September 8, 2006

Item: Update on still ongoing (9 years) Public Disclosure Act litigation: September 20 oral argument in Court of Appeals in Seattle in Yousoufian vs. King County Executive Ron Sims/King County.

To the many Sound Politics readers who already know me and my 9 year long saga, and anyone for whom this is news...

The latest update on my still ongoing Public Disclosure Act litigation against Ron Sims and King County is now posted at my blog - www.Yousoufian.blogspot.com - at the following link:

http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2006/09/september-20-next-court-date-in-still.html

The critical details are:

September 20, on 9:30 AM calendar, in downtown Seattle, at Court of Appeals, Division I.

You are welcome to attend and observe the proceedings! Location of Court of Appeals, Division I, is One Union Square, off lobby, 600 University Street (i.e. at 6th Avenue and University Street, across street to east of entrance to Washington Athletic Club), downtown Seattle, 98101. If you decide to attend, come early to go through security, and allow plenty of time for parking, as my case follows a two or three others, but sometimes the sequence is changed at the last minute, and it could be earlier, or later.

See also:
http://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/appellatedockets/index.cfm?fa=appellatedockets.showDocket&folder=a01&year=2006&file=20060920 (3rd case down the list - if list does not appear, you may have to click on "Division 1", then on date of September 20).

The legal briefs on the issue on appeal now are at my website - www.ArmenYousoufian.com (we argue the amount of the $15 per day fine awarded by the second King County Superior Court judge in the remand proceedings in 2005, on a scale of $5 to $100 a day allowed by the Public Disclosure Act, is inadequate for the circumstances in my case, let alone to deter future violations, which, in fact, continue to occur nearly daily all over Washington state).

Additionally, an "amicus brief" supporting my position and just filed August 21 on behalf of six organizatons (Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington, The Evergreen Freedom Foundation, The Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, The Washington Coalition for Open Government, The Center for Justice, and The Seattle Community Council Federation ) is available at the website of the Washington Coalition for Open Government (I am on their board), at:

http://www.washingtoncog.org/news/Yousoufian_brief.pdf

I'll post about the September 20 oral argument and the decision when there is more to say.

There are also a number of other recent posts at my blog, after I hadn't posted anything since January (nothing new to report on my case), including on public disclosure act issues, election issues, and another recent article (in the Washington Free Press) addressing the topic of why the mainstream press is not exposing the questionable acts of certain public officials. See: http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2006/09/why-is-this-not-front-page-news.html and http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2006/09/armen-yousoufian-disenfranchised-voter.html

Armen Yousoufian
http://www.armenyousoufian.com
http://www.yousoufian.blogspot.com