{"id":150980,"date":"2010-01-12T14:05:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T19:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010737005_outgoingpoliticians.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-01-12T14:05:44","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T19:05:44","slug":"outgoing-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/150980","title":{"rendered":"Outgoing politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nickels\u2019 swan song<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

Your recent article provided much insight into why Mayor Greg Nickels did not win re-election [\u201cOutgoing Mayor Greg Nickels leaves stamp on Seattle,\u201d News, Jan. 1].<\/p>\n

However, it did not mention the No. 1 reason why he lost: The handling of the monorail. Had he saved the monorail \u2014 or even a scaled-down version of the monorail, which he could have easily done \u2014 then he would not have faced meaningful opposition from the left.<\/p>\n

The Stranger would have supported his re-election \u2014 along with more moderate publications, such as The Seattle Times. He would have easily advanced from the primary and even more easily have beaten whatever candidate advanced with him.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ross Bleakney, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n

Dodd\u2019s retirement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sen. Chris Dodd\u2019s signal that he\u2019s not going to seek re-election should be an ominous storm cloud on the horizon for the Democrats [\u201c2 Dems might leave Senate: Dodd may announce today,\u201d News, Jan. 6]. He knows in his heart he\u2019d get slaughtered \u2014 even with his ability to raise money from the banking lobby because of how he\u2019s wasted our children\u2019s inheritance. There\u2019s anger on the stump for liberals.<\/p>\n

His support for the health-care bill, his lax oversight of the banking industry and his character clearly seen going back to an event with Ted Kennedy in a restaurant in New York \u2014 Maureen Dowd was the only one who couldn\u2019t stand the cover-up at the time \u2014 show that the good people from Connecticut are due for a new approach.<\/p>\n

Are the people of that fair state really as left as Dodd? I doubt it. Connecticut, do what\u2019s right and unexpected: Field and elect a conservative.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Wayne Mayo, Scappoose, Ore.<\/em><\/p>\n

Recipient of abuse<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Craig Ladiser\u2019s professional career ended in disgrace after he exposed himself on a Redmond golf course in June of 2009 [\u201cTrail of harassment alleged,\u201d NWWednesday, Jan. 6], he left the Snohomish County Building and Planning Department in disarray, broken and in pieces. What happened at the golf course was not an aberration, but an extension of Ladiser\u2019s and Greg Morgan\u2019s abuse of power and their lack of integrity, moral fiber and ethics.<\/p>\n

My own complaint for harassment and bullying was also brought before Morgan and never answered or followed up in any manner. I did not go to Mark Knudsen, the county investigator, because I felt it was futile and useless. When I announced last February that I would leave the county rather than work \u201cfor bullies and widget kings,\u201d I was retaliated against and given a formal written reprimand.<\/p>\n

Many people in positions of power, including the County Council, knew of the grievances and concerns regarding Ladiser and Morgan, but continued their support for them. Even when Morgan left in May and Ladiser was fired in August and the bullying and harassment against me abruptly stopped, the people and cronies Ladiser had put into positions of power and authority remained completely intact in their \u201cgood ol\u2019 boys network.\u201d After more than 31 years and many hard-fought battles, I left the county last October.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Carol Richter, Lake Stevens<\/em><\/p>\n

Department follows rule of the jungle<\/strong><\/p>\n

One should not heap more misery on a disgraced public official, but the latest revelations in the sorry saga of Craig Ladiser are only further evidence of the abuses in the Snohomish County executive branch and its planning and development services department when operating without proper oversight.<\/p>\n

Those of us who have watched with dismay the outrageous public-policy decisions of that office are only further saddened to see that personal indiscretions were also tolerated. The county executive has for years encouraged the disregard of sound public policy set out by the Legislature, his County Council and its hearing examiner, and has been in favor of wealthy developers.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope that the new director of that beleaguered department can convince the executive that following the rule of law is preferable to the rule of the jungle.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tim Clancy, Stanwood<\/em><\/p>\n

Human resources should aim for zero complaints<\/strong><\/p>\n

After reading \u201cTrail of harassment alleged,\u201d I was amazed by the unprofessional and inappropriate behavior by certain managers and supervisors, as well as the seemingly general dismissal of the complaints made by employees by the Human Resources Department because there were too few to merit looking into further. Mind you, these complaints and concerns date back to 2004, according to the article.<\/p>\n

I would think that HR would want to aim for zero complaints from employees regarding sexual harassment, derogatory remarks and what seems to me to be a hostile workplace environment propagated by the supervisors and managers of the Planning Department. Five out of 200 complaints are still too many. Do they really think that two hours of personnel training on state workplace-discrimination laws is going to do the trick?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Melissa Johnson, Edmonds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nickels\u2019 swan song Editor, The Times: Your recent article provided much insight into why Mayor Greg Nickels did not win re-election [\u201cOutgoing Mayor Greg Nickels leaves stamp on Seattle,\u201d News, Jan. 1]. However, it did not mention the No. 1 reason why he lost: The handling of the monorail. Had he saved the monorail \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}