A ruling has been issued in the case of Yousoufian v. Sims: Penalties of $15 dollars a day for a total of $123,780 and attorney fees of $171,100.35. This is a relative pittance given the time and expense that Armen Yousoufian and his attorneys have spent over the last several years. It's also not much of a disincentive to Ron Sims and other government officials for flagrant violations of the Public Disclosure Act -- especially since the money is paid by the taxpayers, not by the violators.
The county has 30 days to appeal.
UPDATE: Armen Yousoufian e-mailed to add:
I think it's important to note, and I ask that you include this in your observations, that at this point, after 8 years, an estimated 4000 hours of my own time, and still without all the smoking gun documents that I have evidence must exist (including reproduction shop records billing for 54 sets of copies of a 112 page report King County has never produced to me), the total recovery is approximately $380K, versus $330K just for legal costs I've incurred. This outcome means most people will never get a lawyer to take such a case without being paid hourly, as there just isn't enough potential for penalties to make a contingent fee arrangement worthwhile.On the other hand, County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, whose office defends King County from citizen public disclosure complaints, believes that the public disclosure law is "working fairly adequately at the present time". I have to assume he hasn't made many public records requests of his own. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 25, 2005 01:35 PM | Email This
This decision should be on the front page of all the local newspapers tomorrow. Lets see how accountable our local media holds Sims. I am sure they will find some way to excuse this abuse of power!!!!!!
I think the headline should read:
King County Government: Completely Out Of Control
1) All judges in Washington are elected to office and every one of them is just as concerned about reelection as any other politician.
2) Judges are part of the government!!! When they are asked to rule on wrongdoing by government, it's like someone being asked to rule against a member of their own family.
There are courageous people like Armen who take on government, like the 2 King County DOT Whistleblowers suing King County DOT in federal court right now. But have you read about them? I didn't think so.
Unfortunately, most of these heroes do it by themselves and without any of the attention necessary to rally the public behind them and the pressure necessary to make judges act responsibly. It becomes an easy decision for judges to slap them down, because there is rarely any backlash and they only reinforce the chances of an unchallenged reelection by giving the wrongdoing a pass.
I'll bet this judge just figured he'd reimburse Armen for his costs, throw in a few bucks to not make it obvious, and then he'd be done with it.
At least Armen got something. That was sort of a surprise by itself. Heck, it's only taxpayer money anyway...
Posted by: Mike on August 25, 2005 09:21 PMGod Bless!
God Bless!
Posted by: Clint on August 25, 2005 10:35 PMThey are declared elected if no one files to oppose them. Since the only persons permitted to oppose them are attorneys, and the attorneys who might run against them are the same attorneys who appear before the judges, the fear of retaliation by the judges is just too great.
Ergo, nobody challenges them and you cannot even write in anybody's name because the race never appears on the ballot.
platypus
Posted by: platypus on August 25, 2005 10:51 PMNearly every law firm in King County with any kind of municipal, government, public records/disclosure or election law departments or specializing attorneys are on retainer to the county. I can affirm through personal observation that this is the case.
What this does is prevent any public citizen who wishes to litigate against the county for any reason - including failure to comply with disclosure laws, misfeasance and corruption of the kind seen in DDES with Redmond Ridge, failure to comply with election laws.
Litigation becomes impossible from the public's side, because there are no qualified attorneys with local knowledge and experience in these legal issues available to represent any plaintiff. Either an attorney has to be recruited from outside the area, which places them at an intense disadvantage when litigating local issues, or an attorney with no experience in government law is the only lawyer available, which is worse than useless, you'll lose while spending $250.00 an hour for representation.
Just ask Armen Yousefian how many attorneys he had to approach before any could or would take his ground-breaking public records case?
Posted by: Susan B. Anthony on August 25, 2005 11:19 PMOr how about 999 people, for $15,000.00 a day?
Posted by: HappyGoLucky on August 26, 2005 08:41 AMWhy didn't the judge do that? Or is Mr. Yousoufian going to collect $15 a day for the rest of his life?
Posted by: HappyGoLucky on August 26, 2005 09:20 AMit would be interesting to see how much the other side claims it cost them for legal- bet it is many times what Armen was awarded. What a farce to only give him a token amount.
Hooray for Yousefian though- a true prince.
Vote the lousy corrupt son of a bitch Ron Sims out of office.
He was elected for superficial reasons that we all recognize, and no one
should ever expect more of him than his character will provide.
Take one look at his record, those who defend him and how they go
about it and there can be no reasonable doubt.
Back David Irons with everything you have, it is party unity that will make or break it.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on August 26, 2005 10:55 AMArmen was cheated by a liberal elitist Judge Hayden in order to protect Sims from the consequences of his
own misconduct in office. We should find out specifically what documents Sims failed to produce and request
that David Irons demand that Sims produce them. Then we should call for an investigation of the whole issue
without which we can fairly conclude that Sims is guilty of more than just failing to fulfill his fiduciary duties as KC Executive.
Ah, but there's the rub. You can't vote anyone out if the election system is corrupt.
Posted by: PW on August 26, 2005 12:42 PMYou may well be right, but I lean toward the belief that "if it ain't close they can't cheat."
I speculate (though I have no proof) that Dino Rossi had a lot more votes than we currently think he had. Still yet the Democrats had a hard time cheating us out of Rossi's election. If we are unable to elect David Irons in King County, then the people here will get what it deserves in spades. I might just leave for a few years and come back to profit from the damage that more of the same insanity would wrought here.
We must continue to try to solve this politically. Legally they have the situation sewn up so tight that we have little recourse.
I didn't see anything about this Yousoufian case in the local media, but it needs to be discussed over and over again. Also I like Happy Go Lucky's idea to request the same docs that Shark has, and when we don't get them, join him in his suit. I think a better option to this would be to request the specific documents that Armen Yousoufian requested because there is a judgment against Sims in that case already.
I wonder how much a Public Disclosure request costs and what it would take to organize a group effort?
It's worth looking into.
Isn't it interesting that none of the toe sucking liberal apologists like JDB, Rich Kiker Witz, or Bruce et al
are piping up about this subject?
AND where is that self-renowned star political analyst DAVID GOLDSTEIN when
we need the straight scoop about liberal democrat policies and integrity?
Hey David why not come on over and straighten us all out about Ron Sims?
Let me guess, Sims is not guilty of any misconduct that can be proven by any of the documents that he obduratly and illegally
refuses to release, but he refuses because . . ah . . . well . . . it's ahh . . . principal ahh . . .
Bush lied, and ah . . . Rumsfeld ordered Abu Gharaib.
I would rather enjoy hearing the reinventions and farcical dodges they are using to splain Sims way out of this one, but I’m not interested in wading into their toilet (Horsesass.crap) to find out.
Spose Sim's dog ate the documents?
John Carlson sees this guy for what he is, treats him courteously, and allows him wide latitude on the radio, and Goldstein’s vanity interprets the civility as respect. David Goldstein is a great advocate for his views, and that is why it is especially good that he prominently displays them. His style over substance brand of ideology provides a great contrast to common sense.
I am grateful for David Goldstein, he is a great liberal democrat.
Interestingly, entrenched liberals LOVE David & Goliath stories--until THEY are the Goliath. Then, it's a legal battle regarding the rules of engagement, Queensbury Rules and why pebbles & slings are equivalent to WMD's.
What did campaigning John Kerry quote about his Mom's comments? "Integrity, integrity, integrity?" Someone in the govt transparency committee lost their bookmarked page in the liberal playbook-bible.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on August 30, 2005 11:10 AM