1. With new KING 5 polling out now, my “Mike McGinn wins it” prediction yesterday morning doesn’t look so off base, does it?
Moreover, before the polling came out, another local news editor shot me an email saying he agreed with me: “McGinn 51/Mallahan 49.”
He had some other specific predictions too. He wrote:
Exec: Dow 52-Hutch 48.
R-71 is approved 53-47.
I-1033 is rejected 55-45.
2. A campaign nerd must: The geekiest election night party this year is at Twist Lounge (2313 1st Ave) where local campaign wonks, including PubliCola’s own Erica C. Barnett, have been asked to critique this season’s avalanche of candidate mail pieces. Find out, according to the experts, which pieces rocked and which pieces flopped.
Watch returns and tune in the lit crit starting at 5:30.
The event is being hosted by the serious election season geeks from the Muni League, The Washington Bus, The Alki Foundation, Seattle Works, and yes, PubliCola.
3. Last week, as Erica reported here, the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission filed a complaint against a pro-Joe Mallahan PAC, Working for Progress, for failing to report $100,000 worth of deposits in a timely manner.
It turns out, the same folks behind that PAC—treasurer Kenny Stuart of the firefighters union along with the Washington Association of Realtors—are also behind a PAC called the Coalition for Progress, which failed to report an October 8 deposit of $10,000 in a timely manner for nearly 80,000 robo-calls on behalf of city council candidate Jessie Israel who’s running against lefty Nick Licata.
4. In our previous post about a female county staffer’s report on supposed inappropriate behavior by King County Council Member (and County Executive candidate) Dow Constantine, we wrote:
People who are excited about the prospect of seeing the document and getting a blockbuster story could be disappointed.
Yep, the notes of Jane Doe’s report to a county administrator were made public yesterday; Constantine sounds boorish , but there’s not much of a story.
The notes are here. Read them for yourself.
The gist is this: Jane Doe says Constantine flirted with her at a going away party for a Constantine staffer about a year and a half ago at a bar. The flirting—he told her she was attractive, bought her drinks, and they shared food—took place as they talked about: Her current job as a staffer in an office that works with Constantine’s office; a job as a county analyst that one of Constantine’s committees oversees—that she’d applied for, but didn’t get; and a job in Constantine’s office (although Jane Doe makes it clear it was “just a discussion—he did not offer her the position. She never heard anything else about working for him.”)
The next day, Jane Doe felt “uncomfortable” about the conversation and felt it had been “inappropriate.”
A few weeks later, according to Jane Doe’s report, Constantine told her she “looked good in a red — never seen her in red before” and “she felt these incidents crossed the boundaries.”
But Jane Doe also told the administrator “she did not feel her employment was impacted” and she thought the “process for the analyst selection was professional” and “did not feel this impacted her regarding not getting analyst position.” She also said all of this had “no relationship with her current position.”
The report concluded that the matter did “not rise to the level of an investigation—does not need an action plan or review…”
In a press statement issued late yesterday from Jane Doe and her attorney, Jane Doe explains that she didn’t even meet with the administrator until a year after the incident.
“I didn’t feel like it was anything worth reporting or filing a complaint about, but about a year later, I was talking to a supervisor about council relations and I mentioned the conversation. King County policy requires supervisors to contact the Council Administrator about anything that could conceivably be harassment, so the supervisor reported the incident. I cooperated with the Council Administrator because I felt it was my obligation toward maintaining a professional workplace, but I was clear at the time that I didn’t think the conversation caused any harm or required any further action.”
And she adds: “Dow and I have discussed this since it’s come out, and he expressed that he was sorry if anything in our conversation made me uncomfortable. I appreciate that we continue to be on good terms and expressed regret that the incident was made public and blown out of proportion.”
This morning’s Morning Fizz is brought to you by Friends of Seattle.
