Defendants could have saved the city’s money

Published 11:56 am Monday, March 3, 2008

The four current and former Shoreline Council members who were named in the public-meetings lawsuit the City settled two weeks ago could have saved the City the half million dollars it spent to fight and settle the suit.

When the city’s legal fees began mounting, one or more of them could have said, “The city’s money would be better spent on other things. While our intent was good, we see that our actions violated state law. We apologize and ask that the plaintiffs drop their suit.”

We could have applauded them for putting the city’s interest ahead of their own.

Yes, someone would have used it as campaign fodder against them, but that’s happening anyway. Under my scenario, they could tell voters, “We made a mistake, but we admitted it and saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A year earlier when the suit was first filed, they could have said something like, “We don’t want this lawsuit to detract from our job of running the city. The plaintiffs say they’ll drop the suit if we apologize. We worked for the best, but the way we did it violated state law. We apologize to our fellow council members and to all Shoreline citizens.”

Again, they would have gained more for honesty and humility than they did for standing stubbornly.

In late 2005, they could have eliminated any suspicion of a public-meetings violation by bringing up the city manager’s status at a full council meeting, held a discussion in executive session and voted in an open meeting.

The process would have taken longer, but the buyout would have been cheaper and there would have been no lawsuit, no depositions, no legal fees and no $150,000 settlement.

The four, however, were overtaken by the hubris of new power.

Don’t those who brought the suit deserve some blame? For what? For trying to keep the council’s majority honest?

A big day for Washington politics

When the U.S. Supreme Court considers Washington’s voter-approved top-two primary in oral arguments Monday, don’t expect a quick decision.

The court won’t rule until next year.

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed says that if the court reinstates the top-two primary by early summer, elections officials would have time to put the system in place for the August primary.

If that happens, the parties have promised to hold conventions to name their favored candidates.

If, on the other hand, the court upholds the lower-court decisions, the grange promises to offer a new initiative that would remove all party labels from Washington ballots. Expect the parties to try to replace the private-choice system with a system of party verification in which each voter’s party choice would be public record.

Evan Smith is the Enterprise Forum editor. Send comments to entopinion@heraldnet.com.