Reports Larry Lange:
A Superior Court judge has ordered an investigation of a citizen complaint that the state withheld release of a video from a critic of the Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel project for political reasons, weeks before a Seattle mayoral election.
Walt Jorgensen, an activist from Tumwater, appealed a state Executive Ethics Board’s dismissal of his complaint, in which he alleged that state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) officials had concealed the video from tunnel critic Elizabeth Campbell prior to the 2009 election, when the viaduct was a major issue.
Campbell eventually got the video she requested. But as I reported at the time, the Washington State Department of Transportation first released the video to the teevee peeple—apparently to air on the evening news as a political calculation—but they still hadn’t released it Campbell.
Says Lange: “Fines could be assessed on any state employees found to have violated ethics laws.”
No doubt these fines will be billed back to WA State taxpayers as cost overruns.
stop doing that, SROTU, you made me spit up my latte …
Good luck finding those fingerprints.
So with all the gotchas everyone’s trying to get on WSDOT, this chastisement of a separate ethics board for mishandling a minor two-year-old complaint is the worst that’s happened? As Goldy noted earlier, this sure ain’t Philly around here…
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
This week I noticed that the cranes and pile drivers are north of Royal Brougham. They’re building it bitchez!!
Last night there were signature gatherers for the second initiative to stop the tunnel in front of the Fremont PCC.
They’re not building it, bitchez.
*guffaw*