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Monday, October 10, 2005

Ron Sims Curses at Dave Irons & Guilt Trips the Stranger

Posted by on October 10 at 11:30 AM

We had incumbent K.C. Exec Ron Sims and his two opponents—Republican Council Member David Irons and Green challenger Gentry Lange—in for our editorial board endorsement interviews last week. It was a heated interview, with Irons repeatedly sniping at Sims. Sims was uncharacteristically rattled by Irons’s barrage and even called Irons’s characterization of the elections office audit “bullshit.”

However, the most strained moment came when we questioned Sims about SouthWest airlines lobbyist Tim Hatley. In addition to being a SW lobbyist, Hatley is on Sims’s kitchen cabinet and Hatley’s wife is Sims’s campaign manager. (Sims, obviously, is currently taking up a controversial plan to relocate SW to Boeing Field.)

I asked: “How can the public think you’re doing objective due dilligence on this when a key member in your campaign organization is a lobbyist for SW?” Sims avoided the question and baited us with a dose of liberal white guilt. “The last Sims that was bought in this country was my great grand father. I don’t care who the lobbyist is,” he boomed.

We, white liberals that we are, were cowed for a few minutes, moving on to talk about the critical areas ordinance. But then, unsatisfied with Sims’s answer, we came back and asked him again about Tim Hatley. Savage repeated the question, saying, “It’s a legitimate question, and it has nothing to do with your great grand father.” Sims said he appreciated that, adding that SW came to the County about Boeing Field long before they hired Hatley.

So, SW made its proposal to Sims—and then hired Sims’s political advisor to lobby? That’s even grosser, Ron.