Earlier today, Goldy discussed the race for Seattle City Attorney and incumbent Tom Carr’s attempts to misrepresent his opponent’s qualifications for the office. Pete Holmes initially became Carr’s opponent in this race after he became so infuriated by his attempts to deal with him from his position as the attorney on the citizen’s police oversight board that he decided to challenge him. Here’s the latest polling on the race:
The results show a nearly 3:1 lead for Tom Carr, but 70% of the electorate remains undecided. Women and voters 35-49 both have an undecided count over 70%. It’s over 80% for Republicans. Of decided voters, Carr still maintains a margin of nearly 4:1 amongst respondents 50-64 and over 4:1 with those 65 and older.
The vast majority of voters just aren’t paying attention to this race. But they should be. Tom Carr has been the City Attorney for Seattle for the past eight years and has repeatedly shown himself to be overzealous in pursuit of nanny state crusades and completely out of touch with the voters of the city. Dominic Holden recently provided a recap of his horrendous track record:
– Tom Carr fought against I-75, the initiative to make marijuana law enforcement the lowest priority of Seattle Police.
– Since the passage of I-75, Carr has actually prosecuted a higher percentage of the pot cases referred to his office.
– After a citywide sweep called Operation Sobering Thought, Carr tried to send 27 bar employees to jail for up to a year for various offenses such as serving minors (none of them were successfully prosecuted).
– Carr used city resources to unsuccessfully appeal – all the way up to federal court – a free speech case against a balloon artist who claimed he didn’t need a permit to do his thing at Seattle Center, and has threatened to waste even more money appealing it to the Supreme Court.
– He aggressively impounded the cars of people with unpaid parking tickets until the state Supreme Court ruled that he was breaking the law. The fiasco later cost the city $1.3 million in a class-action lawsuit.
– He once briefly attempted to threaten several Seattle Times reporters with jail time if they didn’t reveal their confidential sources.
As Dominic mentioned, the office of City Attorney in most other places is not an elected official. While it feels nice to have direct influence over the person who does this job, what tends to happen instead is that political creatures like Carr can hold onto an office because voters tend to have too little bandwidth to follow these smaller races. But this one’s too important for that now, and Seattle really can’t afford another four years of this.
Carr believes that he should continue to prosecute marijuana possession cases despite a 2003 voter-passed initiative that made marijuana possession the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority. – This should disqualify him with Lee.
It’s amazing what Puddy reads these dayz.
He will certainly get impounded if he keeps following Laws!
…get it?
It’s almost enough to make one miss Mark Sidran.
Notice I said almost.
@2
Thanks for adding a little more cheese on top of my cheesy title. :)
The poll is crap. They tacked it on the end of a Mayor poll for the primary. This race isn’t on the ballot at all until november, so why did they ask primary votes (i.e. well-informed near-perfect voters) what they think? Probably even more undecideds among November voters.
I admire the guy. What’s wrong with trying to punish dirtbags? And yeah, people who don’t pay parking tickets are dirtbags. I would put them in prison.
Lee:
It’s bad enough to misunderstand the role of the City Attorney so entirely; it’s even worse when you have to cite Dominic Holden. I’m very disappointed in this post.
The City Attorney has to uphold the laws as they are written. “Out of touch with the voters of the city” doesn’t mean dick diddly shit. If anything, you should be praising Tom for not blowing with the political winds, and supporting him for having integrity — which he has in spades.
You, and Goldy, and Erica, and Josh, and Dominic, are all piling on Tom, apparently just to see if you can take him out, when there is no evidence that Holmes would do anything any differently, because — wait for it — he would be required to uphold the law — even an unpoopular law! What a concept! The lot of you disgust me sometimes.
This just goes to show that self-described “progressives,” whatever the hell that means anymore, are just as susceptible to herd mentality and lynch-mob mentality as the worst Rush/O’Reilly/Beck dittoheads are. I hope Tom shoves it right back up all your asses this November.
Who is the Ivan person? Talk about hyperbole and light on facts? Pshaw!
@7
The City Attorney has to uphold the laws as they are written.
Exactly, and there are specific examples above where Carr’s inability to understand the laws as they are written has cost the City of Seattle money.
“Out of touch with the voters of the city” doesn’t mean dick diddly shit.
Of course it matters. It matters because of prioritization. And it will especially matter if we get to a point where we’re forced by budgetary constraints to have to decide which laws are more important to lock people up for.
If anything, you should be praising Tom for not blowing with the political winds, and supporting him for having integrity — which he has in spades.
You’re confusing integrity with zealousness. A lot of people make that mistake in politics.
You, and Goldy, and Erica, and Josh, and Dominic, are all piling on Tom, apparently just to see if you can take him out, when there is no evidence that Holmes would do anything any differently, because — wait for it — he would be required to uphold the law — even an unpoopular law!
C’mon Ivan, you know that’s an absurd oversimplification. The City Attorney has a significant amount of leeway over what to focus on and how to use the power of office, all fitting within existing laws. For each of the six items above, it’s very easy to imagine a different City Attorney doing things differently, yet still within the law.
The lot of you disgust me sometimes.
Please stop digging. You’re smarter than this.
This just goes to show that self-described “progressives,” whatever the hell that means anymore, are just as susceptible to herd mentality and lynch-mob mentality as the worst Rush/O’Reilly/Beck dittoheads are.
Oh, the irony.
Lee and Goldy know who I am. Is it a fact, or is it not, that the City Attorney must apply the law as it is written?
Sorry, Lee, this won’t work. Neither Holmes nor his supporters have made the case that Holmes is a better fit for the job than the incumbent. When the pot laws get more liberalized, Tom will apply them evenhandedly.
@10
Is it a fact, or is it not, that the City Attorney must apply the law as it is written?
Yes, and it’s also a fact that Tom Carr has not done that. In several of the cases above, he has applied the law as he wished it were written and he’s cost the city of Seattle significantly in court costs.
When the pot laws get more liberalized, Tom will apply them evenhandedly.
But I’ve already pointed out above that the opposite has happened. As the pot laws have gotten more liberalized, Tom has been trying to prosecute a higher percentage of them.
Again, stop digging.
You’re the one who’s digging, Lee, and the lot of you are. You don’t replace something with nothing. There’s no evidence that Holmes is better for the job, just as there’s no evidence that the gang of clowns running against Nickels would make better mayors.
You got nothing, so you’re accusing me of digging. Been there, seen that.
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
Wow! I guess the four and half people voting for Holmes including his pathetic campaign manager Jon, who doesn’t understand the public disclosure act/laws, are the only ones supporting him from this blog. Let’s see we have Dominic Holden, a self-confessed dope-smoking fiend and therefore a law-breaker by definition of current laws, Erica Barnett a shop-lifter recently prosecuted but let off with community service (talk about irony, Carr should have put her ass in jail) all trying to discredit Carr. Quite sad really! Get a life you people!
If you’re not worried why are you posting this ?
It is a matter of priorities. Why make people in mental health court plead guilty to get help? It makes NO sense to sentance the mentally ill to 6 months for stealing a can of tuna.
Carr imposes heavier sentances in Seattle courts and they have in District courts for the same crime.
It’s about using our prosecutorial discretion in a way that makes sense.
Misdemeanor prosecutions are expensive. 60K PLUS the “after arrest” programs of up to 15K.
Prosecutions have gone UP sense initiative 75. Arrests are down but we continue with this draconian prosecution.
Why?
ivan, that “apply the law as written” approach is very puddybud and tres Antonin Scalia. Let’s review the evidence and apply your little rule as written, okay?
1. “Tom Carr fought against I-75, the initiative to make marijuana law enforcement the lowest priority of Seattle Police.”
There was no law requiring him to be a total hypocrit (someone who smoked pot before, who now is in favor of putting people away for pot). This was a policiy decision he made, there’s no written law saying he has to take any position on initiatives.
FAIL no. 1.
2. “Since the passage of I-75, Carr has actually prosecuted a higher percentage of the pot cases referred to his office.”
Wow, violating the written law of that initiative. And no, there’s no written law saying prosecute every case you are supposed to use discretion.
FAIL no. 2.
3.”After a citywide sweep called Operation Sobering Thought, Carr tried to send 27 bar employees to jail for up to a year for various offenses such as serving minors (none of them were successfully prosecuted).”
Well FAIL no. 3. 27 prosecution failures. Sucks. He didn’t follow the written law that says get some damn evidence before you prosecute.
4. “Carr used city resources to unsuccessfully appeal – all the way up to federal court – a free speech case against a balloon artist who claimed he didn’t need a permit to do his thing at Seattle Center, and has threatened to waste even more money appealing it to the Supreme Court.”
Tom Carr is supposed to follow that written law called the US constitution, he violated it, FAIL no. 4, ivan.
5. “He aggressively impounded the cars of people with unpaid parking tickets until the state Supreme Court ruled that he was breaking the law. The fiasco later cost the city $1.3 million in a class-action lawsuit.”
Wow, he failed to follow the law again ivan. That’s a pretty piss poor city attorney. And he cost the city over a million bucks. FAIL class action style — that means lots of FAIL.
6. “He once briefly attempted to threaten several Seattle Times reporters with jail time if they didn’t reveal their confidential sources.”
Again, he is supposed to apply the US constitution as written, not violate it.
FAIL again, ivan.
So in sum, FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL.
Maybe he can get a new job with SDOT.
@ 17:
Dominic, is that you?
Carr was tough on boozers and stoners and parking scofflaws, and you think that’s going to get him unseated — or that it should?
Here’s what I’ll do for you, pal. I’ll make sure Tom sees this — and that he goes out and RUNS on it — and come November, when he wins re-election, you’ll find out who’s the FAIL!
ivan–
The pot-smokin’ morons at HA don’t appreciate a good man when they see one, do they?
Reasoning with these STONERS like Lee is like a cat playin’ with a mouse.
How is Texas tonight y’all??
And most importantly, how is your health?
Be good ivan.
@18
Carr was tough on boozers and stoners and parking scofflaws, and you think that’s going to get him unseated — or that it should?
It certainly should. The City Attorney should be concerned about real criminals, not people who like to drink or smoke pot.
Here’s what I’ll do for you, pal. I’ll make sure Tom sees this — and that he goes out and RUNS on it — and come November, when he wins re-election, you’ll find out who’s the FAIL!
Please do. Please have Tom talk as much as possible about how he thinks it’s important to arrest pot smokers and how proud he is of his attempts to throw bar employees in jail. The only thing saving Carr in this race is that far too few people pay attention to races like this. Your smartest move is to keep it that way.
So, I didn’t care about this race at all until a couple days ago.
It started when the Carr campaign said Holmes was unqualified to be on the ballot. I thought that’s a pretty serious charge to make. And if true, one that should get a candidate thrown off the ballot.
So, I looked into the claim. What I found was the person they said the reason Holmes wasn’t qualified to be City Attorney is because he was Chair of the Office of Professional Accountability Review Board (and attorney member of the board). Upon searching the Washington bar, I found that Peter Holmes has been a member since 1986. I even found out he got his undergraduate from Yale and J.D. from the University of Virginia.
The City Charter requires that the City Attorney be a practicing attorney in good standing. The state definition of practicing attorney clearly including duties like the ones he had at OPARB. This attack on Holmes is a clear dirty trick of the Carr campaign.
Dirty tricks from the person who is supposed to enforce the City’s laws. Really?
I don’t like character assassination. And with polling coming out that said Carr was in a pretty good position to win re-election (winning by a 3:1 margin), it was a horrible move by the Carr campaign. I mean, a desperate play by a politician in commanding position of a race. It really doesn’t make any sense.
It’s likely a move that will make voters re-evaluate their feelings towards him. People don’t like lies, particularly when they’re blatant.
To those who say Carr is doing a good job (mostly people outside of seattle from what i can tell…), it’s a question of priorities. My car has been broken into 3 times in the past year and a half. No cop has ever come to investigate. No prosecutions have taken place. Nobody even went and checked the pawn shops for me. Nothing.
But we have time to prosecute potheads, scofflaws and bartenders??? No. Not when we’re not doing enough to combat a rising gang problem in Seattle. Not when we don’t have the resources to even investigate theft and vandalism. Not when there are real crimes on the street that need to be addressed and scarce resources to actually do so.
Holmes is running a campaign based on transparency and accountability, public safety and sound legal council for the city. In a time of scarce resources but still concern about public safety, this is a breath of fresh air from the City Attorney’s office.
With the way Holmes has handled himself through his time at OPARB and through these Carr shenanigans, he’s earning my vote. He seems to be just the sort of City Attorney we need.
All:
Do join us for a debate on the City Attorneys race.
http://www.facebook.com/home.p.....038;ref=ts
Straight up, two hours, non-stop debate of real issues – unbiased, legal moderator to be announced (ideas?).
@ 21:
“He seems to be” means you are practicing faith-based politics. You have no evidence, and neither do I, that Holmes can or will give you what you want.
I have nothing personal against Peter Holmes. He comes across to me as a nice enough guy. Everything I post on this blog I have told Peter to his face. I have talked to him several times about this race. I have told him his supporters are making some pretty wild claims. I see evidence of that in this very thread.
He plainly and simply has not made the case that I should support him over Carr. You have no clue that he’d be effective, just hope that he might. “Seems to be” and “breath of fresh air” are statements of faith, and just aren’t rational arguments.
“I like this guy better” is all I’m seeing here. I got past that in student council elections in high school.
Demonstrate to me that OPARB service, laudable as it is, translates into an effective City Attorney. Go ahead, I dare you. I don’t need to say that he isn’t qualified because I don’t know that he isn’t. I don’t know that he is, either. But I know that Tom is.
As for “transparency and accountability, public safety and sound legal counsel for the city,” hell, anybody who runs for this position will promise that. So to me they’re just words.
Show me the *evidence.* There isn’t any. Hell, I like the guy myself, but that doesn’t make him necessarily the best person for the job. So I’m not buying what you guys are selling, and I’m supporting Tom Carr.
@23
Why do we support any challenger? By your logic, we should not support anyone other than an incumbent because we don’t have a demonstrated record of what they will do. Holmes is an accomplished, acclaimed lawyer who has demonstrated his commitment to accountability and transparent government, and has stuck by these principles, along with (finally) some sane approaches to nuisance crime enforcement. What else do you want him to do? It’s hard for him to prove his bona fides when you don’t particularly care to listen.
I don’t usually comment, but I’m sick of this. You speak of wild claims made by his supporters. At the 34th, you accused his campaign of running the dirtiest, sleaziest operation in politics, filled with push polls (entirely untrue – seriously, do you think he has the money to run push polls?). Consistently, you deem it fitting to perpetuate lies that he is ineligible for the office. Sounds like hypocrisy to me. Point to one lie/wild claim that has been made in this thread in favor of Holmes.
Ivan, have you ever supported a candidate outside the 34th district? I’d like to know, do you really get off that much from your neighbors getting elected to city government?
@ 24:
I support plenty of candidates from outside the 34th District, and plenty of challengers. So don’t tell me “by my logic.” I’m talking about this particular race. Sorry you’re “sick of this.”
And don’t put words in my mouth, either. I didn’t say “the dirtiest, sleaziest election in politics.” I was born and raised in Philadelphia PA. Politics there make anything in Seattle look like the Teddy Bears’ Picnic.
I said, and I repeat, that the sliming of Tom Carr, on these so-called “progressive” blogs and by his supporters, has been the dirtiest politics in this local campaign.
People here need to get their collective heads out of their collective asses and look around at other cities in other states. We have some of the cleanest politics and cleanest, best-run municipal governments in the country here.
Yet people get stuck in a litttle snow, or a couple of bars get slapped for serving booze to stupid children, and it’s the end of civilized society, according to some of this herd mentality. Some of you seriously do not know when you have it good, and the things you complain about make you look ridiculous. Yeah, YOU, Lee!.
I go on and on like this in the face of disagreement because in my experience in local government and politics, Tom Carr is one of the most dedicated public servants I know. I have never known him to be anything BUT forthcoming about every aspect of his job, and eager to educate the voters about what he does and how he does it — and not just at election time, either.
I won’t claim Tom is warm and fuzzy. But OMG, compared to Sidran??? To read this blog and the Stranger and Publicola, you’d think Tom was an ax-murdering cannibal pedophile, and I’m not about to let that stand without calling bullshit.
@25
Ivan, I think you’ve forgotten something. I grew up in Philly too. So did Goldy. We know about the difference between politics here and politics there.
I certainly know what’s wrong with Philly politics, and Carr is representative of the kinds of personalities who make it the mess it is. Seattle doesn’t need to become Philly or Chicago or Detroit. We can reject politicians who put their moral obsessions over more pressing needs. We can reject politicians who mistakenly believe that rejecting police oversight makes communities safer (how does that work in Philly?).
If you want to live in a city where there’s a lot of crime, no one trusts the police, minority neighborhoods are crime-ridden slums, and the people who make prosecutorial decisions are more obsessed with morality than safety, Philly’s still there.
I’d like to do things differently here.
Act like it, then. You guys sound like homeowners association nannies who go all freako if they discover a dandelion on some poor schmuck’s lawn.
Get off your lazy asses and do some reporting. Set up an interview with Tom Carr and talk to him. Try to understand what he does and why he does it. You might learn something. You might learn that Tom is most certainly NOT “representative of the types of personalities” who make bigger cities what they are.
Get out of your hipster circlejerk cocoon and quit quoting each other and pimping each other, and listening to only your buddies. Quit searching people’s fucking Facebook pages. That’s pure Matt Drudge shit. Doing that and then criticizing the Seattle Times just makes the lot of you proper objects of ridicule.
This medium has great potential, but the performance of the local liberal political bloggers just plain sucks, and your smug, self-righteous, know-it-all hipster attitude is worse.
@23 To correct the record:
Ivan says: I don’t need to say that he isn’t qualified because I don’t know that he isn’t. I don’t know that he is, either. But I know that Tom is.
In fact, Ivan said Holmes isn’t qualfied. Repeatedly. He spoke at the 34th endorsement meeting against Holmes. As did Brian Earl. They BOTH claimed Holmes wasn’t qualified. It’s on tape. Carr himself told people Holmes wasn’t qualified that night. Cindi Laws was caught in the act yesterday with these untruths. Carr’s wife was all het up that night (ungraciously, I might add) trying to push the idea that Holmes isn’t even a practicing attorney.
Ivan stood up and said that Holmes was running a dirty campaign using push polls. Again, on tape.
In fact, Holmes isn’t playing dirty and has repeated used only facts. Not slander, not libel, not rumors, not dirty whispering campaigns, and has NEVER done a single poll.
Ivan, Carr, and Carr’s campaign should stick to facts and issues. The coordinated strategy to sway votes with innuendo and untruths is just unacceptable. Certainly not appropriate for a City Attorney.
I would guess that the negative, whisper campaign did help in the 34th. Ivan, you have a count of how many votes were swayed with the negative emails Carr sent out the anonymous emails to media and assertions that Holmes is an “inactive” attorney, isn’t a “practicing attorney”, and isn’t “qualified to run under the City Charter”?
Fortunately, the 34th’s endorsement of Carr is an outlier, and the endorsements are stacking up for Holmes.
But Ivan, Nickels and Carr are to be congratulated for well-played get-out-the-vote play. New members of the 34th who work for the city probably tipped it over for Carr. Bravo!
One question though: Did someone parse an internal city document (payroll file?) to figure out which city employees lived in the 34th and get them to sign up as voting members on the last day possible? Quite a coup!
@23
RE: Transparency and Accountability.
Just words?
Exactly. For Carr, anyway.
Where are all those OPA reports anyway? The last one is buried so deep under Carr’s desk it will never see the light of day. What about all those FOIA requests? How did they get quashed?
And what was the final outcome on accountability in those cases?
@28
Yup. Here’s Ivan saying Holmes isn’t qualified. First comment up:
http://horsesass.org/?p=17742#comments
Compared to Carr, he isn’t qualified. Damn straight I said it.
As for the statements @ 28 by Christi S., that paragon of credibility and institutional knowledge, are you saying any rules were broken? Are you?
Candidates recruit members for LD organizations for the purposes of voting in endorsement meetings all the time. It’s called — wait for it — getting out the vote. What a concept!
And let’s not pretend that city employees are the only people who support Nickels, either. The lot of clowns running against Nickels are even less qualified to be Mayor than Holmes is qualified to be City Attorney, and people will figure that out soon enough.
Were any rules broken? Yes or no? If no, then STFU.
@Ivan
Glad to see you admit it. Your earlier post appeared to be a change in your position from “He’s not qualified” to “i can’t prove he’s qualified”. Thank goodness for modern technology – it’s great there’s no confusion.
GOTV is perfectly legit. How DID all those city employees, who had never been to the 34th know to sign up, pay their dues just in time to be voting members?
Credibility is not something you control. It’s something people gift to you – based on the fact that you are straight up and add pertinent information. Just sayin’.
Christi S. @ 32:
“Gift” is not a verb, except to self-important corporate bureaucratic jargon-mongers, Ms. communications person.
Who says “all those city employees” had never been to the 34th? YOU? How would YOU know? YOU had never been to the 34th until this year.
But whereas you don’t work for a living, but only say you do, and therefore have all day to do this, why don’t you just look online, on our Web site, at the newsletter that you tried to destroy, and check the list of member names against those of past years.
You will find that the 34th has always been heavily populated by City of Seattle employees. You will find also, in our endorsement rules, also posted online, that members who were paid up in the previous calendar year can re-up the night of any endorsement meeting and be eligible to vote.
Some of us who actually KNOW the District organization probably can name 10-20 people who fall into this category, even if you can’t. We were happy to welcome them back, and nobody had to tell them how to get there.
Ivan.
Thanks for the chuckle.
@33 Way to go personal. Oh, the irony!
@27
Act like it, then.
I’ll address this after I respond to the rest of your comment.
You guys sound like homeowners association nannies who go all freako if they discover a dandelion on some poor schmuck’s lawn.
Um, that’s actually the opposite of what we’re saying. In fact, your metaphor is precisely the kind of nannyism that I’m accusing Tom Carr of bringing to the City Attorney’s office. Just because you’ve heard a certain framing before and it sounds kind of neat doesn’t mean that it fits what you’re trying to argue.
Get off your lazy asses and do some reporting. Set up an interview with Tom Carr and talk to him.
Talk to Dominic. I’m not a reporter. I’m someone with a full-time job and a 3 month old son who doesn’t have time to interview people in order to make sure I’m not hurting their feelings when I express my opinions here. Dominic does the reporting (as do others) and I take that information to explain why I think it’s a huge mistake for Seattle to re-elect Tom Carr. If Tom Carr wants to talk to me, he can find my email pretty easily.
You might learn something. You might learn that Tom is most certainly NOT “representative of the types of personalities” who make bigger cities what they are.
He can certainly try to convince me, but I have serious doubts about his ability to succeed.
Get out of your hipster circlejerk cocoon and quit quoting each other and pimping each other, and listening to only your buddies.
How about this. Why don’t you send me an article that’s outside of the “hipster circlejerk cocoon” and I’ll break it down in a new post.
This medium has great potential, but the performance of the local liberal political bloggers just plain sucks, and your smug, self-righteous, know-it-all hipster attitude is worse.
Let’s recap what happened in this thread. I wrote a post where I provided a number of examples where Tom Carr failed at the job of City Attorney, either by not understanding the law or by being horrendously out-of-touch with Seattle voters. Then, you come into this thread telling me that the City Attorney has to uphold the laws as they are written. No shit, Sherlock, that’s what the post was about, his inability to do that. If you don’t have a rebuttal for those specific instances, you’re the one living in a bubble.
One of us here has a self-righteous know-it-all attitude. Anyone who’s reading this thread can easily figure it out.
As for your “Act like it” comment, I’m well aware of the damage that has been done in cities like Philadelphia when a “law and order” guy goes off on a moral crusade. Instead of “acting” like I’m from Philadelphia, I prefer to learn from it.
That’s your problem, Lee. You don’t know a reporter from a propagandist — or you are disingenuously trying to blur the lines.
Whatever Dominic is, he’s not a reporter. If he’s a reporter, I am the Exalted Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan.
Christi S. @ 34:
I am glad I made you chuckle. That’s about all you can do when you are PWN3D. Go back to your fleeting and ersatz memes.
@37
That’s your problem, Lee. You don’t know a reporter from a propagandist — or you are disingenuously trying to blur the lines.
If Dominic is a propagandist, then copy and paste the text from anything he’s written about Tom Carr that’s untrue. It’s all online, go find it.
I’m having trouble understanding all this: can anyone point me to anything that is incorrect that has been said by Holmes or Dominic?
I see lots of personal attacks and petty crap here, but nothing to convince me…
Am I missing something?
Ivan: Funniest part of this whole thread is that it’s a thread about personal attacks. Starts with them and ends with them. Way to make the opposition’s point.
@40
I remember when I was at Microsoft, a manager got a very big chuckle out of our group when he was talking about performance reviews and said, “If you don’t get a good review, remember it’s not you, it’s your work”. Your comment just made me think of that.
Oh ya! I’m LOTS better informed now!
The people decide what constitutes a crime, how to prosecute, the level of priority, the punishment/remediation. City attorneys and prosecutors don’t make those policy decisions: they carry them out using appropriate discretion in part based on a cost/benefit analysis. Is King County prosecuting car thefts as the felonies they are defined as in law? No, they’re bouncing them to District and Municipal Court to be prosecuted as misdemeanors. And are those charges being prosecuted? Depends on jurisdiction,i.e. based on prosecutorial discretion.
Car theft remains a crime, but it’s not always prosecuted by those charged with doing so, including Mr. Carr.
Prosecutors did not ask for the “3 strikes you’re out” law — which is bankrupting public safety budgets. The people, in their wisdom, created that law and continue to deny the funds to carry it out.
If this thread represents how we inform the public so they can make responsible decisions as voters then we have business as usual, i.e. Philly politics that help no one but the politicians and their groupies.