of the school year and during the summer, disrupting many heavily used programs. In 2023, the library logged more than 13 million checkouts and offered 340,000 public computer sessions at its 27 locations. During the ransomware attack, all public computers were shut off and people were unable to access their library accounts online.

Seattle Public Library had no clear idea of when all its services would return, but slowly brought them back up over the summer.