News

In The Hall

by Erica C. Barnett

The skirmish started last Tuesday, when O'Ryan responded to an e-mail from the mayor's public information officer, Casey Corr, inviting all the city's spokespeople to a strategy session at the McCaw Opera House. O'Ryan, along with some 20 other media folks, reported for duty as requested. The problem was, O'Ryan wasn't supposed to be invited to the confab, which was billed as a budget-strategy summit for departmental (read: mayoral) staffers. When O'Ryan tried to barge in anyway, loyal Nickels foot soldier Corr intervened. Corr, who characterizes the confusion as a mere "mix-up," says he and O'Ryan "went for a little walk" while Nickels spokesperson Marianne Bichsel led the meeting. While O'Ryan claims, diplomatically, that the unplanned jaunt was "kind of a fun experience," other city hall staffers report the new PIO was less than thrilled about her unexpected ouster from the meeting.

Corr, for his part, says the monthly meetings give city staffers "a chance to work together as a team." Against whom, you might ask? That's a question Corr doesn't answer. But it's worth noting that only two PIOs in the city--O'Ryan and City Attorney Tom Carr's assistant Kathryn Harper--are routinely excluded from the meetings.

One item that's sure to be a topic of discussion at future strategy summits is the mayor's Pavlovian proposal to make business licenses contingent on good behavior. Under the still-nascent proposal, a business could have its license yanked if it failed to follow certain rules--from standard stuff like state liquor laws to rules barring convenience stores from selling do-rags and marijuana pipes. The vagueness of the proposal worries music-industry folks like Dave Meinert, who see in it shades of former City Attorney Mark Sidran's added activities ordinance, which would have held club owners responsible for what happened inside and around their property. That law, by the way, was declared unconstitutional before it even made it onto the council's agenda.

The $1,000 fine only represents a fraction of the errors, innocent or otherwise, made by the Monorail Recall campaign on its finance reports. (The campaign's late reports alone total almost $21,000). Nonetheless, the unusually steep penalty, levied last week against the campaign by city Ethics and Elections head Wayne Barnett, includes one nearly unprecedented condition: a promise to reduce the fine to $300, provided that the campaign fire treasurer Liv Finne immediately. Barnett's harshly worded letter, in which the ethics director cites financial disclosure reports that have been "consistently incorrect and... required numerous amendments," may mark the first time the ethics commission has offered someone $700 to leave a volunteer campaign position.

barnett@thestranger.com