Sound Politics - King County Scuttlebutt
King County Executive Ron Sims, the Robert Mugabe of Washington politics, has concluded that he might face difficulty getting himself re-elected next year. Lacking any skills that are useful to anybody in the private sector, Governor-pretender Christine Gregoire has promised Sims a sinecure in her administration, should she manage to steal this election. Look for more magical mystery ballots to miraculously materialize in King County just in time to ensure a happy Christmas for Ron Sims and all of his Kleptocratic Party cronies.
King County Councilmember Larry Phillips is expected to run for Executive next fall. Good news for fellow Councilmember Bob Ferguson, who will be gerrymandered into the same district as Phillips.
Overheard at the King County GOP Reorginization Meeting on Saturday. Attorney General Elect / departing County Councilmember Rob McKenna thanked his Republican Council colleagues "Jane Hague, Kathy Lambert, David Irons, Steve Hammond and the others". An interesting snub of Pete von Reichbauer, who pulled a fast one on McKenna and the caucus and sided with the Democrats to select a gerrymandering commission that is presumed to ensure a safe seat for von Reichbauer.
Also heard at the KCGOP meeting. Someone asked David Irons "So how about that King County Elections Division?" Irons' reply: "Nothing that a thermonuclear weapon can't fix".
And speaking of the County gerrymandering commission, the man chosen to head the commission is Steve Ohlenkamp, identified as "a Seattle business and public affairs consultant who occasionally lobbies the County Council on behalf of his clients". He is also a partner in in a firm called TCG, whose income is indirectly paid by King County Executive Ron Sims:
The partnership's client list includes The Ferguson Group, which represents King County in Washington, D.C., and Zenon Environmental and Thermal Energy, vendors to sewage-treatment providers. The County Council last month appropriated money to acquire land for the $1.6 billion Brightwater sewage-treatment plant.
Lots of potential for conflict of interest here. You don't suppose Ohlenkamp would be even a little bit motivated to gerrymander on behalf of his client, Ron Sims, and his Kleptocrat Party machine, do you?
Meanwhile, Ron Sims and his Kleptocrat Party machine are using a midnight requisition from the county budget to file a lawsuit along with a bunch of goofy-assed environmental extremists to obstruct a perfectly legal gravel mine that had already been given the greenlight by the state.
How does "The City and County of Seattle" sound? To a lot of people in suburban and rural King County, it sounds pretty good.
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