Ron Sims' independent task force says that King County's election office is in worse shape than it was before County Executive Ron Sims hired Dean Logan two years ago
In a scathing briefing to the Metropolitan King County Council's review committee, Brian Malarky said Logan hired the wrong kind of superintendent, failed to make "cultural change" his top priority and ended up with an organization in perpetual crisis.The independent task force may well be more independent than Ron Sims had in mind. And this makes it that much easier to dismiss Larry Phillips' insulting partisan screed in yesterday's P-I op-ed page. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 29, 2005 12:24 AM | Email This
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Malarky cited "haphazard" planning and said task-force members coined the term "the cuckoo clock" for one management practice: Four or five managers would meet privately, come up with a plan, announce it to the staff and then "go back into the office and shut the door."
Duh. The vote to appoint Bill Huennekens, the now-demoted Superintendent of Elections, who captained the elections Titanic, was also UNANIMOUS.
Phillips didn't seem so anxious to grab credit for that fine nomination, despite the fact that they were identically UNANIMOUS.
Thoughts re Phillips' column.....where do I even begin?!
Posted by: Michele on June 29, 2005 12:43 AMIt's absolutely true.
Posted by: Michele on June 29, 2005 12:45 AMTIME TO WAKE UP LARRY!!!
Logan and Hunnekens lack basic management/leadership skills needed to run a department the size of elections. The department will always be in turmoil because it has extremely weak leadership.
Posted by: Joe on June 29, 2005 01:06 AMIt's quite the thing to see what happens when experienced private-sector executives meet with and scrutinize the Keystone Cops at KCE. The contrast of sanity and common sense with all the county nonsense is breathtaking.
Posted by: Michele on June 29, 2005 01:11 AMMalarky forgot to mention that after another hour they would come back out of the offices with a new plan that would contradict the prior plan!
Happened several times... Ask anyone on the canvass crew!
What do I mean? Well, acknowledging that "book knowledge" was their strong suit, and that they had no experience with an operation the size of King. This wouldn't be a terrible admission - King County is the ninth largest election oepration in the country, and is larger than the operations for three states that run elections on a state-wide basis: Alaska, Wyoming, and Rhode Island. There are fewer than 20 people on the face of the planet who have run an American elections office the size of King County's.
But no, they came in with a smug, "We know everything, and you people are a bunch of losers" attitude toward staff, which alienated their team immediately, and also deprived them of valuable knowledge about how to handle extreme volume that they could have learned from experienced front-line supervisors and staff.
Add this smug, obnoxious attitude coming in, with the ill-advised last minute, mid-stream changes to procedures that Huennekens and Logan kept making against the advice of more knowledgeable staff, to the directives from the Exec's office to lie and cover up problems as they appeared, and the whole thing was a recipe for disaster from day one.
Posted by: Susan B. Anthony on June 29, 2005 01:24 AMWhy is it that dems have such a problem confusing arrogance with earnestness?
I would encourage lame-ass Larry to write more, and to get out in the public more as well - if ever there could be a poster boy for the term "partisan political hack" Larry's our boy!
Posted by: alphabet soup on June 29, 2005 07:02 AMOne question though, If he conducted an election any bank would be proud of and has good home training to boot, why is Simms hanging him out to dry?
Posted by: Good Idea! on June 29, 2005 08:04 AMGofigure.
Go David Irons!
Let's carve out a small section of land. Declare it "Sims County." Move Ron, Dean, et. al. there by way of recent SCOTUS "upscale development & public good" land rights theories.
They will experience first-hand their property rights. We will have them contained and out of our legislative hair. Let them run their own home-county like a kid's sand box and with good-home-training principles. Park them where they can do no harm.
Revise & impose a public servant's hiring oath like the medical one--"First, Do no Harm!"
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on June 29, 2005 09:34 AMThere's a drive to do it to David Souter.
http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html
Posted by: Palouse on June 29, 2005 10:14 AM
At the absolute bare minimum, Huennekens should be prosecuted along with Way for their deliberate falsification of a key document used to certify the election, and Logan should be fired for not being aware of what was going on, and allowing such poor practices under his watch.
It will go like this for a while, they will keep hoping the fire dies down, but it won't. Finally, either Sims will lose reelection and the Logan Fiasco will be a major part of the loss. Of course this would result in Irons appointing a new head of KCREALS. Or, Sims will see that his only chance at saving his own political career is to fire Logan.
Either way, Logan's days are limited. I'm sure that there are plenty of shoe departments out there in need of a few salesmen.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 29, 2005 01:28 PMFortunately Washington State's Constitution is strict about eminent domain, and the US Supreme Court decision does not apply to us.
This is about the only topic I've seen where Washington is more conservative than the rest of the country.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 29, 2005 01:31 PM