Ask The Governor 2009, Take One

When Governor Gregoire arrived at our station last night for Ask the Governor, I asked her how she was holding up. She stopped and gave me a somber expression.

She didn’t need to say anything. Like all of us, she’s feeling the stress and strain of this awful recession.

The Governor arrived at 6:15 p.m., sat down to get her hair and makeup touched up, and then headed out to our lobby where a group of about 50 people had gathered for the small reception before we went on the air ‘live’ at 7:00 p.m.

Gov. Christine Gregoire speaking in the KCTS 9 lobby on Feb. 11, 2009.

She took some questions from the group, all about the federal stimulus and our state budget. The Governor was still getting word about the stimulus package that the House and Senate conferees had been negotiating. The bottom line, according to the Governor, was that the stimulus would bring dollars to Washington state, possibly as much as $2 billion, but it was not going to fix our state’s $6 billion dollar deficit.

Gregoire gets ready before the live airing of Ask The Governor on Feb. 11, 2009

It’s likely the state deficit will grow. There’s been some talk of it increasing to $8 billion. The Governor made no bones about it. Even with the stimulus, there are going to be huge cuts in state services across the board.

During our broadcast, the Governor took calls about the stimulus and budget cuts as well as concerns about gangs, illegal immigrants, and logging.

When you do a ‘live’ show anything can happen, and it did. Our phone system had a glitch for the first ten minutes of the show. We got it fixed and ended up taking 15 calls on the air.

There were a couple of strange calls during the show. Our last caller sounded like he might have had a few drinks. Our call screeners try to make sure we avoid those callers, but sometimes they get through. It’s always interesting to watch how the Governor handles them.

She’s patient and does her best to try to answer even if the question doesn’t make a lot of sense. We’re hoping to have the Governor back in May after the legislative session.

We’ll hopefully have a clearer indication of where we stand in these tough economic times.