Tag Archives: WSDOT

King: State needs to fast-track the rehiring of workers fired over COVID vaccine mandate

Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima and the ranking Republican on the Senate Transportation Committee, issued this statement today in response to the news that King County Metro will fast-track the rehiring of workers who were fired for not complying with the county’s now-expired COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

“It’s time for Governor Inslee and his administration to follow King County Metro’s lead and quickly rehire state employees who were fired over not complying with the governor’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, especially those in high-demand fields like ferry workers.

“His heavy-handed and unnecessary mandate, which dragged on until mid-May, is a key reason why our state’s ferry system is woefully understaffed and failing to provide the reliable service people should be able to expect. With the summer tourist season upon us, it’s especially important to boost the ferry system’s workforce as soon as possible.

“Our citizens’ travel needs are negatively impacted daily because of the lack of ferry staff. Everyone knew there were staffing problems even before the governor’s mandate. His firing of ferry workers only exacerbated the problem.

“The governor has finally seen fit to end his vaccine mandate. Now he needs to fast-track the rehiring of workers he fired– and soon – so their skills and experience can once again benefit the people of our state.”

 

Unconscionable: WSDOT refuses help to clear snow from roads in Kittitas County

Central Washington Sens. Judy Warnick and Curtis King issued this statement regarding the state Department of Transportation’s refusal to let Kittitas County road crews help clear snow on state highways in the county after a major snowstorm last week:

“We are shocked and very disappointed that the state Department of Transportation refused Kittitas County’s offer to help clear snow off key highways because county employees are not required to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The state, especially the governor, is putting political ideology and an inflexible desire to enforce vaccine mandates above public safety. This is wrong and foolish.

“A snowplow has just one person in the vehicle, so it shouldn’t matter whether the snowplow driver is vaccinated. Most people rightly are more concerned that our highways and roads are kept clear of snow this winter than the vaccination status of snowplow drivers and other winter road crew employees, who typically work in isolation.

“After the snowstorm hit last week, Interstate 90 and U.S. Highway 97 through Kittitas County were closed for three days, making travel nearly impossible for county residents and others relying on these highways, keeping people from attending medical appointments or other important meetings on the west side of the Cascades, and delaying freight deliveries. WSDOT’s winter road crews have been working around the clock to try to keep our highways clear, but they are very understaffed – and exhausted – due to job losses caused by Governor Inslee’s COVID vaccine mandates. Kittitas County generously offered to have its road crews help clear the snow, but WSDOT leaders refused. And then WSDOT hired a private contractor to help clear highways in the county. Is WSDOT requiring that contractor to be vaccinated?

“We feared the vaccine mandate would hurt drivers and truckers this winter. Sadly, our fears have been realized. This is on the governor, not those WSDOT workers who lost their jobs.”

Warnick, R-Moses Lake, serves the 13th Legislative District, which includes Kittitas County. King, R-Yakima, serves the 14th Legislative District and is ranking Republican on the Senate Transportation Committee.

King was interviewed about this issue today on KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.

The Senate Transportation Committee is scheduled to hold a work session today at 4 p.m. on the state of transportation in Washington. WSDOT officials, including state Transportation Secretary Roger Millar, are expected to attend. King says he will ask WSDOT pointed questions about its refusal to accept Kittitas County’s offer to help plow highways in that county. The committee meeting can be viewed here.

King says job losses from vaccine mandate will harm public safety, transportation

Amid news that nearly 1,900 state employees have been fired or left their jobs in opposition to Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, state Sen. Curtis King says he is concerned that the state’s transportation system and public safety will suffer in ways that will impact people in his district and throughout Washington.

“We’re already seeing the effects of the governor’s overreaching vaccine mandate on the state ferry system, as the reduction in ferry workers has caused many runs to be canceled and now appear to have just been slashed,” said King, R-Yakima. “Commuters and others who rely on the ferries are being punished because of Jay Inslee’s heavy-handed approach to the pandemic. For example, the San Juan morning runs have been cut from five to two, the times being 4:15 a.m. and 10:35 a.m.”

King said the mandate-related firing of 127 Washington State Patrol employees, including 67 troopers, six sergeants and one captain, is terrible news for those who use the state’s highways.

“Our state troopers do an outstanding job of maintaining safety on our highways and helping motorists and truck drivers when they have an accident or have problems with their vehicles. They save lives,” said King, ranking Republican on the Senate Transportation Committee.

“I saw the video of the trooper based in Yakima who signed off knowing he was about to be fired. The loss of all of these officers, as well as the dispatchers who were fired, will be felt by those motorists who need help on our highways. If and when a motorist is stuck on the side of a freeway or involved in an accident and there is no trooper around to help them, the blame should be placed on the governor.”

King, whose 14th Legislative District includes the Columbia River Gorge and Satus Pass north of Goldendale, has heard that the vast majority of the employees at the Washington State Department of Transportation’s Goldendale maintenance facility have lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandate.

“If there aren’t enough WSDOT maintenance workers to keep Satus Pass and other mountain passes and vulnerable sections of highways open and clear of ice and snow during winter, it will make driving through the mountains extremely dangerous. This could have a very negative impact on drivers and freight hauling throughout Washington this winter, and it could hurt our economy at a time where there are already major supply-chain concerns. Not to mention the safety element and the potential loss of lives,” said King.

Monday was the deadline for most state employees, all school employees and many health-care workers to be fully vaccinated under Inslee’s mandate. King is fully vaccinated and he encourages those who can to be fully vaccinated, but he does not agree with Inslee’s vaccine mandate.

“The governor’s vaccine mandate has already punished the workers who lost their jobs, and it will soon hurt the many of us who rely on the services that were provided by these workers. Governor Inslee is to blame here. He has gone too far with his mandate policy that is leaving many without a job while weakening public safety and transportation across our state. It could have and should have been handled so much differently. He should have given people options. It didn’t have to be this way.”

King proposes using new funding to fund fish barrier passage projects

Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, today proposed that the $196 million expected from Boeing in 2020-21 from the aerospace tax incentive reform bill be used to fund fish passage projects around the state.

“Our plan would allow Washington to finally begin work on an extremely expensive project that will impact many roads and highways throughout the state,” said King, the ranking Republican on the Senate Transportation Committee. “We are required by federal court to remove barriers that prevent fish from reaching spawning habitat, but the state hasn’t been able to identify a reliable funding source to allow us to truly start this extensive project – until now. This plan that I am offering will allow the state to improve fish passages without affecting other important road and highway projects.”

King touted the strengths of such a plan:

  • Fixing fish passage is required by a 2013 U.S. District Court injunction that requires the state to significantly increase the effort for removing state-owned culverts that block habitat for salmon and steelhead by 2030. (In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 4-4 on the case, leaving the lower court order in place.)
  • The plan’s first priority would be to fix fish passages that open the most amount of habitat.
  • The plan’s secondary priority would allow the state Department of Transportation to move fish passage projects up the priority list depending on partnership opportunities, prioritizing projects with no or low downstream barriers, project readiness, geographic bundling, fixing the most degraded culverts first and input from the public particularly affected tribes.
  • Increasing salmon habitat should increase the amount of salmon.
  • Increasing the amount of salmon should increase the amount of orca.
  • Increasing the amount of salmon should benefit tribal members who so heavily depend on salmon resources.
  • Increasing the amount of salmon should benefit the recreational and commercial fishing communities.
  • Funding a capital program like salmon habitat remediation would allow maximum flexibility if the Boeing/Airbus WTO dispute is resolved and aerospace could once again obtain a tax incentive ending the proposed revenue stream for this fish barrier fix.  Funding salaries and operating programs create a “bow wave” effect with the budget.  However, funding capital projects can be done as money is available. If the aerospace money source ends, the fish passage obligation does not and it would just require finding an additional funding source.

Along with Sen. Marko Liias (D-Lynnwood), King is a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 6690, which would capture the projected $196 million from Boeing during 2020-21. It is possible that the projected funds could be cut short if the bill’s trigger mechanism is activated through settlement of the WTO dispute.  However, it is also possible that more fish passage could be remediated since the $196 million only accounts for expected revenue from the Boeing portion of the aerospace sector.

To see a state Department of Transportation table of the fish passage projects that could be funded by this plan, click here. To see a table by WSDOT that shows fish passage projects along with their costs, click here.

 

Department of Transportation in good hands with Roger Millar at helm, says Senator King

In a unanimous vote today, the Senate confirmed Roger Millar as Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Mr. Millar is a second-generation civil engineer with thirty-eight years of experience including as a public works director, a city and county planning director, and vice-president of a multi-national engineering firm.  He served as acting secretary from February 2016 to August 2016, and was appointed secretary in August. 

Sen. Curtis King, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, gave strong support to Millar’s confirmation. 

“As secretary, Mr. Millar has been open and transparent in how he runs the department,” said Sen. King. “His forthcoming style kept me well-informed of key issues at DOT and he has shown a willingness to work through any challenges that come up. He has a solid engineering background, has done a fine job to this point, and I believe that he will continue to lead his department in a positive direction.”

 

Legislature gives green light to statewide package of transportation revenue, reforms

After years of discussion, statewide listening tours and heated negotiations, the Legislature passed the final bills that make up the new $16 billion transportation package with a broad bipartisan vote today. The suite of 14 reform and revenue bills now headed to Gov. Jay Inslee for his signature will provide over 100,000 jobs, congestion relief and improved roadways statewide.

Sen. Curtis King, Senate transportation-committee chair, is pleased that cost-saving transportation reforms called for by the people of Washington had remained part of the final package.

“The reforms built into this package are groundbreaking. For the first time the sales tax that’s being charged on our highway projects will be returned for use on transportation work instead of being siphoned off to the general fund. There are changes to streamline our state’s ferry construction, improved permitting processes and much more,” said King, R-Yakima. “People who understand the complexities of transportation projects know these reforms will truly transform the way projects are managed by our state’s transportation department. There will be greater accountability and taxpayer dollars will be stretched further than ever.

“We also stopped the implementation of a low-carbon fuel standard. That’s huge,” King said. “This unnecessary and arbitrary charge with no environmental or transportation benefit would have raised the price of gas anywhere between 70 cents to well over a dollar a gallon. This would be a huge hit to the pocketbook of every citizen in our state and negatively impact our economic vitality.”

The final transportation-revenue package will devote $8.8 billion to new construction and $1.4 billion to maintain and preserve roads and bridges across the state. The previous transportation-revenue package approved by the Legislature, in 2005, allocated no money for maintenance and preservation. The primary source of revenue will come from an 11.9 cent-per-gallon gas-tax increase, phased in over two years.

“No one wanted to ask the citizens of this state to pay more at the pump, especially me. But we have reached a tipping point where our state’s crumbling roadways and aging bridges need to be repaired, congestion relieved and goods need to be able to get to market reliably. Continuing to delay improvements is not only costly, it is a safety issue as well. There are over 140 local projects funded and completed in this package. Nearly every project was strategically selected for maximum economic return. There is something that will benefit every part of our state in this package,” said King.

The package also includes money for ferries, rail and the Washington State Patrol. Sound Transit, operating in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, received the authority to seek voter approval for $15 billion in future projects.

“This package took the long way to the governor’s desk. Like many road trips, there were also some unexpected stops and bumps, but now I can look back and really appreciate the journey. Negotiations are about the art of compromise and this package is truly a reflection of that principle. There was one compromise I was unwilling to make, however, which was to go against the mandate from the people of Washington who told me they’d be willing to invest in our transportation system, but only if substantial reforms were included,” King explained. “I’m pleased to deliver a package that not only meets that expectation, but goes even further.”