Ken Camp arranged an online forum this afternoon intended to include several of the applicants for the open county commission seat and some PCOs. Not a bad discussion. I’ve sort of been waiting for this.
Category: Thurston County (Page 11 of 16)
Maybe if those women hadn’t sued, the new chair of the Thurston County Republicans might be wondering this morning, we wouldn’t have needed to fire all those security guards.
Thing is ( I never get tired of mentioning this) you don’t blame the victim for costing the county when the county loses a big lawsuit. The people who sue the county, over sexual harassment or land use planning, don’t cost the county money.
Those guys at the lets-hate-judges blogosphere keep on keeping it on. Now, truther says that maybe if judges get beat up, things will be better:
Taking away their security force is an excellent way to reform the unlawful and out of control family court. Think about it. Would little Paula Casey arrogantly and abusively disparage, extort and lecture some Green Beret who did nothing more than make a poor choice in a mate if she was not protected by guards and have an office behind locked doors and bullet proof glass?
Yes, because a judge being rude to you is totally the right reason to attack them. Maybe if that’s your logic, there’s a reason a judge is disparaging you in the first place?
I don’t know, I’d say that someone who’d physically assault a judge might be in their own right a bad choice of a mate.
Answering this via email (by the way, I work with Jeff):
1. Thurston County is badly in need of county government reorganization. The question quickly becomes “what is the best way to accomplish this outcome”? While I would love to see a new charter put before the county voters, the current constitutionally provided option has proven unwieldy. The election of freeholders as a precursor to the development of a charter proposal has resulted in a kitchen sink approach to the process with numerous agendas, the inability for consensus, and a patchwork proposal that gives everyone a little to like and a lot to dislike. The result the last time around was a voter rejection by a 2 to 1 margin.
The CTED proposals to the legislature in a paper called, “County Financial Health and Governance Alternatives”, raised the idea of an appointed freeholder process to develop a charter proposal. I think the sideboards and accountability of such an approach would generate a charter with a much better chance of voter approval. This would require at a minimum legislative action and possibly a constitutional amendment by the voters. I think I would prefer to pursue this type of option before trying the elected freeholder process again. So, yes I would like to engage the home rule process, but no, I would not vote initially to pursue the current option before trying to develop some alternatives. This rates as highly important to me. I believe it is critical to reorganize county government.
2. The County website is indicative of the diffuse nature of elected authority in Thurston County which has resulted in a lack of accountability. Yes it is bad and should be changed. The first phase would be the fundamental overhaul of how information is provided to citizens and options, including the website, for interaction on issues of the day. However, at some point the website can only reflect the structure of the government. If county government remains decentralized and unaccountable it would be hard for a website to reflect a broader understanding of how and where to interact. The average citizen should not have to be a student of governmental design and structure in order to figure out how to address their issue of concern.
Also, I think blogging is a useful medium to help demystify the quirks of county policy and decision making. It would be worth exploring. I wouldn’t expect that I personally would adopt the standards of some bloggers with the expectation of daily or even hourly entries.
These answers point out something great about Jeff, he’s one of the most studied people I know in general and probably of the applicants as well. His observations regarding the first question are well taken. It doesn’t serve anyone to have an ill designed charter on the other end of a home rule process.
That said, I don’t agree with his conclusions I don’t think an appointment process for free holders in necessarily going to solve the issue of the “laundry list” charter. You’ll just have a laundry list charter written by appointed freeholders instead of elected ones.
Its better to have a thorough election process for freeholders and lean heavily on their education once they start work. The opposite of Jeff’s suggestion, a citizen jury process, would also be a better alternative in my mind. In the end, I think an appointment process would build-in biases about the role of government from those already inside the government.
Jeff’s observation that the state of the website reflects the state of the county government is very insightful as well.
Jeff’s a smart guy, if he doesn’t get the appointment, it would be interesting to see him run.
I had an inkling while perusing Ken’s latest post on Erik Landaas (the Republican donor asking Democrats for a job) that this guy, no matter what the PCOs and the commissioners decide in the next few weeks, that he was running.
I was right, Landaas has filed with the PDC to run for the soon to be open county commission seat in 2010.
A few thoughts:
1. Assuming Landaas can raise any sort of money to even be competative, he can cut a moderate (you could even say Jon Halvorson-esque) track against whoever ends up at the other end of the application process.
He can say he’s not the candidate of the party organization. Halvorson’s opponent for a county commission seat won the party’s endorsement in a close race. Of course, she ended up taking that endorsement all the way to victory, but Halvorson didn’t make it through the primary.
2. Assuming the Top Two primary is still around in two years, Landaas can still run as a Democrat, and if everything breaks right, he can face off against a fellow Dem in the general.
3. The Republicans can save themselves a lot of grief by getting out of the way. While the local conservatives liked Halvorson a bit (kind blogging here, but not an endorsement, from the current county Republican chair), the Top Two primary still produced one Republican and one Democrat. By not running a Republican and letting Landaas soak up their votes, he can be dangerous for whoever ends up with the seat via application.
Second of four applicants for the open commissioner position writes me back:
In mid-December, Jim Cooper sent all us candidates a list of 10 questions, the responses to which I believe he’ll post in a few days, as soon as he’s heard from all of us. Here’s question #10 and my response to it –it tells you how I feel about your first question below:
1. 10. Other than attending necessary Board and committee meetings, what would you do during your first 30 days on the job?
I’d work hard to balance external work –mostly meeting with constituents and listening to their concerns and issues, and meeting with other local government electeds —with internal work –mostly meeting with department heads, fellow County electeds, reviewing the recently adopted budget, etc. I’d like to think that mixed in with all of this, I’d be developing ideas in the back of my mind about where improvements might be implemented and starting conversations with my fellow County Commissioners about these. The most important conversation that I believe needs to be started early in 2009 is the question of home rule: restructuring County government into the more flexible County Council model instead of the current County Commission model. We’re no longer the rural county we once were, and we need a more modern form of self-governance. It’s a community conversation I look forward to with great enthusiasm.
With respect to the County’s web site, I agree it could and should be improved, which shouldn’t be a big deal, but would definitely be a priority for me. Thanks for the compliment on our City of Tumwater web site, though I think it, too, suffers from lack of interactivity capability. I think you have it absolutely right: the County’s site is ANTIQUATED! It also seems that its updating is pretty sporadic, almost like it’s completely forgotten about for months.
I’ve certainly begun to appreciate the value of blogging since becoming involved in this Commissioner appointment process. You and Ken have both done a great service to us all with your sites –THANK you! I recently read that one of the federal agency directors has been blogging about agency issues and controversies for two years or so now, which I thought was intriguing. The great thing about blogging is precisely its interactivity and accessibility, so I like the idea a lot. It would really open things up!
I especially like the part when she doesn’t call me stupid for not remembering one of her answers in the application material I already read.
Its also nice to be complimented for blogging. Thanks Karen.
Other than that, her answers speak for themselves. Unless she comes out as a closet Yankees fan, she’ll end up on my list.
I emailed a couple of questions to four applicants for the open county commission seat I’m considering right now (Russ Lehman, Karen Valenzula, Jeff Dickison and Walt Jorgenson).
They were about the possibility of home rule and how they feel about the county’s frightfully bad website and about blogging as an elected (or appointed in this case) official.
Russ Lehman got back to me pretty quick:
1) Yes, the home rule process, as I understand it, can yield some important results – not the least of which is an important discussion on issues facing this county in the 21st century. I do believe that serious discussion, at least, ought to occur about a BOCC with “reduced” powers and an administration with “increased” powers – better to enable the citizen’s work to be done efficiently and effectively. The fear of a wide open, no holds barred home rule process should not limit our desire and willingness to have the people of this county talk about, and possibility make the appropriate changes on, the critical issues facing us.
2) The website is not currently the tool/mechanism for nurturing Democracy and engaging and informing our citizens that it must be. Of course I would have that be a priority (a relatively small and simple task in the grand scheme of things) with an individual(s) tasked with bringing the website up to date and user friendly ASAP.
As regards blogging, I have mixed feelings about it. To the extent that it is a technologically current way to correspond with constituents, than great. To the extent that becomes a way around the OPMA by in any way “doing business” outside the public domain than I am not in favor of it.
His response on blogging, especially citing the Open Public Meetings Act is interesting, if not troubling. Some response from other elected officials on why they haven’t pursued blogging includes fear of violating the OPMA. In my short research, its the second most cited response to “what, don’t you think I’m busy enough?”
I’m going to have to start thinking harder and longer about the OMPA and blogging.
Ken has the scoop on local good guy Jim Lazar’s list of which county commission applicants gave to which candidates since 2000. Some gave to some non-Democrats, which might not look good to the party faithful who will do the whittling down:
Erik Landaas
Kevin J. O’Sullivan $300 6/5/2006
Kevin J. O’Sullivan $50 7/30/2006
Corinne Tobeck
Gary Alexander $100 5/28/2005
Sam S. Reed $50 11/8/2007
Ed Crawford
Norman K Maleng 4/25/2002 $100
Susan Bogni
Sam S. Reed $25 4/2/2008
The folks who get hurt the most by this are Tobeck and Landaas. Tobeck because she’s basically only given to Republicans until this year when she gave $10 to the county party. Landaas because two years ago he gave to the Republican candidate (twice) who ran against Bob Macleod, who Landaas is now seeking to replace.
It takes a certain amount of guts, I have to admit, to give $350 to Republican Kevin O’Sullivan in 2006 and then in 2008, as a Democrat, file to replace the guy that beat O’Sullivan.
Berd wrote over at the Olympian:
There are some substantial differences between the battle between a Citizen’s Group and the Port of Tacoma over Rocky Prairie; and the battle between Citizens’ Groups and the City of Olympia and Developer Triway Enterprises over the downtown Olympia “isthmus.” But there are a lot of similarities. Similar sets of logic apply to the situation here in Olympia, as compared to the situation in Rocky Prairie. Despite the differences, the best decision in the local Olympia case might very well be to pull the property off the market. City Council has the ability to enact a moratorium ordinance on the currently passed rezone. That would provide time to figure out how to go about creating a truly wonderful and novel park feature – a park feature that would accent the natural beauty that exists in such quantity here in Olympia. Would that be the right move to make? Seems so to me.
The main difference in terms of environmental restoration between the isthmus property and the Rocky Prarie property is that the isthmus property is more expensive and matters less.
Not to say that the isthmus property doesn’t matter at all or that the cost is impossible to get to to buy it and restore it, its just the Rocky Prairie property is current undeveloped, is still ecologically connected to other large pieces of habitat. The isthmus properties, though easier to find on a walk from my house, would be islands of good habitat among bad.
A regrettable, yet real, concept being kicked around in restoration circles is called triage. Basically, with the limited resources we have to put towards species and habitat restoration, we have to choose what to go after first.
Here’s a basic primer on the debate and another and a response to it.
So, if I had $100,000 to spend on saving some land from development, I’d spend it at Rocky Prairie first, then figure out where to go from there.
By the way, God bless you for being out there tonight.
The snow is going to prevent the PCOs from meeting to talk to the applicants for the open county commission seat. Via email:
Commissioner Applicant Forum Cancelled
Dear Thurston County Democrats,Due to the snow we have canceled tomorrow evenings Commissioner Applicant Forum.
We are looking at rescheduling the Third Commissioner District PCO Forum for Saturday January 3, 2009 prior to January 5th vote by the full Central Committee. Having it on Saturday will allow us more time (maybe three hours instead of two) so that we get a chance to learn more about the candidates.
I apologize for any inconvenience.
Jim Cooper
Chair, Thurston County Democrats
If only there were devices on which we could type questions, and the applicants could then respond in real time. Oh yeah, there is.
If between Christmas and the snow we can’t get together, we shouldn’t keep our traps shut online. We should be talking about this.
Emmett O'Connell
@emmettoconnell@olympiatime.com
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