WA State takes ethics seriously - does Spokane?
POSTED 19 June 2023
There is an old adage among lawyers that says, "If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table."
The Spokane City Council majority appears to have added to the adage. If pounding the table doesn’t work - claim conspiracy.
When asked on June 4, 2023 by KHQ about a recently-filed ethics complaint involving his actions during the City’s redistricting process, Spokane Council Member Zack Zappone responded, "Like any ethics investigation, we need to go through the process," Zappone wrote in a statement. "It would be premature to speak on this before the commission reviews the complaint. I will be open to conversation at the conclusion of the review."
Just 4 days later the Inlander published, “Zappone thinks Muller's push isn't a coincidence. "It seems like a coordinated effort to try to drag me through the mud," Zappone says.
It would be interesting to know if Zappone believes that all ethics investigations are a coordinated conspiracy, or just the allegations he is facing.
In the past three years (2020-2022) the Washington State Executive Ethics Board settled 72 cases resulting in over $235,000 in civil penalties to be paid by state employees for ethics violations. The average penalty was over $3,000 with the lowest being $150 and the highest over $33,000. State employees agreed to stipulations and orders, taking responsibility for unethical actions.
State employees stipulated (agreed) that they may have violated sections of state Ethics in Public Service laws (RCW 42.52), involving utilizing state resources for private benefit or gain, special privilege, and other activities incompatible with official duties.
The largest penalty involved a former director of a clinic within the University of Washington School of Dentistry who took responsibility for performing outside services using state facilities without turning payments over to the school.
Other cases involved inappropriate hotel upgrades, submitting for jury duty reimbursement while not attending jury duty, and a state patrol trooper participating in a political advertisement. Most of the cases involved the use of state technologies, computers and phones, for private use.
State employees caught with their hands in the cookie jar do not appear to have invoked the conspiracy theory defense. To mix metaphors, they took their medicine and moved on with their lives.
This is much different from what we’ve seen from Spokane’s “progressive” politicians and appointees who have or are currently facing ethics complaints.
In 2019 Council Member Karen Stratton who would be found guilty by the Spokane Ethics Commission of three violations, began her defense in the press stating, “I just can’t believe that this would be an ethics complaint. David Condon, Andy Rathbun and Jim Hedemark will do whatever they can to make this hard for me. Period.”
Kara Odegard, the former Spokane City Council director of sustainability initiatives resigned from her position during an ethics proceeding before its conclusion. She didn’t face the music, but after safely free from the ethics commission jurisdiction wrote a letter to the City which was covered in the Spokesman-Review on January 18 of this year, “She argues that not only were some allegations incorrect, others were not under the jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission, and that the commissioners did not seem to understand this. She added that the commission made arbitrary and inconsistent decisions that further disadvantaged her.”
Council President Breean Beggs weighed in on the Odegard case, having recently concluded his own ethics investigation was quoted in the Spokesman-Review article referenced immediately above, “In an interview, Beggs said he was sympathetic with Odegard’s complaints and expressed interest in reforming the ethics complaint process.”
Spokane ethics complaints that will be initially heard in July include:
Zack Zappone Spokane City Council Member
Betsy Wilkerson Spokane City Council Member, CANDIDATE FOR Spokane City Council President
Jeff Gunn Legislative Aide to Zack Zappone
Andrew Mark Carlos Legislative Aide to Betsy Wilkerson