Robin Farris’ campaign to recall Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam didn’t make the November ballot, but it has caught the eye of Washington Post columnist George Will.
Will, a staunch critic of campaign finance limits, takes on Washington state’s restrictions on donations to recall efforts, calling them “highly unreasonable – and unconstitutional” in his Thursday column.
Farris herself is no fan of those restrictions, having accepted the Institute for Justice’s offer earlier this year to challenge the limits in court. In July, U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Bryan issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily nullifies the state …
Backers of a campaign to recall Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam shot their final bolt Tuesday. Now it’s all about the math.
Puyallup resident Robin Farris and her supporters turned in a final batch of recall petition signatures to the Pierce County Elections Center, just as the clock ticked down on an Aug. 30 submission deadline.
“I’m relieved,” Farris said. “I’m really almost kind of sad that it’s over, because we’ve met so may cool people. But I’m really more than anything just relieved, and I’m feeling confident, too.”
Washam did not respond to a voice-mail message left Tuesday with his assistant. He has faced the active recall effort since March 4, when the state Supreme Court ruled that the recall charges against him, if true, met standards of legal and factual sufficiency.
To qualify for the Nov. 8 general election ballot, recall backers must deliver at least 65,495 valid signatures, representing 25 percent of voters in the 2008 election that brought Washam to office.
who’s been silent for weeks as a recall effort against him gathered steam, posted an accounting of his office’s achievements for 2010 on his website this morning.
His list of accomplishments included the same information he presented to the Pierce County Council during its budget deliberations last month.
Washam, who frequently uses his county website as a pulpit, hadn’t put anything that stayed on his page very long since Nov. 4, when he published a copy of a letter from The News Tribune and his reply. The letter pertained to a story The News Tribune was preparing about Washam.
In the seven weeks since that posting, Puyallup resident Robin Farris gained support for her effort to recall Washam. Last week, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Thomas Felnagle ruled there are sufficient legal grounds for the recall effort to proceed to the signature-gathering stage.
An effort by Pierce County Deputy Assessor-Treasurer Alberto Ugas and another Pierce County resident to recall Prosecutor Mark Lindquist could cost the pair a lot of money in legal fees.
Lindquist says the recall is frivolous and believes it’s an attempt to influence the Nov. 2 General Election in which Lindquist is opposed by attorney Bertha Fitzer, who formerly worked in the prosecutor’s office.
When I asked Pierce County Communications Director Hunter George who would represent Lindquist and pay the legal bills in this case, I got this reply by e-mail from Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor Douglas Vanscoy, who works for Lindquist.
“The County, including the Prosecutor’s Office, is precluded by law from supporting or opposing any recall or other ballot measure. The lone exception to that rule is a statute, RCW 4.96.041(3), permitting a county or other local government to pay the reasonable litigation expenses, including private counsel, incurred by the subject of a recall. The County may not be asked to pay for such expenses related to this particular recall, however. The state Supreme Court held in 1998 that courts are not “powerless to respond to intentionally frivolous recall petitions brought for the purpose of harassment. Attorney fees may be awarded against a petitioner who brings a recall petition in bad faith.”
Ugas could not be reached for comment this morning. He and Lake Tapps resident Dan Fishburn filed the recall petition against Lindquist last week, claiming Lindquist has failed to uphold the law by refusing to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by previous Assessor-Treasurer Ken Madsen and his staff.
Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist won’t go after former Assessor-Treasurer Ken Madsen for allegedly falsifying county tax records, Deputy Assessor-Treasurer Alberto Ugas says.
So Ugas, in his status as a private citizen, is going after Lindquist.
Prosecutor Mark Lindquist
Ugas and Dan Fishburn, a local general contractor, launched a recall drive against Lindquist this week.
The six-page “Citizens Recall Petition” is accompanied by 624 pages of assertions, documents and exhibits that Ugas says proves the case that Lindquist should be recalled, Ugas told me last night.
Ugas and Fishburn claim Lindquist obstructed justice by actively discouraging police agencies from investigating claims of wrongdoing in the office of former Assessor-Treasurer Ken Madsen.
Lindquist, who was appointed prosecutor last year, is seeking election to a four year term. One of his former prosecutors, Bertha Fitzer, is opposing him in the Nov. 2 general election.
He discounts the petition as frivolous and says he’s done his job to the absolute letter of the law.
“Both the sheriff and I take seriously any allegations of criminal conduct,” Lindquist told me this afternoon. ” I’m confident that the sheriff’s office will look at this (the allegations of illegal activity in Madsen’s office) and after the sheriff’s office looks at it, they will discuss it with us.”
“We have not advised the sheriff’s office or anyone else not to investigate this,” Lindquist said. “That’s absurd.”
The recall petition appears to be the latest salvo in a barrage of complaints, letters and public pleas from the office of Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam to investigate alleged wrongdoing by former Assessor-Treasurer Ken Madsen.
It’s scheduled from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Nov. 1 at the South Hill library, 15420 Meridian E.
He wants people to know about physical property inspections that were skipped from 2001-2008 in favor of statistical analysis of values, he has said. State law requires an in-person assessment of a property every six years.
Washam has tried unsuccessfully to convince authorities to launch a criminal investigation into the actions of his predecessor, Ken Madsen.
Calls by Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam‘s office for a criminal investigation into the actions of his predecessor raise questions of impropriety, “if not worse,” the prosecutor’s office says.
Dale Washam
In the latest back-and-forth between Washam’s office and other county officials. Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor Doug Vanscoy wrote on Thursday that questions about whether the public was harmed by skipped physical property inspections had been asked and answered. (You can read his letter here.) Prosecutor’s letter
Deputy Assessor-Treasurer Alberto Ugas filed a criminal complaint with Sheriff Paul Pastor on Oct. 4, claiming “conspiracy to defraud, forgery and falsification of official public records” in took place in Madsen’s office from 2001-2008. Alberto Ugas Criminal Complaint
Ugas contends in both his complaint to Pastor and his letter to Lindquist that Madsen’s office unlawfully carried out “forgeries and falsifications” of public records after skipping physical property inspections required by the state. Those actions hopelessly corrupted the tax rolls and harmed taxpayers, Ugas and Washam contend.
Vanscoy, responding to Ugas at Lindquist’s request, wrote in part: “Your own investigative report attempts…to link the Madsen issues to a former employee who has a pending EEO complaint against Mr. Washam, raising a question whether your importuning for a criminal investigation has the appearance of impropriety, if not worse.” Prosecutor’s letter to Washam
In a letter posted on the assessor’s website, Washam said he thinks previous errors in the tax rolls have invalidated the “presumption of correctness” that lies with the county in tax appeal cases.
It’s unclear what effect this might have on cases before the Board of Equalization, and The News Tribune is working to get answers to questions about it.
Washam’s letter is the latest missive in his long campaign to bring the county’s assessments in …
