As for Conlin's own electoral outlook: As one observer recently opined, "He doesn't see the target on his back." So far, two names have entered circulation as possible anti-Conlin contenders in 2005: Monorail board member and progressive think-tank leader Cindi Laws (whose landlord, anti-monorail donor Ken Alhadeff, recently kicked Laws' organization out of their longtime digs in Pioneer Square) and King County Council member Dwight Pelz, whose own anti-monorail stance has earned him reactions ranging from skepticism to outright animosity from monorail supporters.
The old Pelz was nowhere in evidence on Friday night, when the city council contender could be seen hobnobbing at a Transportation Choices Coalition fundraiser with Seattle Monorail Project director Joel Horn, to whom Pelz, citing the four winning monorail votes, including the recent landslide, declared himself "a born-again monorail supporter." That very night, not coincidentally, three different monorail supporters urged (okay, ordered) Pelz to run against Conlin. Despite heroic efforts on my part, which included both wheedling and plying, Pelz refused to divulge whom he plans to run against.
Meanwhile a minor melee erupted at city hall around what information can be included in reports by the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) Review Board, which makes policy recommendations to the OPA, the city's police watchdog. The to-do started when OPARB chairman Peter Holmes informed the council that the mayor, acting on the advice of City Attorney Tom Carr, had refused to grant the board indemnity against lawsuits that resulted when OPARB inadvertently disclosed confidential information, like officers' identities, in its reports. At the same time, Holmes charged, the mayor refused (on Carr's advice) to identify what sort of disclosures it would regard as "objectionable," leaving OPARB on the hook for any lawsuit alleging it had disclosed privileged information--and giving the board an incentive to water down its reports, which already rely on heavily redacted information. Carr, who says Holmes' request amounts to a "waiver of the entire confidentiality agreement," was reportedly irritated by Holmes' public discussion of his legal advice.
