Spokane mayor takes leave; new allegation reported
By JOHN K. WILEY
The Associated Press
SPOKANE — Embattled Mayor Jim West said yesterday he will take a leave of absence for a "few weeks" to prepare to defend himself against a newspaper's allegations of child molestation. An hour later, the newspaper's Web site published a new allegation of inappropriate sexual advances.
West told the City Council that the allegations printed in The Spokesman-Review in recent days were false and that he would take his first vacation since taking office in January 2004 to prepare a response.
"I hope that you and the people will reserve judgment on me until the newspaper is done persecuting me, and allow me to have the fair opportunity to respond to each of the allegations in due time," West said in brief remarks at the beginning of the council meeting.
He left without taking questions.
The Spokesman-Review later reported on its Web site that Ryan Oelrich, 24, said he was appointed by West to the city Human Rights Commission in April 2004 after apparently meeting him in a gay online chat room.
Oelrich said he didn't learn until after the appointment that West was the same person he first talked to online in 2003.
Spokane Mayor Jim West leaves City Council chambers yesterday after telling council members he was taking a leave of absence.
Oelrich said that after he was appointed to the commission, West made several sexual advances online and once offered Oelrich $300 to swim naked with him in a swimming pool. Oelrich said he declined the offer as "being totally inappropriate."
Oelrich, who heads a gay youth organization in Spokane, said he knows of five or six young gay men who also received inappropriate sexual advances from West. Oelrich said he left the Human Rights Commission in January after West "hounded me for months, telling me I was cute and asking me out on dates."
The newspaper last Thursday published two men's claims that West molested them when they were boys in the 1970s. West was a sheriff's deputy and Boy Scout leader at the time.
West, a former Republican state Senate leader, denied those allegations, but acknowledged that he had visited a gay Internet chat room and had relations with adult men.
The newspaper's articles and follow-up stories resulted in a number of calls for West to resign.
West, who had said last week that he intended to serve the remaining three years of his term, said all the attention is distracting him from the business of this Eastern Washington city of 200,000.
"It is occupying a great deal of my time," said West, who gave up a two-decade career as a conservative state legislator to become mayor of his hometown.
West said Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch would lead the city, and that Lynch and Council President Dennis Hession would be able to reach him at all times.
Also yesterday, city officials began organizing an independent investigation into West's possible misuse of city computers to visit the gay Web site.
City Attorney Mike Connelly said his staff had taken a digital snapshot of West's computer and copied its hard drive in an effort to determine whether the mayor violated city policies regarding ethics and use of public property.
Connelly said he would pick the independent investigator and define the "scope of the investigation" by midweek.
"It's our standard practice when we have an allegation of computer misuse, and it's standard to go outside when we have someone in power," he said.
Connelly said he was acting on his own initiative and not at the request of West, although the mayor had cooperated.
Should the investigation of West's ethics and use of public property find a violation of city policies, Connelly said, it would be up to the mayor to discipline himself. "I don't have any authority over the mayor's employment," he said.
A Spokane resident, Shannon Sullivan, filed paperwork yesterday with Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton to recall the mayor. If a petition alleging misfeasance or malfeasance in office is approved by a judge, recall supporters would have to gather more than 12,500 signatures to place the issue on a ballot, Dalton said.
John Talbott, Spokane mayor from 1998 to 2000, said he believes West may have grounds for a libel suit against the newspaper. But the continuing drumbeat of allegations against West is tarnishing the city's reputation, Talbott said yesterday.
"I think he should resign for the good of the city. He's got himself in a situation that he cannot recover from. It's not going to go away," said Talbott, who did not support West in his campaigns for the Legislature or mayor.
A national civil-rights and gay-advocacy organization also called on West to resign. Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C., called West's behavior "appalling" and predicted more allegations of child molestation would surface.
The Spokesman-Review reported that West called Editor Steven Smith Sunday morning and said he expected more allegations of sex abuse to surface. "For some people, they'll do it for the thrill. Some people are confused. I need time," Smith said West told him.
Smith said West told him it will be hard to disprove allegations about something that supposedly happened long ago, referring to the accusations that he abused two boys in the late 1970s.
West acknowledged he'd heard of rumors over the years about his sexuality, but claimed he was celibate.
"I led a life of hell. I know the rumors [of sexual orientation] have been out there for a long time. It has been hell. I didn't date. I was celibate. That was true. Oh God. Oh God," Smith said West told him.
Times staff reporter Jonathan Martin contributed information from City Attorney Mike Connelly and former Mayor John Talbott for this story. Details about the latest allegations against West came from The Spokesman-Review Web site.
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