EVERETT — Democratic Party operatives hired to dig up political dirt on Dino Rossi are trying to unearth a few granules from the City Council’s debate on its municipal court building.
A company hired by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wants phone logs and e-mails of council members before they voted May 5 to fix up the aging structure rather than build a new one on property owned by the firm where Rossi works.
Coast Equity Partners had tried to sell its Broadway Avenue property to the city. Rossi is a minority partner in the real estate investment firm but not in the investor group which owns the site offered to the city.
Geoffrey Potter of New Partners requested copies of correspondences between council members and Rossi as well as with any of the company’s other partners — Tom Hoban, Shawn Hoban and Michael Harmon. New Partners is based in Washington, D.C., with an office in Seattle.
Potter also wants telephone logs for Councilman Drew Nielsen, one of three dissenting votes.
City spokeswoman Kate Reardon said the documents should be delivered on or about June 10.
Rossi is being targeted by Democrats because he may run against U.S. Sen. Patty Murray. If he does, it’s widely believed he would emerge as her toughest Republican challenger.
Potter’s research may feed an ongoing campaign to find and spread potentially damaging political material in hopes of discouraging Rossi from entering the race.
Last month, the committee discovered property taxes had not been paid on the Everett parcels that Coast Equity Partners was trying to sell the city as the home for a new courthouse. The tax bill has been reconciled but that did not end the story.
Deidre Murphy, spokeswoman for the Democratic committee, said the public records request may or may not net new material.
“We know that Dino Rossi has a history of cutting corners to maximize personal profits, but after his firm failed to pay their taxes on time there is reason to wonder why the taxpayers of Everett should buy one of their buildings,” she said.
Meanwhile, Republicans are firing back.
On Thursday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a new website called “Muddy Tennis Shoes” — a twist on Murray’s ‘mom in tennis shoes’ campaign slogan of 1992.
It also called on Murray to bring an end to the ongoing “smear campaign” against Rossi, noting several leaders of New Partners worked at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee when Murray was its chairwoman in 2002.
“Now that we’ve learned that Patty Murray’s former top aides are actually the ones Dumpster diving and spreading misleading information about a private citizen who isn’t even an announced candidate, it’s time for Sen. Murray to step forward and finally come clean about her involvement in this smear campaign against Dino Rossi,” said NRSC Press Secretary Amber Marchand.
Jeff Bjornstad, coordinator of Murray’s campaign, responded: “They don’t work for us. They are not on our payroll. It is not our campaign.”
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623, jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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