King County Bullshit Alert

Item (1): As if Ron Sims doesn't already generate enough bullshit, the federal government is now paying him to produce some more: "King County wins grant to plan manure digester".

Item (2): I've spoken with several Councilmembers and/or their staff, both Republicans and Democrats, to try to understand how the proposal to put a measure for an elected Auditor on this November's ballot was torpedoed even though the Councilmembers know it's what the voters want (the earlier pledge for a 2006 vote on the Auditor has now been replaced by a non-binding "motion declaring the intent" of the Council to pass an ordinance by June 2009 to put a non-specific measure on the ballot at an unspecified time).

Curiously, the stories that I heard from the various Council folks were partly, though not entirely, consistent with each other. Because of pledges of confidentiality, I can discuss only in general terms and won't identify specific individuals. Not surprisingly, Democrats blamed Republicans for the fiasco, while Republicans blamed Democrats. Some other things that don't add up --

* Part of the alleged disconnect had to do with the question whether the Auditor should be partisan or non-partisan. Ferguson told the Fair Elections group on Tuesday evening that he favored making it a partisan position, which was consistent with his earlier record that favoring partisan offices. Republicans told me that they preferred the Auditor to be a non-partisan office but could live with making it a partisan office. It's a surprise to me that the partisan/non-partisan question should even come up (except as a maneouver by the Democrats to throw a monkey wrench into the works). If you review the earlier news articles and public statements this was clearly intended to be a non-partisan office. See the legislation that was reintroduced, this handout from the Dunn/Ferguson press conference, which has the word "non-partisan" in 3 places, and this statement from Jane Hague "Council majority supports elected auditor"

This is not an issue for partisanship or accusations. An elected auditor will be an independent, non-partisan managerial position.

It's hard for me to believe that such public statements would have been issued if unless a majority of Councilmembers really were on board for a non-partisan office and to go on the ballot in 2006. The one indication that the partisan/non-partisan issue was unsettled was in this ironically headlined P-I article of July 25: "Voters get their say on electing auditor"

[Dunn] and Ferguson said they are open to making the position either partisan or non-partisan, depending on public testimony that the council will seek before placing the proposed charter amendment on the ballot.

Public testimony? There was only one public comment period, this recent Monday morning, and it wasn't announced until 3:45 on Friday afternoon, so not enough time for very many interested citizens to arrange to come testify. And the partisan/non-partisan issue got only slight attention.

* The P-I wasn't the only news outlet to report that the Council would solicit more public comment than it actually did. KOMO-TV, with a more prescient headline, July 25: "You Might Vote On Whether To Vote For Who Runs The Voting"

There will be a series of public hearings during August or early September. If the Charter Amendment is approved by the council by Sept. 15, it would appear on the November ballot.

Interesting then that somebody decided to shut down the public discussion after the one hearing with inadequate notice, and kill the proposal three weeks early.

* Thursday's Times article that reported on this only quoted Ferguson and didn't mention any of the other Councilmembers who signed off on the non-binding proposal to maybe vote in 2009. This suggests that it was Ferguson who leaked the story and made it a fait accompli that the 2006 vote was dead, even though Republicans told me that the negotiations could have continued.

* The other excuse for killing the 2006 vote was the fact that Ron Sims supposedly has a candidate in mind to assume Dean Logan's job. How real is the candidate? The Republicans on the Council don't even know who he is. If Ron Sims really wanted to win support for his "efforts to improve elections", wouldn't he seek Republican support for his director candidate? So maybe this new guy (if he's even real and not just a tactic to torpedo the elected Auditor) is just Deanron2, a Democrat political operative who pretends to be a technocrat.

Conclusion: the more I learn about how this proposal (which the voters want!) was taken off the table, the more it reeks of manure.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 25, 2006 02:58 PM | Email This