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Friday, June 29, 2012

2012 King County Ombudsman Decides Not to Pursue Ethics Complaint Over McKenna Files

Posted by Eli Sanders on Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 5:27 PM

Found in the Rob McKennas King County Archives.

E.S.
Found in the Rob McKenna's King County Archives: campaign documents that shouldn't be there.

Back in April, Goldy and I wrote about the McKenna files:

As state attorney general, Rob McKenna has cultivated an image as a careful, squeaky-clean good-government type. But you wouldn't know it from rummaging through three large boxes sitting in the King County Archives and available for public inspection. Marked "Documents: Rob McKenna," these boxes are packed full of papers from McKenna's days on the King County Council (where he served from 1996 through 2004), and many of those papers involve not county business but election campaign business.

That type of activity—the relevant state law describes it as "assisting a campaign for election of any person"—is flatly prohibited inside Washington State government offices.

In response, two complaints were filed with the King County Ombudsman's office, including one from a woman who said McKenna's archived files show he had a "complete disregard" for rules prohibiting campaign activities inside government offices.

The ombudsman's office won't be figuring out whether it agrees or disagrees with this complaint, however.

The problem, according to Ombudsman-Director Amy Calderwood: "The complaints and the supporting documents concern meetings apparently held 9 and a half to 10 years ago."

She continues, in a letter to McKenna that was just shared with me:

File closed.

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Comments (10) RSS

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Cowards.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on June 29, 2012 at 6:34 PM

I don't even remember who I was 10 years ago.

Posted by tedb310 on June 29, 2012 at 7:42 PM

What "witnesses" do you need? Is there a statute of limitations on this? Wonder what party she prefers.

Posted by sarah70 on June 29, 2012 at 8:19 PM

Perhaps the Ombusman's office is the wrong agency to file this complaint with. Perhaps it should be filed with the office of the State attorney General.

Posted by Just Jeff

on June 29, 2012 at 8:25 PM

This does look like a politically motivated decision--as Sarah70 points out, the evidence is documentary. What witnesses do or don't remember shouldn't matter much. Not what you want coming out of a government ethics office. I wonder if the state would investigate.

Posted by RottenDen on June 29, 2012 at 8:37 PM

Corrupt hack AG finds friend in corrupt hack ombudsman.

Posted by Grindstoon on June 29, 2012 at 9:18 PM

Each office in King County Council gets to choose what gets sent into the archives if i'm not mistaken.

It just seems odd he would have sent something that so obviously implied he was attending to campaign work in his office. Maybe this really isn't enough to go on. Has there been a example in the past where someone has gotten into trouble over this?

Also, I think it would be important to get a copy of his old Council schedule for several reasons. This just seems like maybe not enough evidence. Why would he submit these papers to the archives??

Posted by michael bell on June 29, 2012 at 9:33 PM

If they have dated documents in hand, why the hell do they care what potential witnesses might say. Don't the documents hold up on their own, witness or no?

Posted by Reverse Polarity on June 29, 2012 at 10:13 PM

we're not sure we can follow why this decision would be viewed as questionable. government officials charged with investigating other public officials for on the job misconduct routinely make nuanced judgment calls like this, wisely preserving their resources for ethics charges against the public officials who the boss man doesn't like in some inside baseball factional dispute.

Posted by OPA on June 30, 2012 at 2:10 AM