Once again the governor and his staff head to the bargaining table with the public unions to negotiate a contract with the unions with our tax dollars in complete secrecy. The bill (HB 1268) was passed in 2002 and went into effect with the 2005-2007 budget.

washingtonpolicy.org/blog/post/reporters-barred-secret-state-budget-talks

Why would these negotiations and union contracts with tax payer dollars need to be secret (with no FOIA or other way of knowing what they contain) if there was not something being done with taxpayer dollars that the negotiators don’t want the tax payers to know?

The fact is that the very people who benefit from the contributions and political support of the unions are the same people sitting at the table negotiating not with their money but ours. Textbook definition of conflict of interest.

Many years ago I was trained by a very wise person to operate on the iceberg theory. That theory has never failed me. If this is what we see and know above the water line in the light of day, what lurks in the muddy dark water below? As with an iceberg, probably two-thirds more deception, conflict of interest, deceit and quid pro quo.

These are Gov Inslee’s words on Jan. 17, 2013:

“We will provide efficiency, effectiveness and transparency. We will introduce performance metrics where it counts, giving us the data we need to fix what’s broken, cut what we don’t need and replace rhetoric with quantifiable results.”

Governor, where is the transparency?

Nancy S. Campbell

Mill Creek