OLYMPIA -- Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved tolls to help finance a new Lake Washington float bridge. The governor also has signed a fresh crackdown on street gangs, and has agreed to boost a variety of government fees.

The gang bill authorizes the Washington Association and Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to provide grants to local law enforcement for combatting street gang activity and dealing with "tagging" and other graffiti. It also targets adult gang leaders who recruit young gang members.

The news is bittersweet for one mother in Spanaway whose son fell victim to a gang murder nearly three years ago.

Last week Rebecca Lambert was present as a gang leader and the accused gunman were charged in the murder of her son.

Joshua Owen is accused of being the one who ordered his young teenage gang members to kill Cliff Nelson nearly three years ago.
"He (Owen) was the only real adult figure there and he was directing children to murder my son," Lambert said.

Lambert turned her grief into action lobbying for a bill at the state Legislature, and on Monday her efforts came to fruition.

"A new crime is created to punish adults who involve juveniles in a felony offense," Gov. Chris Gregoire said as she signed the bill.

The wide-sweeping bill also tacks on extra years to sentences of gang leaders.

"And any crime that is committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang is now subject to a sentencing enhancement," Gregoire said.

The law comes too late for Lambert who on Friday pleaded with the judge to take gang activity into account in her son's case.

"My son was murdered solely to promote the Crips gang in the Spanaway area," she told the judge.

Last Friday Owen was to have been sentenced, but at the last moment he backed out of his guilty plea and asked for a new lawyer, much to the dismay of Lambert and her family.

Even though Lambert was an integral part of the passage of the bill, she chose not to attend the bill signing.

"I would love to be able to go down there and say, 'I'm doing this for my son,' but I can't do it," she said. "It's too painful. It's all too painful."

The new law makes gang tagging and graffiti a crime and allows property owners to recover civil penalties and costs.

It allows the Office of Crime Victims Advocates to set up a program to help witnesses in gang trials.

It also directs the Department of Corrections to study and recommend "best practices" for dealing with gangs and recruitment behind bars.

The budget has $2.4 million in startup money.

The governor also approved use of tolls to pay about half the cost of a new $4 billion State Highway 520 bridge linking Seattle and Bellevue. Federal and state highway dollars would cover the remainder.

The tolls have not been set, nor has the state decided whether to charge tolls for the nearby Interstate 90 crossing of the lake. Tolls on the existing 520 floating bridge could start next year, although the new bridge isn't expected to open before 2014.

The state is replacing the aging bridge, which engineers view as at risk of collapse in a severe windstorm or earthquake. The bridge carries 115,000 vehicles and 150,000 people daily.

The state has to decide by fall 2009 whether to accept a $139 million grant from the federal government's Congestion Initiative. That grant includes a requirement of a toll on the bridge - more expensive during peak hours so as draw some motorists to mass transit or to off-peak auto use.

The new legislation creates a three-member panel to propose the actual tolls to the Legislature by January.

A recent study suggested between $5 and $10 roundtrip during rush hour, in 2007 dollars, once the new bridge opens. If applied next year, the toll could be $6 or $7 roundtrip during peak-hour commutes. Tolls would be cheaper during off-peak hours.

The fee bill, required since voters approved an initiative last fall requiring legislators to vote on all state government fees, includes ones to cover the cost of discipline and background checks of health care professionals, pesticide and animal inspection programs, licensing of explosives-handlers and so forth.

Gregoire also signed a bill giving newspapers a tax break, worth about $2.7 million per biennium, for their online advertising.