YAKIMA, Wash. -- A rematch of last year’s hotly contested 14th District state House election could be brewing; Democrat Vickie Ybarra is pondering another run.

Last year Ybarra, the president of the Yakima School Board, lost to State Rep. Norm Johnson, then a Yakima city councilman. The 53 percent to 47 percent result was the closest a Democrat had come to winning in the 14th in since 1994.

I wrote a story late last week about Michele Strobel, who owns a Selah cosmetics company, considering c

YAKIMA, Wash. -- The state of Washington is behind the national curve in its reliance on residential facilities for the developmentally disabled, a consulting firm wrote in a report delivered this month to Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The report recommended the downsizing of the Yakima Valley School in Selah and phasing out two of the other five facilities around the state. The Selah school was spared a phased-out closing recommended by the governor to the 2009 Legislature but its fate is far from cer

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Clint Didier, a former NFL tight end and member of the Washington Redskins legendary Fun Bunch, is considering a run against U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Didier, a Republican who owns a farm north of Pasco, has formed an exploratory committee to pursue the idea of challenging Murray, who is completing her third term.

Congressional Quarterly, which tracks all congressional races, has Murray’s seat listed as “safe Democratic,” which would make Didier’s bid a bit of a longsho

 YAKIMA, Wash. -- Kirby Wilbur, a conservative talk show host in Seattle, aired his final show on AM 570 KVI on Thursday.

 KVI is to Seattle what KIT is to Yakima.

 It’s unclear why KVI management pulled the plug on his contract, but with his usual aplomb and grace, Wilbur signed off with a message to fans on Facebook: “It was not my choice to leave. Thank you all for years of loyal listenership and friendship. I love you, you'll never know how much.”

 Many of you may have never heard of Wi

  Who can forget 1999, when Tim Eyman’s Initiative 695 crashed the state’s political party? The measure slashed the state’s motor vehicle excise tax, better known as the car-tab tax.

    Even many of those sympathetic to raising revenue didn’t much care for the tax, which annually could run into the hundreds of dollars for a new vehicle. Eyman’s initiative reduced that to a flat rate of $30 for everybody. I-695 passed with overwhelming support and turned Eyman into a political force. Embold

   Political polling is part art, part science, many parts big money as candidates and initiative interests assess their campaigns: Is this strategy working? Is the message getting out? Where should we focus our advertising and ground game? It goes on from there.

  Statewide poll-taking involves finding a scientific sample of hundreds of voters, factoring in gender, geography, ethnicity, likely voters and margin of error among many considerations. It can get technical and tedious, but getti

KENNEWICK, Wash. -- A political newcomer out of the Tri-Cities plans to announce a 2010 run at the 4th District congressional seat held by U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco.

Jay Clough, D-Kennewick, is a 33-year-old former Marine who works for the Hanford cleanup company Washington Closure Hanford and has never held or even sought elected office before.

“I’m a novice to the game,” he said.

A Central Washington University graduate with degrees in Pacific Asian studies and Chinese language, Clo

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Skamania County Auditor J. Michael Garvison, who earlier this year sought appointment to a state House seat in the 15th District, is under investigation by the state Auditor’s Office for his use of county funds.

The Clark County newspaper The Columbian first reported the investigation Friday, saying Garvison has billed the county $83,000 for travel expenses since the start of 2008. That includes payment for trips to Las Vegas, Montreal, Florida and Washington, D.C.

Garvison

When candidates for the Yakima City Council ask for your vote, most can claim it’s a civic duty they personally hold dear.

Voting records show that of the eight candidates, six have exemplary voting habits. Out of 26 elections since 2001, none of those six missed more than a few.

Two candidates, however, missed a bunch. That would be Sonia Rodriguez and Dave Ettl. As luck would have it, they’re in the same race.

Rodriguez, a family law attorney who was appointed to the council in December,

YAKIMA, Wash. -- It’s been a month since a judge threw out a partisan-tinged recall petition targeting Yakima City Councilman Rick Ensey. So why hasn’t he submitted a bill yet?

The City Council early on agreed to reimburse Ensey for his legal fees, leading to speculation by some that Ensey’s been delaying the inevitable as a way of protecting colleagues Bill Lover and Micah Cawley, who are up for re-election Tuesday.

“If they get their way, citizens won’t find out until the election’s over,”