Mayor Marilyn Strickland plans to offer details this afternoon for an outside investigation of the Tacoma Police Department’s handling of the Zina Linnik case.

“I’ll have a recommendation of a very strong candidate that has the ability to be fair and unbiased in this investigation,” Strickland told me after the council’s noon study session today.

The details will come at the council’s 3 p.m. Committee of the Whole, the mayor said.

For the past few weeks, Strickland has been working with the City Attorney’s office in trying to find candidates to lead a third-party probe of the city’s investigation of …

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Tacoma’s citizen Board of Ethics has dismissed a complaint against City Manager Eric Anderson, finding “no facts have been shown” to establish any real or apparent violation of the city’s ethics code.

The complaint against Anderson — filed by local gadfly John Hathaway — alleged a conflict-of-interest  over Anderson’s volunteer ties to a nonprofit retirement corporation and a city committee’s recent decision to contract with the same firm to handle an employee pension plan.

The city’s Deferred Compensation Committee sought to award a single-vendor contract with the International City/County Management Association Retirement Corporation to handle the city workers’ …

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Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson has reprimanded Police Chief Don Ramsdell for not telling him the department’s spokesman was being paid to be on-call the morning he fell back to sleep instead of issuing an Amber Alert for 12-year-old Zina Linnik.

Anderson also ordered Ramsdell to initiate an internal affairs investigation to determine if spokesman Mark Fulghum violated department policy the morning of July 5, 2007, by taking something to help him sleep. Police department personnel are forbidden from being impaired when on-call, Anderson told The News Tribune this morning. (Click here to see reprimand and related documents.)

Fulghum said in a deposition filed in a wrongful death suit brought against the city and other governments that he took an Advil PM before going to bed about 1 a.m. that day.

“We do not know that he violated policy,” the city manager said. “The issue has been raised.”

The city also will hire an independent, outside consultant to review the way the Police Department investigated Linnik’s disappearance and murder “from beginning to end,” the city manager said.
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Tacoma’s citizen Board of Ethics met late Wednesday and announced it had reached decisions on separate ethics complaints filed against Mayor Marilyn Strickland and City Manager Eric Anderson.

But the board didn’t announce what it has decided. The panel will issue written findings at a later, unspecified date.

“Regarding those complaints, the fact-finding process has concluded, we have deliberated and we will be issuing a written order in the near future on all three of those complaints,” board chairman Sean Armentrout said during the meeting.

The complaints against Strickland center on whether she violated the provisions in the city’s ethics …

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Tacoma’s citizen Board of Ethics announced late Thursday it will push ahead with its fact-finding into Mayor Marilyn Strickland’s recent trip to Asia by issuing formal questions to the mayor and an area businessman who covered her airfare expenses.

“The board has deliberated and our next stop in our formal fact-finding process is we will be … directing the staff to acquire certain documents and records, along with a set of interrogatories to Mayor Strickland and Mr. (Ron) Chow,” board chairman Sean Armentrout said. “And we will reconvene at a later date to review those items.”

The board’s review was triggered by two citizens’ complaints based on a News Tribune story last month about Strickland’s trip.

The board also decided Thursday to seek more information about a complaint made by local gadfly John Hathaway against City Manager Eric Anderson that raises conflict-of-interest concerns. The complaint cites Anderson’s ties to a nonprofit retirement corporation and a city committee’s recent decision to contract with the same firm to handle an employee pension plan.

The Deferred Compensation Committee seeks to award a single-vendor contract with the International City/County Management Association Retirement Corporation to handle the city workers’ pension plan. Anderson has voluntarily served on the ICMA-RC’s directors’ board since 2004.

“The board has determined that further information is necessary to reach a resolution on this matter,” Armentrout said.

“…The board will be seeking that information in the form of written interrogatories to members of the Deferred Compensation Committee that report to the city manager and to City manager Anderson himself.”
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Tacoma Ethics Board members tossed out a citizen complaint against City Councilman Marty Campbell during a meeting Thursday night.

The board also decided to take more time in assessing two complaints against Mayor Marilyn Strickland.

Following separate closed-door discussions, the board dismissed a complaint that Campbell misled a citizen about a public meeting.

The allegations against Campbell, “even if true,” would not constitute a violation of the city’s ethics code, Sean Armentrout, the five-member panel’s chairman, announced.

Local gadfly John Hathaway had complained Campbell misled the operator of an Eastside food bank about a recent public meeting.

Campbell told …

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Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland said Thursday she will reimburse a Lakewood businessman who covered her airfare costs for a recent trip to Asia, according to an editorial in today’s News Tribune.

The editorial, written by Cheryl Tucker, notes:

Strickland now says that “in hindsight,” she shouldn’t have accepted Chow’s gift without consulting the city attorney, and that she plans to write him a check for the value of the airfare.

In a brief phone call today, Strickland declined to elaborate, citing an ongoing ethics process.

“Since there has been an ethics complaint filed, I am not going to make any more statements to the press until this is resolved,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ron Chow, the businessman who used his frequent flier miles for Strickland’s travel, said Thursday his gesture is allowed under the city’s code.

“It’s not a gift,” Chow said. “If I give it to her for personal (benefit), that is unethical. But we’re doing it because the city has no money, it is short on cash. And she is doing this (trip) on the official capacity of the city. There’s nothing unethical about it. I sponsor so many trips for any level of politicians.”

“I’m a little bit disappointed in you,” Chow added to a reporter. “As a journalist, you are the one that’s unethical.”

Earlier this week, The News Tribune reported the mayor’s use of Chow’s frequent flier miles to cover her airfare for an official city trip to Asia may have violated ethics rules.
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Tacoma’s citizen Board of Ethics will convene later this month to review separate complaints filed against Mayor Marilyn Strickland and Councilman Marty Campbell, the city clerk’s office confirmed today.

The complaints — both filed by local gadfly John Hathaway — essentially contend that Strickland and Campbell separately violated city rules for varying reasons.

The complaint against Campbell — largely based on an email discussion between the councilman and Ahndrea Blue, the operator of a controversial East Side food bank — requests an ethics investigation of Campbell’s actions in setting up a recent public meeting about the food bank.

“Was it ethical for Campbell to tell Ms. Blue’s partners one thing or even contact them in the first place and then willfully blindside, lie to, obfascate(sic) and mislead Ms. Blue when she openly asked for the same information and are his action(sic) a violation of City Ethics Code ,” Hathaway’s emailed complaint asks.

(I’ve yet to reach Campbell via email or phone today, but will update this post with his comments after I talk to him. He has previously told me that he’s done nothing wrong.)

UPDATE 5:55 p.m. Campbell just called and reiterated he’s done nothing wrong.

“Frankly, I think that this really is just an attempt to create more controversy in an issue that doesn’t need anymore controversy,” he said.
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