Pacific Raceways in Kent is seeking county permits to build a karting track on an existing parking lot.
I obtained this very interesting e-mail written by someone with an interest in helping Pacific Raceways:
Ron Sims' campaign folks have said that if Pacific Raceways can host a successful fundraising function for Mr. Sims, then somehow the permit reviewer might be convinced of the silliness of his position, and the permit can be issued. (I hate this stuff).Read the whole thing. [redactions are mine to protect the author's identity]. I made some calls and confirmed this is for real.
Note that there were several donations made to the Sims campaign on 10/06/2005 by people with racing sport affiliations, people on the To: list of the forwarded e-mail, and by Paul Zalud, who is the contact person on the Pacific Raceways permit application. You'll also note that the To: list includes the name of someone who is a county building inspector.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 02, 2005 11:07 PM | Email ThisIf you had just organized a Sims campaign fund dinner, you might have gotten better response from KCREALS with respect to all of your public records requests. If only you'd known that it was this easy to grease the wheels.
Oh My God!
Posted by: Deborah on November 2, 2005 11:45 PMI'll bet the Times and the PI won't even cover this.
Posted by: Skeptic on November 3, 2005 12:10 AMCorruption charges need to be filed against the Sims campaign, and he needs to be forcibly removed or elected out.
And the Times/P-I won't run with the story...unless they get pressured to. And trust me, the pressure is now on them.
Posted by: Sailor Republica on November 3, 2005 12:16 AMI agree: the local papers/news stations WILL NOT lift one keystroke of protest nor exert one ounce of effort in investigating this overt corruption and influence-peddling by Sims & Co.
This is just one reason (out of THOUSANDS) why David Irons needs to replace Sims as King Co. Executive next tuesday!
Posted by: PromptJock on November 3, 2005 12:26 AMYeah, yeah, I know. I'm just saying, you know this is what they're gonna say.
Now, if a permit has actually been issued, that's some quo for the quid, and if it can be demonstrated that a permit would not normally be issued for such a project, that's something to go on.
If a permit has not yet been issued, those with a financial interest in the track might wake up, smell the coffee, and figure that given this public exposure, no permit ain't never gonna be issued, and the best they can do to express their gratitude for being jerked around and squeezed for cash is to offer up evidence and testimony to help the prosecution.
PromptJock is right: the problem is Sims, and the solution is Irons. Think of voting on Tuesday in the same way that Mel Gibson's character in We Were Soldiers thought of his role on the battlefield: first one to step on, last one to step off, with no one left behind. Make sure all of your friends turn out, because this one will be decided by turnout. Those who hate Sims hate him far more passionately than those who like him like him, and that gives us an edge in turnout, but remember, we have to win by 50% + 20,000 votes. So nag your friends, and make sure you don't leave them on the battlefield.
Posted by: TB on November 3, 2005 12:57 AMI actually feel sorry for the guy, in a strange way. It's obvious that he really doesn't want to be King County Executive. ("But, YourGov, how can you say that? He's running for re-election). Well, we're talking about a guy who has run for "higher" offices and lost. Only a year ago he was running in the Democratic primary for Governor.
He does NOT want to be King County Executive - and I think we should help him out with that.
(As an aside, that would have been a major theme of my campaign, had I been running against him: "My opponent really doesn't want this job.")
Posted by: YourGovernorCostsMillion$ on November 3, 2005 03:28 AMI have no doubt this raceway story is true. It shows that if you grease the palms of the corrupt Sims with campaign contributions, your permit troubles will go away.
It also is just one more reason to make sure we VOTE THIS GUY OUT OF OFFICE!!!! Enough of the corruption. It's time for a change.
There is the old saying "he who has the gold makes the rules".
Thank goodness for blogs so some of this stuff can get out there.
I have several incidents like the above in another county up north.
Posted by: baffles on November 3, 2005 07:26 AMKeep it going shark and you all keep tellin' yer friends what you're dunn readin' hear and we'll git them there Irons guy in that there office. I knows we are not so smart as that Trayhanta Peeeye guy and Farmcherner guy or what ever at the Timez but we knows when we been being had just a little to much. Right Sam Reed?
Posted by: Col. Hogan on November 3, 2005 07:41 AMImagine what might be happening in Olympia if Sims were extorting money out of businesses.
Actually, I wonder what Chris G and her party machine are up to..................
Posted by: bob on November 3, 2005 07:41 AMThis is just extortion.
Posted by: H Moul on November 3, 2005 08:04 AMSymphony is the "Basis" of a "Clueless" Mentality
Empathy will provide solutions
EMPATHY combined with Personal Responsibility is a SOLUTION.
· SMPATHY is just a depletion of our full plate of taxes
"Narrow is the Gate!"
Posted by: GregM on November 3, 2005 09:00 AMIS RANDY GOINS RELATED TO PIERCE COUNTY COUNCIL MEMBER & NEXT IN LINE TO BE COUNTY EXC.OF PIERCE COUNTY BY THE POWERS TO BE C.GOINS?
Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on November 3, 2005 09:17 AMOur Democrat is Calvin GoinGs. So, unless there was some kind of drop of the "g" somewhere, I don't believe it is.
Posted by: Doug Taylor on November 3, 2005 09:56 AMAnybody care to lodge an ethics complaint?
Posted by: AUssie Rob on November 3, 2005 10:02 AMNow that being said, I think Ron Sims still owes Stephan a day in his office with Dean Logan and a few computers.
Posted by: holt on November 3, 2005 04:17 PMDavid Ratte Engineer II david.ratte@metrokc.gov
Council Member is hammond,steve steve.hammond@metrokc.gov
Who is the campaign staffer that suggested this? Or was it an anonymous call? There is a credibility issues with this item.
Posted by: holt on November 3, 2005 04:34 PMMAYBE RON SIMMS IS JUST TAKING A PAGE OUT OF THE JESSIECRAT HANDBOOK?
Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on November 3, 2005 04:37 PMAlso, do you think referring to a black man as a chimp might not be the best thing for your credibility?
Posted by: noodles on November 4, 2005 12:10 AMIf you want to ignore the e-mail, you can't ignore the official KingCo records of the permit applications/approval and the official PDC records of donation dates, amounts and donors. The permit is first requested in March. The County appears to drag their heels for months. A number of donations from track-related folks are recorded on 10/6 and then, suddenly, on 10/20 the project gets approval. The Sorrento Hotel *might* even confirm whether or not the 10/5 fundraising event was held, but a major newspaper could probably get it.
The only thing you don't have is the smoking gun of Sims or one of his staffers making or accepting the offer. However, where there is smoke there's usually fire and the timing couldn't be more suspicious.
Posted by: Mark on November 4, 2005 01:44 AMThat's a surface water adjustment variance approval permit. The "L__V___" tells you that its a request for a Variance from either King County's Road Standards or -- based upon the information at the DDES website, in this case, the Surface Water Design Manual -- to be supported by a rational technical argument by the applicant's design engineer. Typically one of several permits required from development proposal (often includes, an "SR" number for the engineering plans for construction work, or an "SI" for the inspection of the construction as it appears that the KC inspector employee might later do), but not an underlying project approval, associated with a request from an applicant to develop the property. Most typically associated with a request to combine on-site existing sub-basins so that a developer can build one correspondingly larger stormwater storage and treatment facility (which reduces the construction and, later, maintenance) rather than multiple, smaller storage and treatment facilities around a site.
With subdivisions, for example, SWM Variances (and Road -- design Variances) have to get through the process and be reviewed and approved by a group (at DDES for the Drainage Variances, and the DOT County Road Engineer's office) doing work independant review of the remainder of the underlying permit review staff (for subdivisions, for example, the subdivision application would have an associated "L__S___" or "L__P___" for short plats or 'full' subdivisions, permit) before the project is sent to the County's Hearing Examiner (a member of Council, not County Executive, staff -- and Mike C's 'hero') for consideration of preliminary approval with any conditions of permit approval (payment of school district fees, construction of road improvements in the public right-of-way that will necessitate review and approval of engineering plans by the applicant's consultant, of on-site recreation spaces, mitigation fees paid with the later home building permits, etc...) in an open public hearing.
Now, I can't comment on the use of the @metrokc.gov email (from a Building Services Division employee who wouldn't be involved in the underlying permit approval or environmental review process -- he's not in the correct Division of KCDDES... so, unless you want to go really paranoid and wonder who was on the "bcc:" list in the email...), or,
...the underlying assertion as to whether the Sims' campaign staff tried to twist an arm for a donation. I wasn't there. You weren't there. And until some corroborating evidence comes in -- like for Scooter Libby or Tom DeLay --it is an allegation. It's an intriguing allegation, and worthy of the Shark's time, but, going too paranoid (like John C's allegation last night during the 5:30 period) simply makes us look like the right-wing version of moonbats.
Of course, you are free to turn to the model that the LLL's use.
Posted by: TF on November 4, 2005 04:32 AMsims (IMNSHO) isn't a criminal, nor is he stupid. He's just not terribly bright. I've never seen evidence of a significant sense of ethics in sims, and if he hasn't gotten one by now, he isn't likely to "grow one" anytime soon.
sims is a partisan hack. Toilet-drinkers willingly lap from the same bowl because it is in their own deluded self-interest. There are an awful lot of folks who should be incensed at the mere notion of this sort of impropriety, but instead defend it because it involved one of "their team".
Like me, they don't doubt for a moment that sims's guys are actively shaking people down - unlike me, they're OK with it.
It's a shame....
Posted by: alphabet soup on November 4, 2005 09:06 AMIf someone other than I had taken a look, they would have seen that the underlying permit, the "L__CG___" permit number, is still waiting for customer information (RET/WCI) and hasn't been approved.
If these claims are true, which seems unlikely to me, where are the confirmations from some of the many, many people whose email addresses appear on that list? It's absurd for Sharkansky to expect people outside this peanut gallery to take his word that he's "confirmed" such an explosive and improbable story.
Posted by: noodles on November 4, 2005 08:01 PMWho "fabricated" it numb nuts?
Are you actually stupid enough to believe that?
According to one of my reference books, the average weight/cubic foot of granitic material is around 160 pounds.
1.2 million tons*2000 pounds/ton divided by 160 pounds/cubic foot.
That's 15,000,000 cubic feet of material. Or, about 550,000 cubic yards of material.
A standard dump truck and 'pup' might carry 18-20 cubic yards (or that's about 78,000 to 86,500 pounds per load), so that's between 28,000 and 31,000 trucks -- each one making one trip in and one trip out. So, 56,000 to 62,000 truck-trips -- half of them empties running in, half, fully-loaded running out.
I wonder how the people who live across from this operation might feel?
Posted by: TF on November 5, 2005 01:12 PMnoodle is confused. he thinks conservatives are like liberals.
Fabricating documents is for liberal losers like Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Dan Rather.
Covering up fraud and peddling influence is for all of them as well as Ron Sims.