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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

City This Will Be a Showdown

Posted by Dominic Holden on Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 4:55 PM

The West Seattle Democratic Women are sponsoring a debate between City Attorney Tom Carr and challenger Pete Holmes, who face off in the general election. The Carr campaign has been attempting to call into question whether Holmes, who chaired the police-misconduct oversight committee for five years in his capacity as an attorney, is qualified to be the city attorney. The debate emerged in the comments of this article a couple weeks ago and has erupted into a full scale attack. Not only has Carr's campaign doubted that Holmes's background as a bankruptcy attorney is inadequate, Carr's campaign manager Cindi Laws has argued that Holmes isn't a practicing attorney, and thus fails to meet the city-charter-mandated requirements for office (she even posted on her Facebook page today that "Holmes doesn't meet Seattle Charter requirements for the position he is running for"). She made the same argument when I spoke to her a few weeks ago. Goldy dismantles her bogus claim today on Horse'sAss.

Speaking of ass, Holmes has been kicking Carr's ass all over the map in District Democrat endorsement meetings—winning all but Carr's home 34th District—by decrying Carr's rabid pursuit of low-level, nonviolent crimes (like charging people caught in a bar sting with one-year jail terms) and defending the city in cases that Holmes says the city should just concede failure (like restricting the place a man can blow up balloon animals in Seattle Center).

The debate begins at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 24 at the West Seattle Golf Course. There are only 175 seats available and you must RSVP on the debate's Facebook page for a ticket (the group hasn't set a price yet but they say it will be "a nominal fee").

Comments (13) RSS

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Remember, students always get discounts ...

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 14, 2009 at 4:56 PM

Operation Sobering Thought: 17 arrests. 0 convictions.

Fucking ZERO.

And Carr holds that up as a success! Can't wait to see what a failure looks like. Oh wait, Carr knows he's never failed at anything...

Vote for Holmes.

Posted by Use your brain. on July 14, 2009 at 5:50 PM

Hey Carr, I hope you're reading this:

You deserve to lose, and I think deep down you know it yourself.

Posted by jw36 on July 14, 2009 at 6:07 PM

@2 Any lawsuits from Operation Sobering Thought, yet?

Posted by bikechick on July 14, 2009 at 6:13 PM

Great, a bankruptcy lawyer. The looney left will love him; the perfect leader for irresponsible, 'someone else made me do it' losers.

Posted by Stupid White Man

on July 14, 2009 at 6:27 PM

Is it too late for a third candidate?

Posted by six shooter on July 14, 2009 at 6:46 PM

Wow, way to steal from publicola, kids.

Posted by Credit where its due? on July 14, 2009 at 6:58 PM

"Not only has Carr's campaign doubted that Holmes's background as a bankruptcy attorney is inadequate"

I suppose you mean "adequate?" Otherwise, strangely supportive argument from the opposition.

Posted by Derek

on July 14, 2009 at 8:20 PM

Actually I am pretty sure most of the Sobering Thought arrestees took agreements where they stipulated what was alleged in the police reports were true but that if they were good boys and girls they wouldn't serve jail time or have convictions on their records.... Similar to what ECB did with her shoplifting charge from what I hear.

This is precisely why SLOG reader opinions on City Attorney are as useless as tits on a boar.

Oh, and for Holmes saying the City Attorney should just 'concede' on things like the busking law.. the city charter requires the City Attorney to defend the city and its laws whether he/she agrees or not. To do less would be a legal, moral, and ethical violation of their duties.

Holmes will cost this city big time if he becomes CA!

Posted by think first on July 14, 2009 at 8:55 PM

You don't charge somebody with a "one-year jail term." You charge them with a gross misdemeanor, and if they are convicted of the gross misdemeanor, the maximum possible jail sentence is a year. However, it is pretty unusual for any municipal court defendant to get a year in jail, and it borders on impossible to think that any first-time offender would receive that maximum sentence. It's pretty typical at that level for first-time offenders (of lots of different types of crimes, including assault-DV, MIP, obstruction, and theft) to enter some kind of agreement that basically amounts to a small fine, a year of probation, and dismissal of the charge if they play by the rules for 12 months. So it's quite an exaggeration to say that any of the Sobering Thought defendants actually faced the possibility of a year in jail, and also something of an exaggeration to imply that it's some kind of failure on Carr's part that many of those cases resolved in exactly the same way most first-time offenders would resolve a gross misdemeanor charge.

This is not to say that Sobering Thought was a good idea in any way, just to give you a bit more background on what goes on in municipal court.

Posted by giantladysquirrels on July 14, 2009 at 9:31 PM

@think first

Well, Carr makes people in mental health court plead guilty to get services. Shoot, we've got people in jail from mental health court for 6 months for stealing a can of tuna. I suppose it's not too big of a stretch to belive that Carr made the Sobering Thought arrestees plead to something to avoid jail.

Still wonder how many lawsuits we are going to have from Carr's Operation Sobering Thought.

I do wonder if Carr regrets giving up the law to do a political photo op for his BFF Nickels on that one, though.

Posted by bikechick on July 14, 2009 at 11:58 PM

Yeah, Tom Carr's office prosecuted me for obstruction because I refused an officer's unlawful order to produce ID. Except that, oh, wait, that's not even a crime in Washington. So after dragging me through three preliminary hearings in Seattle Muni, they dropped the charge on the day that the first contested hearing was scheduled to commence.

Your tax dollars at work, courtesy of Tom Carr's City Attorney's office.

But wait, there's more: the City of Seattle owes me a few grand in attorney's fees since I was arrested without probable cause. More on that later.

Don't be lettin' the door hit you in the butt on the way out, Tom.

Posted by Eric Arrr on July 15, 2009 at 2:38 AM

Cindi Laws is a hack. Total talentless hack. I'd love to see just one - one! - campaign "consulting" work product from her that isn't a baseless, crude and disrespectful (usually ad hominem) attack.

Posted by Juris on July 15, 2009 at 10:58 AM