A federal jury has found for the King County transportation planners who blew the whistle on Ron Sims' falsified traffic studies:
King County transportation officials retaliated against traffic planners Ho-Chuan Chen and Hossein Barahimi after they challenged a traffic analysis used to approve a large housing development east of Redmond, a federal jury has ruled.King County was dismissed as a defendant. However, the two county managers who were found to have retaliated against Chen and Barahimi, Linda Dougherty and Jennifer Lindwall, still hold senior county management positions, and the county spent millions of dollars on their defense.
That's exactly the sort of "aggressive reforms of government, and ... willingness to make the tough choices necessary to ensure that American tax dollars are spent wisely" that the nation needs at HUD!
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 11, 2009 12:37 PM | Email ThisFor their courage, Chen and Barahimi were prohibited by US District Judge Marcia Pechman from bringing their allegations of wrongdoing and lawbreaking they'd witnessed into the trial. Outside witnesses to the details of the Redmond Ridge East analysis weren't even questioned about the reasons for the retaliation. What impact did that have on the pitiful awards recommended by the jury that will barely cover their legal expenses? And why did Pechman refuse to let the two of them pursue punitive damages for the retaliation committed against them by Dougherty and Lindwall, that cost both men the positions they held and years of being treated like they had done something wrong?
Is it a coincidence that Pechman, while on the Superior Court in King County in 1997, presided over the very first lawsuit brought against the county over Redmond Ridge? She not only ruled with the county and refused to explain why back then why, but had the distinction of having that ruling overturned by the State Supreme Court in 2000 - far too late for it to matter since construction of Redmond Ridge was already well under way.
Now that they've been ruled to have retaliated improperly against Chen and Barahimi, will Dougherty or Lindwall pay any consequences for punishing Chen and Barahim for not going along with Sims' efforts to "cook the books" again for another Quadrant development? Will they be fired for destroying the careers of two honest public servants who actually have some integrity?
Will Dougherty and Lindwall be required to pay even a portion of the millions of taxpayer dollars spent by King County to defend them with multiple private legal firms? Money that dwarfs the awards made by the jury to the plaintiffs.
Will the Seattle Times, that rushed this story into print in less than 24 hours, return to the apathy they've demonstrated over the years while this corruption has gone un-investigated, or will they go to bat for these men and see that the whole story of their retaliation ends with more than a few bucks and a couple paragraphs one day in the newspaper? This ruling is just the very tip of a story of grotesque and totally corrupt actions by King County that have gone on for years and years, leaving the taxpayers holding the bag for hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded infrastructure costs. Sims and his political machine are no doubt hoping that this whole sordid affair will now just die out with another couple million of our dollars paid out in legal fees and awards to these men. Is he right?
I know the answers to all the above questions, just as I know that Dougherty and Lindwall are where they are precisely because they did the job Sims expects of them. The goal was achieved! Get Redmond Ridge East approved even though the county couldn't possibly justify it and the road analysis could never support it. Job well done.
And so it costs the taxpayers a few more million dollars to defend the wrongdoing and pay out some court awards? So what? That's nothing compared to the hundreds of millions our government has made the taxpayers liable for to subsidize growth, while the scoundrels reap the political rewards for helping their friends in the development community.
I just wish Chen and Barahimi could tell there story. That is what they wanted from the beginning of this nightmare for them when they tried desperately to expose the wrongdoing they were witnessing. But I also know that there are certain stories that King County and the local press just aren't interested in telling.
Posted by: Is it over? on April 11, 2009 05:04 PMWell, is the Hearing Examiner the crowned royalty of King County? No, he's got no dictatorial powers, no superior morals and is no smarter than anyone else. His job is to examine and give his opinion to the Council. He did that.
Counselling is not commandment. The Council duly considered his opinion, then voted as the law requires. It's a form of democracy.
Those who hate developments and the people who hope to have happy homes in them, and Redmond Ridge East in particular, can all seize on that opinion as the tablets brought down by Moses from the mountain. It aint them. If you want developments vetoed, elect a new Council.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on April 11, 2009 05:56 PMIt took citizens nearly a decade to learn how the county and developers work together to manipulate the system, and only after that education did citizens on their own dime prove to a county-paid hearing examiner, a guy with a record of rubber-stamping development, that the fraud could not be ignored or overlooked.
But you're correct, if we can't elect council members, judges, governors, or presidents with any integrity, then none of it matters. And that is why all the citizens out there that tried to fight the corruption for us have surrendered and scum like Ron Sims can get promoted to DC. We can't win when uninformed voters elect people to office that will sell their vote for campaign support and then those people jump to conclusions that we're all NIMBYs and had no basis for opposing corruption in this county government.
When your property taxes go up, and you kids get forced into crowded classrooms because your government is subsidizing developer profits with your taxes, or using them to defend their wrongdoing in court, you have no one to cry to but yourself.
The only member of the King County Council who voted against Redmond Ridge East was the elected council member from the district where Redmond Ridge East is. And there has not been a single capacity-improving road project since Redmond Ridge was approved. In fact, road capacities have decreased since the early 1990s, with no money now to fund the huge road projects necessary to fix the mess.
As development goes in King County, it was the same old story, with the Seattle members not caring and the other rural representatives bought and paid for by the developers.
But no worries. No one is left fighting for the uniformed sheeple of the county now, so you can feel certain that if a developer wants to run a sewer line through your backyard, or condemn your land for an access road, that there will be no one there to help you fight it.
Posted by: Is it over? on April 11, 2009 10:31 PMWas that 'uniformed', or uninformed sheeple? The world wants to know.
And please, show me a developer with condemnation powers. You appear to have plenty of knowlege, so let's have examples, locations, dates.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on April 11, 2009 10:55 PMInsufficiently Sensitive: The Sims era is laden with this type of behavior. He appoints management that will follow his decisions without question and without concern.
I posed you a concise question. You didn't address it, just spouted more unrelated verbiage. As a troll you're a success, as an informant you're disregardable. Over and out.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on April 12, 2009 12:10 PMFirst, @8 was not me.
Second, your lack of awareness is not a burden that I'm responsible to correct. The Seattle Times has over a decade of coverage of land use abuses by King County and other local governments. So instead of spouting uninformed opinions on issues based solely on your sense that growth is good, why not read up a bit on the age of unrestrained growth in King County, and learn a little before you jump in as defender of the corruption that has been proven and reported for years?
Oh, and as for condemnation powers, any developer has them that has bought a local government.
Posted by: Is it over? on April 13, 2009 09:13 AMSonny Bono.
Posted by: scott on April 14, 2009 09:34 AMDo you think Sims, Dougherty and the cabal in DOT should be personally responsible for the damages that their actions have had on road infrastructure and safety?
Where is a real law enforcement investigation of this corruption?
This cyclist could have gone to jury trial too like the whistleblowers. Then again, they may have gotten Pechman or some equally government-defending judge and then they probably would ahve been prohibited from introducing the factors related to why Novelty Hill Road is so dangerous.
Posted by: Is it over? on April 15, 2009 03:32 PM