Final Story Pitch

As heroin makes a national and state resurgence and opiate abuse continues to be an issue, small, rural towns like Pullman are ill-equipped to deal with local addiction problems. The national influx of opioid painkillers and medications in the last decade has caused many people to develop addictions, which in turns sends them to the street to look for cheaper options like heroin. Pullman is without any local inpatient rehab facility and has only a limited number of outpatient facilities. Palouse Recovery Center, one of the few, has seen a significant increase in opiate abusers in the last few years. My story will examine the trends and the difficulties preventing, policing and treating heroin and opiate issues in small towns like Pullman.

Why now: Rural communities across the country are seeing growing problems with heroin abuse, and many are turning to federal help to deal with the issue.

Format: Feature, 750 words

Sources: Palouse Recovery Center (interviewed), Palouse River Counseling (interviewed), Quad City Drug Task Force, Dr. Pete Mikkelsen: Medical Director of the Emergency Department at Pullman Regional, Pullman Police Chief Gary Jenkins, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services

Public Records Request

Dec. 4, 2014
Washington State Department of Health Financial Services, Contracts, Properties & Procurement
PO Box 47901 Olympia, WA 98504-7901
Dear Ms. Molly Zirpel,
Pursuant to the state open records law Wash. Rev. Code Secs. 42.56.001 to 42.56.904, I write to request access to and a copy of the record of state expenditures for publicly-funded chemical dependency treatment services in each of the last 15 years. If your agency does not maintain these public records, please let me know who does and include the proper custodian's name and address.
I agree to pay any reasonable copying and postage fees of not more than $100.00. If the cost would be greater than this amount, please notify me. Please provide a receipt indicating the charges for each document.
As provided by the open records law, I will expect your response within five (5) business days. See Wash. Rev. Code Sec. 42.56.520.
If you choose to deny this request, please provide a written explanation for the denial including a reference to the specific statutory exemption(s) upon which you rely. Also, please provide all segregable portions of otherwise exempt material.
I would note that violation of the open records law can result in a fine — payable to me — of up to $100 for each day that I am denied access. Litigation costs, including reasonable attorney fees, may also be awarded. See Wash. Rev. Code Sec. 42.56.550(4).
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Conor King Devitt
1048 NE Monroe St. Pullman, WA 99163
Reporter, Murrow News Service
206-661-4652

Visiting Comedian Teaches Students about Storytelling

A large, three-sectioned triangle colored the whiteboard. The top partition was labeled “Brilliance”, the thin middle section “Worst” and the lowest “Mediocre”.

“Can someone tell me why it looks like this?” asked filmmaker and comedian Ted Tremper, to a class of less than 20 undergraduates. “Why is mediocrity below worst?”  

This was one of many questions posed last week at WSU’s most recent “Visiting Writers” workshop.

Led by the swift-speaking Tremper, the class consisted of three discussion-based lessons and a personal meeting with each student at the end of the week.

Tremper’s simple answer to the question: risk. In creativity and storytelling, risk is necessary to achieve the best possible work. Without an element of risk, without taking a chance on an idea that could be the worst, work will be relegated to mediocrity. It is better to try and fail than live in the tame and forgettable bottom section.

“Your best and worst ideas will both be memorable,” he said.

Trember graduated from WSU in 2006 with a degree in Creative Writing. After a one-year stint teaching English in Japan, he moved to Chicago and began working his way up the Chicago improv comedy scene and learning filmmaking. For several years he was a member of the renowned Chicago improv comedy troupe Second City, the same organization that birthed the careers of comedy icons like Bill Murray, Chris Farley and Tina Fey.

While in Chicago Tremper created, directed and acted in an improvisational web series called “Break-ups: The Series.” The videos won the 2010 Vimeo Global Film Festival Award for “Best Original Series”.

Tremper led the class in writing-room fashion. Pacing back and forth in caffeine-hyped strides, he illustrated his points again and again through student-created examples.

“The class was really interesting and helpful,” said senior Baylee Sinner, a general studies major and aspiring filmmaker.

The class-generated stories were worked and molded like clay. Genre was shown to be transitory. White board story ribosomes illustrated the limitless quantum universe of fiction. Romantic comedies were tweaked to become dramas, which then turned to horrors. All at the light speed intuition of creativity. Tremper smiled with enthusiasm at all suggestions, quelling self-doubt and encouraging the weird.

“Yeah!” Tremper said in response to a student-originated story scenario about a woman who would never realize she’s beautiful. “I looove that. Oh! That’s tragic.”

Tremper encouraged the workshop participants to live out the dynamics of creative storytelling in their own lives. To embrace the risk and shoot for the top section of the pyramid, and to accept failure constructively.

“Get to know those woods,” Tremper said, when asked by a student on how to deal with failure. “Failure can be the best thing for you.

After creating “Break-ups,” Tremper went on to create “Shrink”, an improvised web series that won the 2012 New York Television Festival Awards for Best Comedy Pilot and Critic’s Award. “Shrink” is about a young doctor who loses his residency and begins to operate as an independent clinical therapist. It features many well-known Chicago improvisers.

He now lives in LA and is pursuing a career in television.

Sources:

Ted Tremper: tedtremper@gmail.com

Baylee Sinner: 425-281-8757

Numerous Regulations Make Life Difficult for the State’s Aspiring Marijuana Merchants

Summary: Those hoping to set up a marijuana retail shop in Pullman or elsewhere in the state are forced to satisfy a large number of bureaucratic regulations, ranging from heavy security requirements to occupancy permits.

Outline:

I) Introduction

·         Bureaucratic regulations

II) Security and Fire Requirements

·         Liquor Control Board

·         MJ’s Pot Shop

·         Security Details

·         Fire Inspection

III) Change of Occupancy Permit

·         Definition

·         Lack of Precedent

IV) Zoning Issues

·         Commercial Three Zone

·         Difficulties for MJ’s Pot Shop

·         City’s Rebuttal

·         Future Stores

Sources:

Rich Dragoo: (509) 338-3274

Pete Dickinson: (509) 338-3213

Mary Jane Smith: (509)332-5203

Marijuana may be legal in Washington, but it can be quite difficult to sell.

As new marijuana production, processing and retail businesses attempt to set up shop across the state and in Pullman, the aspiring entrepreneurs behind these operations must comply with a wide array of bureaucratic regulations before they can start to profit off of the plant. Some of these regulations are standard for any new business; however, some are not.

The Liquor Control Board – the agency in charge of recreational marijuana implementation – has laid out an expansive list of security requirements that all retail stores must abide by.

For the only retail marijuana outlet in Pullman, fulfilling those requirements came with a price.

“You just pay a lot of money to have a specialist do it,” said Mary Jane Smith, the owner of MJ’s Pot Shop. “You have to have everything ready to go. You put a lot of money out before you can get a license.”

The risk associated with spending a significant amount of money without a guarantee of receiving a license is enough to dissuade a lot of people, Smith said.

Some of the security requirements include identification badges, alarm systems, video surveillance and a traceability system that tracks all marijuana from “seed to sale.”

Like other businesses, all Pullman marijuana retail shops must pass a fire inspection before opening. According to Rich Dragoo, Pullman’s fire prevention officer, establishing fire code for these new businesses has not presented any issues locally.

The retail outlets also have to fill out a “change of occupancy” permit, Pullman planning director Pete Dickinson said. A change of occupancy permit is required any time one type of business is planning to operate in a building previously used for a different purpose. Since there have not been any precedents for marijuana shops, all potential Pullman outlets will need to get a change of occupancy permit.

“We require the businesses owners to hire an architect to show what they intend to do with that building space,” Dickinson said.

Dickinson said another issue facing marijuana shops is that many landlords are not interested in leasing space to the stores due to the drug’s illegal status federally.

Beyond MJ’s Pot Shop, two other retail outlets are zoned for Pullman. According to Dickinson, all potential marijuana shops are restricted to Pullman’s Commercial Three Zone, covering parts of Grand Avenue and Bishop Boulevard. The zone is the only area of Pullman that satisfies all of the state’s spatial restrictions on pot shops, which require minimum distances from different places where minors congregate.

Finding an acceptable spot for a store was one of the most difficult parts of the process, Smith said.

Smith found the Liquor Control Board easy to work with and receptive to her questions, but did not feel the same about local government.

“The city building and engineering department were not the nicest people to work with,” Smith said.  “It seems like the city of Pullman makes up rules as they go.”

Dickinson had a different opinion, noting that Pullman’s six month moratorium on marijuana businesses allowed the city time to adequately prepare for the new state industry.

Because of the limited space available to them, the next two marijuana shops might share a facility, Dickinson said. They would be located at 1340 SE Bishop Blvd, where the current Tanfastic building is. MJ’s Pot shop is across the street.    

  

The air was salted with the heavy scents of sweat, chemical and fish. Bright yellow waterproof suits milled to their required positions. Freshly-murdered salmon proceeded slowly through the belt system, headless and bloody.

Clad in a contrasting orange rain suit, I maneuvered through the darkened maze of machinery. I was ready. Ready to dominate, ready to succeed, ready to clean. Hard-wired from a foamy blend of swiss miss and coffee and manic from a week and half straight of getting three hours of sleep a night, I trotted to the damp floor feeling like a high school football player plunging out of a tunnel. 

Turning the corner, I approached one of the fish house walls. The instrument of my sanitation capabilities -- an overused squeegee -- hung on pegs against the dark stone. As I reached for it a voice pierced through my ear-bud protected ears.

“Someone left the top off the head grinder.”

Robert McKenna, $13 million

26.5 million

Joe Schmick

$900

$250

Carter Suzan

Radio Advertising

$122

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/10/13/where-marijuana-is-legalized-decriminalized-or-on-the-november-ballot/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/09/exploding-marijuana-soda-bottles_n_5956718.html

Political Pitch

As recreational marijuana rapidly blossoms into a booming state industry, mountains of municipal and county code must follow to regulate the bourgeoning marketplace. While the Liquor Control Board handles licensing and tax regulations, responsibility for health and fire code has been wildly devolved to local governments. The LCB pressures newly-licensed growers to quickly usher in their plants for operations, giving municipalities little time to draft comprehensive sets of appropriate health and fire code to regulate the businesses.

I’d like to write a story checking in on local health and fire code writers and how they are responding to the pressures of new I-502 businesses. I can compare their responses to that of code writers in Seattle, Spokane and other assorted local governments.

Why now: On the eve of election season, many states are interested to see how Washington is handling recreational marijuana implementation.

Sources:

Pullman Fire Chief Mike Heston: (509)338-3272

Michol Ann Jensen, Executive Assistant, City of Pullman: (509)338-3208

Brian E. Smith, Liquor Control Board Director of Communications: (360)664-1774

Seattle Fire Marshals’ Office: (206)386-1164

Pete Dickenson, City Planning

Format: 500 Words

Hidden Away in Palouse, a Community of Artists Thrives

Summary: The small, agricultural town known as Palouse has a thriving community of multidisciplinary artists and a few venues for artistic display.

Outline:

I) Introduction

·         Setting the scene

·         Brief description of Palouse

II) The Green Frog Café

·         Featured Artist

·         Owner’s belief as to why there is so much talent the community

III) Mary Rothlisberger

·         Occupation

·         Feelings about Palouse

IV) The Bank Left Gallery

·         Basic description

·         Tina Ochs, featured artist and former WSU faculty member

V) Why Palouse?

·         Privacy

·         Creativity

Sources

·         Mary Rothlisberger: 509-288-1313

·         Pamela Duran: 509-878-1391

·         Paula Echanove: 509-595-1885

·         David Wold: 540-656-9542

·         Tracy Milano: tmilano@wsu.edu

Overarching trees line each end of the isolated gravel road.

The path traverses the crest of a quiet hill, and gravestones dot the sloping grassland on either side. Vibrant and rolling farmland abounds in every direction. A few scattered country homes litter lower parts of the elevation.

Looking northwest, the outskirts of a small town can be seen flanking each side of a thin river. This little community is known as Palouse, and it is tucked right next to Washington’s eastern border, 15 miles north of Pullman.

In the belly of one of Washington’s richest agricultural regions, Palouse is equipped with many of the quaint features one would anticipate: outlying farms, grazing livestock, old train tracks, a singular main street for local businesses and numerous rocking-chair-equipped white porches. However, hidden away in the roughly 1000-person town is something different, something less expected: a talented, multidisciplinary community of artists and creative minds.

“There’s a ton of artists here,” said Paula Echanove, co-owner of the Green Frog Café in Palouse. “We have a lot of talented people in this community.”

According to Echanove, the Green Frog features artwork from four or five local artists.

David Wold, a sasquatch-tracking cryptozoologist, is one of the painters featured in the Green Frog. Wold lived in Palouse until last December and is well-known around the community for his variety of interests. He now lives on the East Coast.

Echanove attributes part the town’s wealth of artistic talent to its proximity with Washington State University.

“We are fortunate to live next to the university and its diversity,” Echanove said.

WSU’s presence can felt throughout the community.

“Palouse is the most awesome place in the world,” said Mary Rothlisberger, a WSU alum and traveling community sculptor who calls the town home.

Rothlisberger received her MFA in sculpture and is a citizen artist who spends much of her time on the move throughout the world to develop art within the existing culture of various communities.

While she works as full-time artist, Rothlisberger emphasized how many community residents embrace art in their day-to-day lives regardless of their profession.

“There is not a lot of pressure for commercial art,” Rothlisberger said, noting the town’s significant number of quilters, painters and drawers.

Town residents do not have to go far to see local pieces showcased. Cruising down Main Street, one will see regional art displayed in the Bank Left Gallery on the southern end of town.

Opened in 2005, the gallery utilizes the former Palouse bank building and is paired with a neighboring bistro and tearoom.

“We have lots and lots of artists that we represent that are from Palouse,” said Pamela Duran, who runs the gallery with her husband Nelson.

The gallery features new artists every month. One of the summer’s featured artists was Tina Ochs, a former WSU faculty member and current Palouse resident. Ochs painted several mannequins to match the different seasonal colors found in the scenery around Palouse. She also bedecked the gallery in flowers.

The building itself was built in 1889 and to this day still has the bank’s original stained glass windows and vault, Duran said.

What about Palouse attracts such an artistic community?

“There’s a certain privacy,” Duran said. “Being in Palouse offers that opportunity. When I moved here I felt it was like it was a storybook little town. It allows people to tuck away and do their art.”

It is the wonder of the town that keeps people like Rothlisberger coming back.

“What’s different about Palouse is that I consider everyone an artist,” Rothlisberger said. “Everyone is really creative. Creative about problem solving, creative about making time for each other. It’s a creative community as opposed to a consuming community. A lot of communities just consume culture, but the people in Palouse create it.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/04/entrepreneurs-eye-emerging-marijuana-markets/15522833/

http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2014/10/marijuana_news_oregons_propose.html

Enterprise Pitch

The town of Palouse has a Glenn Johnsonesque renaissance man whose presence can be felt in several of the local community cafes. He is a well-regarded business figure, a locally-featured artist and a recreational sasquatch investigator. He goes by the name of Dave Wold, and he is the talk of the town a few miles north on the 27. I’ve heard verification of Mr. Wold’s status from several Palouse denizens and would like to write a feature on his life in the small town. I can also use the article as a jumping off point for a larger state issue: Sasquatch regional hunting expeditions, including both their methods and progress.

Sources: Daily Evergreen office manager Tracy Milano (former Palouse resident) (interviewed), Dave Wold, local café and business owners

Why now: Interesting features are always interesting

Format: Narrative Feature/ Magazine, 700 words         

Employee Marijuana Polices at State and Local Police Departments Softening

Summary: The Pullman Police Department is considering allowing its officers to recreationally use marijuana, while other departments around the state are softening their applicant past-use marijuana restrictions.

I) Local Changes and Background

Pullman PD policy

·        I-502 background

II) Issues with Change

·         Federal funding

·         Federal obligations

III) Changing Policies across the State

·         State Patrol exclusionary restrictions

·         Seattle Police exclusionary restrictions

IV) Going Forward

·         Seattle policy going forward

·         Pullman policy going forward

Sources:

Washington State Patrol Sergeant William Knudson

·         (360) 596-4014

Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission Academy Commander David Bales

·         (206) 835-7289

Pullman Chief of Police Gary Jenkins

·         (509) 334-0802

Seattle Police Detective Drew Fowler

·         (206) 684-5520

Recreational marijuana use might not prevent someone from serving in the Pullman Police Department in the near future.

Law enforcement agencies around the state of Washington are softening their employee marijuana policies in the wake of a burgeoning state marijuana marketplace.

Pullman Chief of Police Gary Jenkins said the department will continue to drug test aspiring Pullman police officers for marijuana but also said a positive result would not automatically prevent someone from serving. 

“It is definitely going to be different now that marijuana is legal,” Jenkins said. “We wouldn’t necessarily exclude someone for legal marijuana use.”

Initiative 502, passed in 2012, legalized marijuana for recreational use and established a state-controlled system for production, processing and sale of the drug. The initiative did not, however, require public or private employers to stop exclusionary drug testing for marijuana.

“I think we’re going to be looking at it similarly to alcohol,” Jenkins said, referring to officer recreational marijuana use. “That it is not being abused, that they’re not under the influence [while on duty] and that it iibused, that theirder the influence [while on duty] and that its not impacting their work in any other way..ed it in the last os not impacting their work in any other way.”    

Most police departments seem unwilling to make as much of a change as Jenkins mentioned. Many municipal, county and state law enforcement agencies receive federal funding, which would immediately be at risk if they allowed their officers to use marijuana. Marijuana remains a Schedule I illegal drug at the federal level.

“I’ve heard the vast majority of offices will continue to support federal law,” said David Bales, the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission Academy Commander. 

However, federal funding is not the largest reason certain departments continue banning marijuana.

“We are required to enforce and respect the laws, including municipal, county, state and federal,” said Detective Drew Fowler, a spokesperson for the Seattle Police Department.

Washington State Patrol Sergeant William Knudson echoed Fowler’s sentiment, saying the State Patrol’s duty to enforce federal laws is the most substantial reason to continue banning marijuana use among its officers.

According to Knudson, however, the State Patrol did reduce its applicant restrictions from banning anyone who used marijuana in last three years to just banning anyone who used it in the last one. They also eliminated their policy excluding any applicant who had used the drug more than 15 times.

The Seattle Police Department also softened their stance on applicant past marijuana use after the passage of Initiative 502, Fowler said. The department requires applicants to not have used the drug with 12 months of taking the Police Officer Civil Service Exam.

 Fowler indicated that more changes to the department’s drug policy could be on the way in the future.

“Do I think that in time there will be changes?” Fowler said. “Maybe.”

But Fowler prioritized following the current national statute, saying that ignoring a federal law “is a dangerous road to go down.”

Change seems to be moving at a more rapid pace in Pullman. When asked if in the next few months there could be recreational marijuana users who are also Pullman police officers, Jenkins said yes.

http://fortune.com/2014/09/12/washington-marijuana-september-sales/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/09/11/marijuana-federal-power-the-states/

Story Pitch

Story: As Washington state blazes through uncharted territory with the ongoing implementation of the burgeoning I-502 marketplace, several state institutions and businesses will have to decide whether to change their existing employment drug policies. Certain public service organizations with previously staunch prohibitions on employee marijuana use will potentially allow recreational marijuana users to serve in their ranks.

Evidence: Locally, Police Chief Gary Jenkins indicated that recreational marijuana users would not necessarily be excluded from serving in Pullman’s law enforcement.

Interviews: Local police (interviewed) and fire; Seattle police and fire; State Patrol, State Police Association, Olympia Legislative Staff

Why Now: The ongoing chaotic implementation of a state-wide legal marijuana business.

Outline: Compare different public service state institutions and their evolving employment policies towards recreational marijuana.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/us/legal-use-of-marijuana-clashes-with-workplace-drug-testing.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/5-things-to-know-about-driving-on-marijuana/2014/09/01/e904f518-31dd-11e4-9f4d-24103cb8b742_story.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8YSI7Ad8I&feature=youtu.be

Beat Note

I would like to spend the semester reporting on drug and alcohol policy at both the university and state levels. State recreational marijuana legalization has spurred a ripple of newsworthy stories in areas ranging from agricultural production techniques to safety and infrastructural issues. It also has birthed several local-level political battles in counties and municipalities that have attempted to not recognize or delay the state-passed initiative. It will also be interesting to see how legal marijuana affects WSU policies in the coming year. Multiple dispensaries are set to open within a close vicinity of campus in the coming months.

One potentially interesting story could be further tracking the process of the three stores zoned to open in Pullman and the fourth zoned for elsewhere in Whitman County. Another interesting story would be investigating what regulatory framework Pullman and Whitman County are putting in place to govern the safety and fire codes of growing, processing and retail marijuana operations. A third interesting story would be reporting on the financial methods these retail operations will use to protect themselves since there are a very limited number of banking options available.

Since the 1930’s, the US government has imprisoned countless people and spent billions on enforcing criminal penalties for the possession and distribution of marijuana and other drugs. Because of these continued costs, the “hard on drugs” national policy and law enforcement approach has become increasingly unpopular among the American people in recent years, and the ballots are starting to reflect this trend. Marijuana legalization is an important topic because Washington’s policy is essentially unprecedented and trailblazing. Besides Uruguay and the state of Colorado (both governments also legalized in recent years), Washington is the only region in the world where marijuana is legal for recreational purposes. Any issue or feature with the burgeoning state system is a spotlight into one of the globe’s drug policy guinea pigs. It also has immense local importance. A legal marijuana trade in Pullman will affect local law enforcement, local agriculture and the municipal economy.

The main focus of my beat will be on reporting on local aspects of the marijuana marketplace, both recreational and medicinal. I have included alcohol policy as part of my beat because it is also in a time of flux in Washington and the current marijuana market mirrors what the alcohol system looked like three years ago.

Relevant Articles

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/04/legal-marijuana-workers/15000903/

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/09/03/3835323/ferndale-extends-moratorium-on.html

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Small-city-takes-aim-at-states-recreational-marijuana-law-273081671.html

Sources:

Gary Jenkins¸ Pullman Chief of Police

(509) 334-0802

Brian E. Smith, Communications Director, Washington Liquor Control Board

(360) 664-1774

Pete Dickinson, Pullman Planning Director

(509) 338-3213

Deborah Baker (interviewed), Associate Director of Student Standards and Accountability

(509) 335-4532

  

http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/us/article/Washington-city-fights-to-keep-legal-marijuana-out-5721566.php

http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2014/08/recreational_marijuana_in_wash_7.html