Citizen not amused by campaign ‘joke’

EDMONDS — It was called a joke, but few are laughing.

Two campaign flyers sent out the week of Sept. 9 for Edmonds City Council candidate Rich Demeroutis falsely used as a return address that of Edmonds resident John Quast, best known for his activism in opposing the siting of the proposed Brightwater sewage treatment plant in Edmonds.

“This is totally repugnant to me, that such a thing would happen,” Quast said at a City Council meeting Sept. 15.

Quast said he has no connection with Demeroutis, does not support him and is working for a candidate in another race, Peggy Pritchard Olson. Demeroutis is running against incumbent Dave Orvis, while Olson is challenging incumbent Lora Petso.

Demeroutis said Finis Tupper, one of several people who addressed and sent out flyers for Demeroutis’s campaign, admitted to using Quast’s return address on flyers sent to two different Edmonds addresses. The addressees then brought the flyers to the attention of a friend of Quast’s.

“Finis Tupper thought it would be a nice joke to do something like that,” Demeroutis said. “I have no idea why he picked John Quast’s name.”

A phone call and an e-mail to Tupper from The Enterprise were not returned.

Demeroutis said before Tupper’s confession he had “no knowledge” of how or why Quast’s name came to be used. He said afterward he would no longer accept help from Tupper on his campaign.

“He’s no longer affiliated with me,” Demeroutis said. “I don’t work that way.”

Tupper has been a frequent presence at City Council meetings in recent months, speaking on issues including noise regulations and planned residential developments.

He filed an ethics complaint against City Council member Michael Plunkett last year that was later dismissed, recently unsuccessfully appealed a land-use variance for a mixed commercial-residential building and, along with resident Ray Martin, asked for a ruling on a procedural matter involving a disclosure complaint against Council member Richard Marin.

Quast reported the return-address incident to the Edmonds police, the Edmonds postmaster and the state Public Disclosure Commission (PDC), which oversees campaign financial and ethical issues.

The police report classified the incident under the heading of “information.” The officer wrote in the report, “I advised Mr. Quast this matter is best handled by the agencies he referenced,” meaning the PDC and the postmaster.

Edmonds Postmaster Tom Snyder said Sept. 15 he had asked the postal inspector in Seattle for an interpretation of pertinent regulations and had yet to receive an answer.

“It’s probably a gray area of fraud,” Snyder said. “It’s not something you encounter very frequently. It’s an unusual case I’ve never heard of before.”

Phil Stutzman, director of compliance for the PDC, said one state law addresses false endorsements and another requires sponsor identification – an accurate listing of who paid for the campaign literature or advertising. The Demeroutis flyer included no such listing.

Quast said his initial concern was that the use of his return address constituted an implied endorsement that banked on his anti-Brightwater activism, for which he and his wife, Laurie Dressler, were named Citizens of the Year for 2002 by the Greater Edmonds Chamber of Commerce.

Quast has also served on the Citizens Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials and is a member of the Friends of the Library.

“The clear implication is that I am in support of the candidate and want my friends and neighbors to support that candidacy, both with their vote and their money,” Quast said at the meeting.

The standards for proving false endorsements are strict, Stutzman said.

“They’d have to prove that the return address constitutes an endorsement,” he said.

It’s possible, though, that the return address could be seen as an “implied sponsor ID,” and of course a false one, Stutzman said.

Violations of disclosure laws are subject to fines of up to $2,500, with extreme cases being sent to the Attorney General’s office for possible prosecution, said PDC investigator Sally Parker.

“I don’t think we would call it a joke,” Parker said. “The law does not mention jokes.”

At the Sept. 15 City Council meeting, city critic Roger Hertrich issued an apology for Tupper without mentioning him by name. Tupper was not present.

“It is what we call a bad joke. And I really think it’s a really bad joke. It wasn’t meant to be malicious,” Hertrich said.

He said the joke was meant to “poke” at one of the addressees “and at the same time involve Mr. Quast’s name.

“I questioned the person, and I understand his bad humor,” Hertrich said. “That’s all I can call it. It wasn’t meant to be anything more. And I assure Mr. Quast there were no more than two letters sent out.

“There wasn’t anything planned by anybody running for office, it was just a dumb thing.”