CPOly

But don't necessarily take their word as gospel. Was told by one ranger at the Hoh Visitor Center in late season that we would NOT make the summit. We did, it just took a little creativity. Good luck!

Doggles

The obvious one would have been Uranus!

I believe the photos were taken somewhere in the area of the yellow X.

I was hoping you'd chime in with a couple of photos Forrest. I may be wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but I thought a majority of the debris we'd seen was in the avalanche meadow shaded blue in the photo below. I do remember the stuff up higher as well. Great pic by the way PChaus.

Here's the link to the operating budget bill summary: http://leap.leg.wa.gov/leap/Budget/Detail/2011/HOAgencyDetail0524.pdf Parks budget starts on page 179. Line items 3 and 4 are the ones you're looking for. 3 is for the $20 million "transition" funds for moving to a fee-based agency, this is a one time deal. 4 is showing the removal of the 67 million general fund dollars from the parks operating budget. So 84% of the revenue from the discover pass will go to parks to make up for the $67 million that was taken away. They're hoping that they'll make enough to cover that loss, but it's unlikely. That's why they're laying off staff now in anticipation of not making that revenue.

So I didn't see the numbers for 2010 or 2011, but it looks to me like 2007 was the ALL TIME high. The end of the biennium this year saw over 20 parks employees laid off, and that's only field staff, not including support staff. The reason there was "hardly anyone" laid off was because they were able to make the necessary savings through not filling the positions of those recently retired and not filling/abolishing already vacant positions. I can assure there were still some that were laid off. And they don't keep hoping that the tax base comes back. After the $20 million this biennium to wean Parks off of general fund dollars, they will receive no more tax revenue. Their main source of money will be from the Discovery Pass. Mt. Si belongs to the Department of Natural Resources, not Washington State Parks, that's why you don't see them providing services at Mt. Si.

I can't speak to your courts point, I don't know how parks is going to process "protesters". But Joseph was right on in saying that the expectation is that staff do more with less. Nobody was hired to hang signs or check for passes, and there are a lot of rangers that are not happy about becoming "meter maids". In the end you're really only hurting the park system as this is now their main source of funding. It's unfortunate that it came to this but it's the reality of the situation.

I'm curious as to how you think this is a jobs program? The main agency "benefiting" from this pass (parks) has already had to layoff staff due to projected decreased revenue.

It's all about user generated funding these days. The legislature took away all state general fund dollars and said "here's the discovery pass, hope you get enough to stay afloat."

Peshastin would be, as would Vantage just off the top of my head.

So just for clarification Off, what's the L&I line item in your chart?

Got it. Thanks Off, I appreciate seeing the breakdown of numbers from someone in the business. It's a real eye opener seeing the net hourly wage. I guess I didn't read into it that Recycled was looking to dictate how the work was done, just that he had some projects he wanted completed. And at 2 months full time you're most likely not approaching that 60% annual income number. So I will retract my "decent gig" statement as I don't think I would be able to work with that $14 amount, but there may be some who can and are willing to take that.

I didn't really see anything there that would lead me to believe Retired is blatantly trying to dodge this bullet by skirting around this law. I still think that if a contractor, and I'm envisioning a sole proprietor here for simplicity sake, is able to cover their licensing, bonding, insurance and any other necessary overhead while still bringing in a profit that they can live with, this still seems to be a decent gig.

So maybe it's just me, but it doesn't sound like he's really in the wrong for his request. What are the areas that "big brother" looks at to determine whether someone is an independent contractor versus an employee? When he says "about $3500/month", sounds like he's open to some negotiation, as opposed to dictating this is what you'll get and no more! When it comes to setting a schedule, that also looks like there's quite a bit of flexibility. Allowing someone to "disappear to the hills" doesn't really look like you're in it for a 9-5 gig Monday through Friday until the job is complete. All he asks is that you give him a heads up as to what's going on. Looks to me like this could be a decent gig if that pay range is in your realm!