Ron Sims has named Assistant Elections Director Sherril Huff-Menees [rhymes with "Buff My Knees"], aka She-Ron, to be the placeholder Elections Director until I-25 passes this November and enables the voters to elect a non-partisan Elections Director in February.
She-Ron: Sherril-half (r), Ron-half (l). (Photo credit: Seattle Times. The P-I's story is here)
She-Ron smells like a last-minute fallback appointment. It appears Kansan Brian Newby was about to be appointed, but torpedoed himself when he stupidly posted an inappropriate comment on this blog last Friday. Live and learn.
She-Ron has a storied past in Kitsap County where she lives. People who have worked with her at King County Elections describe her as a chairwarming incompetent whose only accomplishment has been to alienate nearly everybody on the staff. Her primary qualifications are that she's a Democrat. And she's been on the wrong end of enough law suits to know what to do when the Elections office is sued, say, for public disclosure violations. Not to mention that there is no competent and untainted elections professional in the country who would agree to take the job under Ron Sims.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 19, 2007 04:21 PM | Email ThisActually it's par for the course on SoundPolitics. There are offensive name-callers on both sides, but that doesn't excuse it. And even horsesass, while generally more vulgar than this blog, doesn't mock ethnic names the way Stefan regularly does.
Posted by: Bruce on April 19, 2007 04:48 PMAgreed. Let the focus be on the appointment itself.
Posted by: jimg on April 19, 2007 04:52 PMOh the horror.
Grow up.
If name calling is so utterly offensive to an adult, one wonders where that adult grew up; it certainly wasnt anywhere on this earth.
Name calling starts with speech at age 2-3.
The oh so sophisticated meterosexual, nuanced to the inth, so horrified by name calling.... AKA whimpy pantywaist......
Get some thickness to your skin, weenies......
Posted by: Hank on April 19, 2007 04:53 PMWhat IS it with these ambitious lib gals that they are all clones? Gotta give em credit for living the meme of everyone EXACTLY the same! Good grief.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on April 19, 2007 05:15 PMShe later served as Bremerton Mayor (and former Bellevue Mayor) Cary Bozeman's right hand at the beginning of the downtown Bremerton revitalization, doing a yeoman's job in a very difficult position.
The Sherril I know will resign before having any part of Ron Sims' dishonest elections shenanigans. Give her an even break - and don't condemn her before she has a chance to prove herself.
Posted by: The Firewalker on April 19, 2007 05:21 PMScenario: Little Westley, wearing his REI turtleneck, gets the krap beat out of him as he walks past the neighbor kids on his way home from Montessori school. Westley, never exposed to roughhousing - including physical sports, runs home and cries to his mother(s). Westley's mother(s) tell him the other kids are "mean-spirited, white-trash, boors, ignorant, uneducated, products of their heterosexual environment, Republicans, Judeo/Christian" and a myriad of other "names" that poor little Westley now has indelibly etched into his hysterically traumatized little mind.
Will be interesting if any folks who actually worked with her will speak up PUBLICLY about specific examples of incompetence.
Anyone out there have the courage?? Posted by: dude on April 19, 2007 05:24 PM
Of all the people in the universe, including all those professionals that Waldron & Company appears to have been paid by the county to consider, what an amazing coincidence that Huff was here all the time, and just happened to be one of the most instrumental people in the political career of disgraced former Elections director Logan, whom she is replacing. I don't buy it, but it certainly fits perfectly into this Sims machine that rules King County like an empire.
Firewalker, her picture with Sims doesn't appear to show a woman ready to resign. She's been working for Sims as a Deputy Elections Director now for 2+ years. She ain't goin' anywhere.
Maybe when she comes clean on her history with Logan, something she apparently failed to admit when interviewed by the PI's reporter Greg Roberts, and when she spills the circumstances of her hiring by Logan two years ago that smells of cronyism, and once we know what we paid Waldron to find the deputy King County Elections Director the perfect choice, then the people of this county can judge this entire rotten mess for themselves and I'll consider cutting her a break.
But cutting Sims and this bunch a break is pretty dangerous. They always seem to find a way at the most opportune times to betray the people they are elected to serve.
Ron Sims and the corruption in this county has made me a cynic. If it looks like a Duck, acts like a Duck... well, you know the rest.
Posted by: MJC on April 19, 2007 07:50 PM5--LOL.
Stefan--sensitivity & diversity training for you Bucko! (can i still use 'bucko'?) Words hurt, you big playground bully. What next? taking Sims' lunch money? 50 lashes with the school-provided free lunch program Mexican style Hot Pocket sandwich.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on April 20, 2007 06:51 AM
She has been a public figure, and ran for auditor, and won.
She gets another shot at auditor now. No excuses from Ron Sims that the an elected position will scare any qualified person away.
She has been there done that.
Posted by: Chris on April 20, 2007 08:13 AMNonetheless, she was always good with realtors.
Posted by: Mike E. from Kitsap on April 20, 2007 09:00 AMHow can you be so sure that electing this position will solve anything? Look at Sam Reed.
Posted by: pbj on April 20, 2007 09:20 AM#5>If name calling is so utterly offensive to an adult, one wonders where that adult grew up
Grew up here. Will probably die here.
Resuming lurk mode.
Posted by: Monroe on April 20, 2007 09:35 AMand by the looks of it, Ronny took a handful, her eyes are saying "omg, you didn't see that did you!"
Posted by: Chris on April 20, 2007 10:42 AM"Huff has long-standing ties to Logan, who also came from Kitsap County.
According to Huff, with additional details supplied by past articles in the Bremerton Sun newspaper (now the Kitsap Sun), Logan helped out on a Huff political campaign while he was still in middle school and, after he graduated from Bremerton High School, she later hired him part time in the auditor's office.
Logan returned the favor when he gave Huff the assistant director's job in his department in 2005."
It's difficult to look at the hiring of Huff in 2005 and not wonder whether her eventual appointment to lead the Elections Office was the result of blatant cronyism. I'm also still left wondering how much the county spent in consideration of 400 possible replacements for Logan, that resulted in the appointment of his mentor and former boss in Kitsap County.
I suspect that like much of what goes on inside the Sims Machine, we'll never know.
Posted by: MJC on April 20, 2007 10:55 AMPosted by: DopioLover on April 20, 2007 11:11 AM
As for any "dalliance" with Bozeman, Bremerton insiders in a position to know will all tell you it never happened. Almost everyone knew she certainly appeared to have romantic designs on Bozeman, but he never let it get any further than that. That may also be why her position was "eliminated" by the city council while Bozeman was in Hawaii on his annual sabbatical, and he never made an issue of it - except for a token protest upon his return. If there had been something going on, most certainly there would have been some kind of sexual harassment charge, or a quiet settlement with the city. There was nothing. She simply faded away to King County - very silently.
Like I said earlier - give her an even break until she proves she doesn't deserve it.
Posted by: The Firewalker on April 20, 2007 12:12 PMI don't care if she turns out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, have you heard the phrase, "the end dosen't justify the means"?
You can't possibly know to what degree I have tried to give departments in this county a "break". And without exception my cynicism grows with each disappointment. From Sims, to the Council, to pro-developer hacks in DDES and DOT, to Ombudsmen Calderwood (man, there is another story), including Sheriff Dave Reichert, and even the Board of Ethics that refuses to rule on ethical issues, the entire system of checks and balances in King County is a total facade. From spending millions on private council to defend its corruption, to willfully refusing to enforce code that would adversely affect large special interests, there is no evidence that Sims or any corner of his empire deserve a single additional break.
As important as most anything else, a government should strive to avoid even the perception of cronyism, nepotism, ethical violations, conflicts of interest, etc. In King County they don't even bother to try. With a press too lazy to investigate anything, or perhaps too ethically bankrupt itself to even recognize that what's going on is wrong, Sims, the Democrats, and even the Republicans on the Council act with such omnipotence that anyone who believes this government acts in the interests of the people are living in a dream.
I know that I live in a county determined to cancel out my vote. Just once I'd like to see evidence to the contrary. And appointing Dean Logan's former boss and mentor to replace him is a joke.
Posted by: MJC on April 20, 2007 02:42 PMIt seems quite obvious to me she and Sims would have been perfectly happy had her connections to Logan been kept a secret - at least publicly.
Posted by: MJC on April 20, 2007 02:49 PMBut that's to be expected. He's always been known to be nothing more than a passive/aggressive suck-up with a conservative "bent" unless the political winds are blowing otherwise.
Posted by: Mick E. LyinSon on April 20, 2007 03:17 PMYou actually have me confused with someone else we both know.
Posted by: The Firewalker on April 20, 2007 03:28 PMI wonder if your all-consuming absorption with blogging throughout the course of your payroll working hours as executive at the Kitsap County Association of Realtors is disturbing to your members.
P.S. "Robert of Kitsap" --- You need to tighten up your loose-knit "facts" about whom you speak. I suspect that even blogs are subject to libel actions once the true identity of the author is discovered.
Posted by: Felonious Monk on April 20, 2007 06:07 PMOf course, the proof will be in how she handles the illegal votes (and there will be plenty of them) in the 2008 election.
Posted by: KS on April 20, 2007 10:19 PM"This is our new KC stealth vote counting machine. It has a cloking device. Nifty, eh?!" Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on April 22, 2007 04:13 AM
"...repeat after me: good----home----training!..." Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on April 22, 2007 11:37 PM
I was alerted earlier today by the media that some nut is claiming to be me. I have never posted to this website and I do NOT use blogs.
My official address is gov@kitsaprealtor.org, not alkatmartin@msn.com, which is the address of the individual who claims to be me, but actually is someone who used to lobby in Kitsap County.
Please CEASE AND DESIST using my identity.
Posted by: The Real Mike El on April 26, 2007 01:17 PM