Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr, whose appointment by Mrs. Gregoire to chair a "Sunshine" committee has been roundly condemned by pretty much everybody who cares about open government, responds to an item critical of his appointment at the P-I blog. His response is astonishing for its ... dishonesty? incompetent fact-checking? You decide:
I am also very proud of the City of Seattle's record on public disclosure. Mayor Nickels is a strong advocate for open government and has sent a clear message to all city departments. ... [The Hangartner] case presented squarely a conflict between the Public Disclosure Act and another state law prohibiting attorneys' from disclosing confidential information. Most public lawyers believed as we did, that the attorney-client privilege, as codified in state law, prevented disclosure of confidential attorney-client communications. In fact, if you go to the Attorney General's Ombudsman's website, you will find an excellent guidance document on Hangartner. In a document dated December, 2004, which presumably was posted during Mr. Overstreet's tenure as ombudsman, the AG wrote: "[T]he Hangartner decision does not represent an expansion of public records exemptions as those exemptions have been understood by the Attorney General's Office.Hangartner was not about whether attorneys should disclose privileged communication but whether an agency can claim privilege over any work product prepared for it by an attorney. That's very different. Also, in December 2004, Gregoire was still the Attorney General, so it's no surprise her office supported the Hangartner ruling after the fact, as her office had filed an amicus brief supporting Seattle's position. Overstreet did not join the the AG office until Rob McKenna entered office in January 2005. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 20, 2007 01:20 PM | Email This
What do you call a Busload of Lawyers going over a cliff...A good start.
What else would you expected from a bunch of self-righteous, lying, hypocrite, B&** F@#&ing, C#@K S&!#@*ing LAWYERS.
(with apologies to all the good, non-sleazy lawyers out there:-)
Posted by: Michele on August 20, 2007 05:10 PMThe child support work group which was created by the legislature had roughly 3X the number of custodial parents and non custodial parents sign up to partake. Apparently Gregoire is rejecting them and searching for "citizen" representatives of her taste. This leaked out on a forum that wasn't supposed to make it to washed masses. We found out purely by accident that this going on.
I mean why convene a committee if they aren't going to come up with the result you are looking for?
Is there anything happening on this watch that isn't complete corruption?
This is corruption
Posted by: Andy on August 20, 2007 08:36 PMwords of a pasty, tubby bureaucracy; ready to "protect" us against lazy bums, crime, graffitti, waste, illegal aliens and terrorists--AFTER--of course--"studying" the problem(s) further; Lord help us.
humans--the only species that causes, via its electorate, its own demise.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on August 20, 2007 09:14 PMTo claim this is not an expansion of public records exemption is a pure lie (from Gregoire's office...that's not surprising).
Common sense would dictate that there should be NO public records requests denied UNLESS it's a case of national security! There is absolutely no basis for attorney/client privilege when "we, the people" are the client!
Posted by: drw on August 21, 2007 11:39 AM