OFF THE WIRE
On the Washington Legislative day, BLACK THURSDAY, I testified twice (once opposing, and once in favor of)during the Senate Transportation Hearing, and a fellow ABATE member testified against another bill.
I have posted the vidoes at : http://abate-wa.org/blogs/legislative/post/2011/01/22/BLACK-THURSDAY-Senate-Transportation-Hearing-01-20-11.aspx
I self-admit that I did not do as well as I would have liked because I was running on about 5 1/2 hours sleep over 3 days up to this point and was not as crisp of mind as I would have liked to be.
I do find it interesting that in the bill records that it reads Bikers of Lesser Tolerance. As you will see during my testimony, I introduce myself as the BOLT of Washington Director, but never say "Bikers of Lesser Tolerance"/ Either they lifted that information from my patch, or did some research. You can view the Senate Bill Reports to see that Bikers of Lesser Tolerance is on the official record here:
SB5027 - http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2011-12/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/5027%20SBA%20TRAN%2011.pdf
SB5185 - http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2011-12/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/5185%20SBA%20TRAN%2011.pdf
BLACK THURSDAY had about 400 participants on a cold, wind and wet day. About 250 actually showed up on 2 wheels. We even drew attendance from BikePac of Oregon.
Our 2 issues and bills we are running are an Anti-Profiling bill SB5242/HB1333 and 2 versions of a Parade Bill SB5185/HB1328 (the wording is different on each bill, and I prefer the Senate version since it essentially repeals RCW 46.61.613. The House version of the Parade Bill merely shifts the permission process from the WSP to the local Chief of Police.
Donnie 'Mr. Breeze'
