HorsesAss.Org

I’m out’a here for the weekend, kinda sorta camping, and believe it or not I’ve decided to go sans computer. Darryl has graciously agreed to post in my absence, so please show him a kind, HA welcome, and hurl your insults and death threats at him for the next couple days, not me.

And a heads up… I’ll be back in time for Sunday night’s show on 710-KIRO. Joining me in the 7PM hour will be Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, and at 8PM The Stranger’s Dan Savage and Eli Sanders will be in the studio discussing the fallout from this week’s Supreme Court decision upholding our state’s ban on gay marriage.

Yet another Johnson has filed to run for Supreme Court, and our friend Stefan seems a touch perturbed, instantly categorizing his candidacy as “bogus.”

Hmm. I guess only pricks like the BIAW are allowed to slap their Johnsons on the bench, huh Stefan?

Senator John Edwards is committed to helping as many candidates as possible before November. He has already raised $6.65 million for Democrats and attended fundraisers for strong congressional candidates in more than a dozen states this election cylce.

This fall, he will headline fundraisers for two Democrats running for the House who have been selected by our online community. You decide who those candidates will be.

Vote for the candidates who will work hard to build One America that works for all of us. Choose among districts targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Vote for Darcy!

From The Hill:

The House GOP leadership is helping Republican lawmakers who have tough reelection battles by letting them take the lead on more legislation.

Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was quick to congratulate freshman Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) yesterday after the House approved his bill to improve communications between emergency first responders.

It was obviously a hard fought, controversial bill, considering it passed 424-2. No wonder it took Reichert nearly two years to shepherd this important piece of legislation out of committee and to the floor. All that arm twisting takes time.

Anyway, I trust the local press to keep this bill in context.

“The House leadership is very cognizant of the members that need to boast about being effective,” one Republican lobbyist with business before the Financial Services Committee wrote in an e-mail. “Passing their bills is one way to prove that.”

That’s right, the House Republican leadership understands that Reichert needs to boast about being effective. Hmm. I wonder why?

Journalist, political strategist and blogger David Sirota will be at Seattle’s Town Hall tomorrow night (July 27 at 7:30 PM) speaking about and signing his bestselling book, Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government–and How We Take It Back. Admission is $5 at the door.

Sirota is a former spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders, and a senior political strategist on the campaign of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. He is also a senior editor at In These Times, a contributor to The Nation and a regular guest on The Al Franken Show.

I had him on my radio show last Sunday and really regret I didn’t have more time and fewer breaks. Hostile Takeover is a great book that will not only infuriate you, but will give you useful instructions on how to help take our country back.

“There’s no such thing as bad press. That’s just the reality.”
— Tim Eyman, June 5, Spokane Spokesman-Review

“I know that government can sometimes screw up, but I know that you can sometimes screw up. And I know that government can sometimes be dishonest, but I know you can sometimes be dishonest.”
— KVI host John Carlson to Tim Eyman, 07/24/06

Professional initiative sponsor Tim Eyman had lied to reporters once again, and man were they pissed off.

It was June 5, just one day before the deadline to turn in signatures for R-65, a referendum that would have put a repeal of our state’s gay civil rights statute on the November ballot. Tim had announced he would be dropping off petitions at the Secretary of State’s office, implying that a last minute push had gathered the requisite signatures. I suppose that would have been big news, so a sizable crowd of print, radio and TV reporters showed up for the event, many driving all the way from Seattle to Olympia that morning, cameras in tow.

But it was classic bait and switch. There were no R-65 petitions to be dropped off that morning (or ever.) Instead, ridiculously garbed in a rented Darth Vader costume, Tim mocked the assembled throng of journalists, refusing to answer questions about R-65 in favor of plugging I-917, his anti-Sound Transit initiative.

“Feel like you’ve been duped?” Eyman associate Mike Fagan asked reporters. “Well, you have.”

This wasn’t the first time Eyman had blatantly lied to the media — hell, it wasn’t even the first time he’d called a press conference under false pretenses. But while the journalists that day were openly hostile, Tim was unapologetic. To Tim, any stunt, any lie, is worth it if it gets his name in print or his face in front of the cameras. “There’s no such thing as bad press,” Tim told reporters that day, repeating a maxim that has defined his career. “That’s just the reality.”

Uh-huh.

The problem is, Tim and reality have been on tenuous terms for quite some time. It is one thing to spout simplistic, absolutist talking points when promoting a ballot measure, but it’s another thing entirely to actually start believing them. In fact, there is such a thing as bad press, and this week Tim has been receiving it in spades. And from some unlikely sources.

When Eyman turned in the petitions for I-917 he claimed to have collected over 300,000 signatures, more than enough cushion to virtually guarantee qualifying for the November ballot. Yet as I reported last week, Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office counted only 266,000… a number that puts the initiative on the bubble. Well, on Monday, Timmy held an early morning press conference to essentially accuse Reed — a fellow Republican — of losing or stealing 35,000 signatures.

And… well… apparently, nobody believes him. (Tim, that is.)

And I mean nobody. As the Seattle Times’ David Postman pointedly observed, even the reliably knee-jerk pages of (un)Sound Politics dumped on Tim, with the alliteratively named Eric Earling gently calling attention to Eyman’s “problems with the truth” while our good friend Stefan could only muster a meek rebuttal by accusing his co-blogger of inheriting an establishment position on transportation issues, but ignoring Earling’s critique of Tim’s honesty.

But it was in his formerly safe refuge of conservative talk radio where Timmy suffered the most abuse from hosts and callers alike. My 710-KIRO colleague Dori Monson, who is normally pretty quick to blame government incompetency and dishonesty for everything from moral decline to his morning halitosis, clearly wasn’t buying Timmy’s explanation that it was Reed who screwed up. And KVI’s John Carlson, who has worked with Eyman on past initiatives, all but accused Tim of lying. No wait… he did accuse Tim of lying.

I was particularly amused to hear Eyman talk about his own “meticulous record keeping” as evidence that it is his signature count that we should blindly trust rather than that of the SOS… incredible hubris coming from the guy who infamously couldn’t keep his personal finances separate from his campaign finances. But even funnier still is the fact that Eyman’s claims of “weekly reports” and “meticulous record keeping” is directly contradicted by his own statements in regard to R-65.

He wasn’t turning in any petitions. In fact, he said he didn’t know how many signatures had been gathered so far.

“Frankly, we have no idea,” Eyman said, standing there in his knee boots, cape and plastic codpiece. He then launched into a public appeal for supporters to bring their petitions to Olympia.

“Frankly, we have no idea.” And that was the day before the June 6 signature deadline. Yeah… talk about meticulous record keeping.

So either Tim is lying about his meticulous recording keeping now, or he was lying about not having meticulous record keeping then. Either way, he’s a liar. Which I suppose explains why those who know Tim best — you know, people like John Carlson — simply don’t believe him.

All this makes Eyman’s sugar daddy, Michael Dunmire look particularly naive, paranoid and foolish.

Naive? Dunmire, who says he’s preparing to write another $100,000 check to Eyman’s personal compensation fund, told Postman that he’s absolutely confident of the weekly signature reports he saw.

“They keep track. They live and die by them. They’re not wrong.”

Paranoid? What explains the 35,000 signature discrepancy?

“There are a lot of entities that don’t want I-917. They have their own techniques. They send out goon squads to intimidate petitioners. That never gets covered. We play it straight up.”

Foolish? When asked how much money he’d given Eyman this year, Dunmire wasn’t sure:

“Haven’t a clue. When I get a compulsion and think that’s a good place to make a contribution, I write a check. And I don’t keep track.”

He doesn’t keep track? How the fuck did this guy get to be a multi-millionaire?

So here we have an admitted liar who claims he has “no idea” how many signatures he has the day before they’re due, financed by some clueless rich guy who doesn’t “keep track” of the checks he writes… and he acts surprised when we take the word of Secretary of State Sam Reed over his?

The only question I have is not if Eyman is lying about the signature count, but when he started lying about it… and I can’t help but suspect that he knew he was shorting the SOS the day he turned in the petitions. For one of the more bizarre elements of this story is the small piece of notebook paper, date stamped by an SOS clerk, on which Tim hand wrote the number “300,353”… a document Tim calls a “receipt” that verifies his count.

Yeah, right. As if we’re all a bunch of idiots.

I’ve watched Tim turn in petitions for past initiatives, and I’ve never seen him provide or ask for a signature count “receipt” like this before. In fact, I asked Election Director Nick Handy if to his recollection this was standard practice for Eyman or any other initiative sponsor. Handy wrote back:

We are not familiar with Tim Eyman requesting a stamp on a document like this in the past, nor are we familiar with any other sponsors requesting this.

I understand that he was requesting the receptionist at Secretary of State’s Office in the Capitol Building to stamp this while he knew our staff was actually counting the pages at the Elections Office a few blocks away. So, he knew at the time that our office did not know how many signatures were being submitted.

So, um… if Eyman had never asked for a receipt like this before, and he knew that the Elections Office didn’t yet know the number of signatures… why did he bother having this document date stamped?

Because he thinks we’re all a bunch of idiots, that’s why. Because he knew he was short, and he knew he needed something to wave in front of reporters so that he could claim that he was being cheated. Because he thinks the press and the public are as dumb as his patron Michael Dunmire, some rich guy with the gall to think he knows best how to balance a state budget when he doesn’t even bother to balance his own checkbook.

In the end it’s not the lying that’s earning Tim all the bad press — reporters have long known he’s a liar. No, what’s pissing off journalists is that Tim is deliberately wasting their time, disrespecting their profession and insulting their intelligence.

Few people know more about what it takes to qualify an initiative for the ballot than John Carlson — indeed, it was John who saved Tim’s ass on I-200. And yet Tim had the nerve to go on John’s show and wave that scrap of paper around like it was meaningful? Tim had the gall to challenge John when asked why he didn’t photocopy his petitions… like every other experienced initiative sponsor does? Tim treated John and his audience like idiots, and they took him to the mat.

I have been criticized for vilifying Tim Eyman the man while his initiatives have continued to prove popular at the polls (though I should point out that in the three elections since I’ve come on the scene, Tim has only passed a single measure, the largely superfluous I-900.) And while it is true that most voters don’t cast their ballots based on who the initiative sponsor is, this critique misses the role of the press in promoting Eyman and his initiatives, particularly the inexplicable generosity our state’s newspapers have shown in granting him celebrity-status access to their op/ed pages.

Tim has repeatedly lied on his petitions, lied to voters, lied to his own contributors, and unapologetically lied to the press. It begs the question: at what point will Eyman’s credibility be so tarnished — so utterly destroyed — that op/ed editors finally start rejecting his frequent guest column submissions the way they do those of nearly every other crank and political crackpot?

Perhaps, that point has been reached now?

Five to four upholding DOMA. Madsen, Alexander, C. Johnson, J. Johnson and Sanders in the majority; Fairhurst, Chambers, Owens and Bridge dissent.

UPDATE:
I’m still reading through the opinions, and I emphasize the plural because there are a lot of them. Justice Barbara Madsen wrote the majority plurality opinion to which Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justice Charles Johnson signed on in concurrence. Chief Justice Alexander then added a brief concurring opinion stating that nothing in Madsen’s opinion should be construed to cast doubt on the right of the legislature or the people to broaden the definition of marriage.

All this wasn’t good enough though for Justices Jim Johnson and Richard Sanders, who had to produce their own separate concurring opinion (authored by Johnson) berating the rest of the court for even giving the subject serious thought.

This is a difficult case only if a court disregards the text and history of the state and federal constitutions and laws in order to write new laws for our State’s citizens. Courts are not granted such powers under our constitutional system. Our oath requires us to uphold the constitution and laws, not rewrite them.

Marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and every Washington citizen has a constitutional right to enter into such a marriage, 1 subject only to limited regulation under the police power (for example, restricting underage or close family marriage). This understanding of marriage has been continuously recognized throughout the history of the United States and of the state of Washington, including Washington territorial law. The unique and binary biological nature of marriage and its exclusive link with procreation and responsible child rearing has defined the institution at common law and in statutory codes and express constitutional provisions of many states.

So I guess what Johnson is saying is that it’s irresponsible to rear children in a same-sex household? This is the kind of moralistic, authoritarian court the BIAW and the religious right are trying to buy.

Finally there were three separate dissenting opinions from Justices Mary Fairhurst, Tom Chambers and Bobbe Bridge. Fairhurst wrote a passionate dissent, signed on to by Justices Susan Owens, Bridge and Chambers. Here are a few of the juicier excerpts:

The plurality and concurrence condone blatant discrimination against Washington’s gay and lesbian citizens in the name of encouraging procreation, marriage for individuals in relationships that result in children, and the raising of children in homes headed by opposite-sex parents, while ignoring the fact that denying same-sex couples the right to marry has no prospect of furthering any of those interests.

[…]

The relevant question is not whether same-sex marriage is so rooted in our traditions that it is a fundamental right, but whether the freedom to choose one’s own life partner is so rooted in our traditions.

[…]

Unfortunately, the plurality and concurrence are willing to turn a blind eye to DOMA’s discrimination because a popular majority still favors that discrimination.

Fairhurst then closes by quoting Justice Brandeis: “We must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles.”

I concur. (With Brandeis.)

UPDATE, UPDATE:
Man there’s a lot of stuff to read here, and I’m no constitutional scholar, so I’m not really in a position to provide an authoritative analysis on legal grounds. However, I must say that I am disappointed, though not surprised.

Perhaps common law and our Constitution do give us the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians in this way. I would hope not, but perhaps they do. And if so, that just strikes me as a sad injustice.

Civil marriage is a contract that confers certain legal rights on the participants, and I simply cannot see how same-sex marriage in any way threatens the rights of heterosexual couples. At the same time, same-sex couples will continue to live together and raise children as if they were legally married, regardless of this decision, and it’s hard to understand the state’s interest in denying these families the same rights accorded to others.

Essentially, Justice Fairhurst is correct. The Court just upheld the right of the state to discriminate against gays and lesbians. If those who are offended, disturbed or even disgusted by homosexuality want to celebrate this decision, well, that’s up to them.

Personally, I’m disappointed.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. I’ll be there with parched lips.

I’m particularly looking forward to getting back on the podcast after the fogies boomers took it over last week. Betcha we speculate about tomorrow’s Supreme Court ruling on WA’s Defense of Marriage Act.

Oh… and if you happen to be a liberal drinker on the other side of the mountains I received an email from Jim this morning. Apparently it’s “freaking hot” out there so the Tri-Cities chapter of DL is meeting an hour later tonight, at 8 PM, Atomic Ale, 1015 Lee Blvd., in Richland.

David Postman says that tomorrow morning the Washington state Supreme Court will release its long-awaited decision on a challenge to the state’s Defense of Marriage Act.

The decision will not only set the stage for another round of political wrangling over gay marriage, it will give court-watchers a great opportunity to see how the justices handle the most contentious issue this court has dealt with.

Hmm. I’m not sure if the timing of the decision, coming before the election, hints at what’s coming.

Your thoughts?

UPDATE:
Just received an email from The Olympian:

At 11 a.m. Thursday, The Olympian will hold an online chat with state Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, and state Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, about Wednesday morning’s gay marriage ruling by the state Supreme Court. Big implications, obviously, for this fall’s elections, next year’s state Legislature session and even Congress.

Submit us questions for Swecker and Murray at http://www.theolympian.com/legacy/livechat/prechat2.shtml

Oh, and a heads up, The Stranger’s Dan Savage and Eli Sanders will be joining me Sunday night at 8PM to discuss the same subject on 710-KIRO.

Councilman Bob Ferguson — the Joe Lieberman of King County Politics — just issued a joint press release with Councilman Raymond Shaw Reagan Dunn announcing that he would join the King County Council’s four Republicans in putting a charter amendment on the ballot that would make the County Auditor an elected office.

Just the kind of pandering, conniving politics I’ve come to expect from Ferguson, who seems intent on using his status as the Council’s swing vote to maximum personal advantage. It is also incredibly irresponsible and counterproductive if Ferguson’s goal is to actually stabilize and improve operations at Records and Elections.

Putting aside the larger issue that an elected Auditor would virtually assure that one of the largest elections jurisdictions in the nation will now be run by a political hack rather than a qualified professional, Ferguson’s ill-timed announcement may have just made it impossible to fill top-level positions in the interim. I’ve been told that the county is close to bringing in one of the nation’s top elections officials, but Ferguson may have created just enough uncertainty to scuttle the deal. And worse yet, Ferguson knew this before he made his announcement.

In their press release Lieberman Ferguson & Shaw Dunn argue that King County should join the other 38 counties in the state that already administer elections under a separately elected official, but that’s just a red herring. Many of the state’s counties are tiny, and you just can’t compare their elections operations with that of a county that serves over a 1.2 million voters, about a third of the state’s entire electorate.

Indeed, even before the transition to all vote-by-mail King County already processes more mail-in ballots than any other jurisdiction save Los Angeles County. And of the top 20 voting jurisdictions in the nation (King County is number eleven), the majority fourteen appoint their top elections officers, because such complex operations require elections expertise rather than political savvy.

Of course, Lieberman Ferguson and his Republican allies will pooh-pooh such arguments, continuing to point towards over-hyped controversies surrounding the 2004 gubernatorial election as evidence of the need for dramatic change. This despite the fact that the National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks will honor King County Elections with its Best Practice Award in recognition of its mail ballot processing during the 2005 election.

“The King County Elections Office submitted an impressive examination of their mail balloting practices and the challenges election officials experience when conducting elections with an ever-increasing volume of mail balloting. Our members will be able to take the procedures outlined by King County and immediately put them to use in their own jurisdictions which is the whole purpose of NACRCs Best Practice program,” said Harris County Clerk and NACRC Chair Beverly Kaufman.

Yeah, but who cares about the improvements KCRE has made over the past two years if there’s political hay to be made by trotting out the 2004 election contest once again? And who cares if Lieberman Ferguson & Shaw Dunn set back the County’s transition to all vote-by-mail — a transition that Lieberman Ferguson championed — when there are cozy little backroom deals to be made.

See, council scuttlebutt is that Lieberman Ferguson & Shaw Dunn have a little vote trading pact going. Rumor has it that Shaw Dunn recently broke ranks to support Lieberman Ferguson’s efforts to squash a North Lake Union development project, and now Lieberman Ferguson is breaking ranks on the county auditor vote as pay back.

Either way politicizing the elections department is just bad public policy. Here’s hoping the ambitious Lieberman Ferguson gets an earful from his constituents.

Oh, and if you’re one of those lucky folks who have had Lieberman Ferguson ring your door bell, better give the button a wipe with a little Lysol. You just never know where his finger’s been.

Via Slog, the NY Times rates the Burner-Reichert race a toss-up.

The Stranger’s Josh Feit has been on the campaign trail with former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick, following his “Open Mike!” tour through Eastern Washington. But as it turns out, Mike!™ hasn’t been all that open… not really a surprise coming from yet another conservative Republican attempting to run towards WA’s mushy, undefined middle. (AKA: “The Dino Rossi Strategy”.)

See, Josh is a reporter, and so he keeps resorting to this devious, reporterly trick of his, which basically consists of trying to, you know… pin Mike!™ down on the issues. How uncivil.

But Mike!™ refuses to bite. During an interview, Josh asked about our state’s gay civil rights bill and attempts to repeal it by initiative, to which Mike!™ responded:

“I do not and will not talk about state issues. Because I’m working at the federal level. I’ve been asked about the gas tax last year. I’m now being asked about this. I’ll be asked about other things. I do not comment on state initiatives because I’m focused on the federal issues.”

Uh-huh.

Josh points out that this is a clever and lame excuse to avoid alienating voters by taking a position on controversial issues. And, um…

It’s also not true. Earlier last week, on a campaign swing through Colville, Washington, McGavick talked about state initiative I-937. I-937 would invest money in renewable energy, although the initiative does not put much focus on hydro power.

Colville is in the northeastern corner of the state in Stevens county

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James Sulton, the executive director of the Higher Education Coordinating Board raises concerns over what would happen to GET, the state’s prepaid tuition program, if Washington’s universities are permitted to set undergraduate tuition rates themselves.

Sulton worries that higher-education costs could soar if universities set tuition and that, worst case, the GET program would have to bar new participants until its finances recovered.

The state is on the hook to make sure people who’ve already bought prepaid tuition get what they’re promised. The Higher Education Coordinating Board members have not discussed Sulton’s concerns, a spokesperson said.

Sulton notes that Ohio, Texas and Virginia had to close their prepaid tuition programs to new participants after universities were allowed to set tuition and substantially increased their prices.

Hmm. First a disclaimer. We bought our daughter 400 units of GET tuition credit back in 2002 at $42 a unit. So not only have we realized a nearly 10 percent annual return during a time of low interest rates, but we’re entirely immune to local tuition increases. (Indeed, if my daughter decides to go out of state, we actually benefit from local tuition increases. Go figure.)

That said, I have been a longtime supporter (here and here) of letting tuition at state universities rise closer to market rates, while reducing the flat, per student state subsidy and moving towards a financial aid model.

As with K-12 education, the state has been underfunding our colleges and universities for years, and as I see it we now have three choices. We can: A) increase state spending on higher education, thus maintaining quality and access while keeping tuition costs affordable, or B) maintain quality and access by rationing state funds by allowing tuition rates to rise towards the actual cost of education while subsidizing only those students who require financial aid, or C) continue down the road we’re on where we fail to increase the number of slots to meet growing demand, and allow overall quality to decline.

Option C should be downright unacceptable. Personally, I’d prefer a combination of options A and B. We do need to spend more on higher education. But we also need to spend our money more wisely, and it simply does not make any sense to subsidize the tuition of children from families who can afford to pay the full cost.

This is not just an issue of money; it’s an issue of access. Right now, because every student is subsidized, our limited financial resources results in a limited number of slots available to all students, which means many qualified students are being turned away from our four-year universities. But if those who could afford to pay full fare did, it would free up state funds to open more slots, thus increasing access for all.

I know talk about higher tuition rates raises fears about shutting out low and middle income students, but it doesn’t matter how affordable our universities are if you can’t get in… or they suck. Education is our state’s single most important economic investment, and quite simply, we get what we pay for. If we buy ourselves a second-rate university system, our children will inherit a second-rate economy.

I can’t stand the heat so I’m getting into a cool, air-conditioned studio tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” — Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM. Here’s the line-up, but as always, things could change depending on breaking news and guest availability.

7PM: Hot enough for you? Sure feels like global warming. Is modern society to blame for our massive carbon emissions? Or perhaps “God has already started punishing us” for abandoning his ways? We’re gonna talk about the weather… and if that doesn’t get folks hot underneath the collar, perhaps we’ll spend a little time talking about the escalating war in Lebanon.

8PM: Is our democracy being undermined by greedy corporate interests? Political strategist, journalist and blogger David Sirota joins me to discuss his bestselling book HOSTILE TAKEOVER: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government — And How We take It Back. Sirota has served as a press secretary for Rep. Bernie Sanders, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and as a senior strategist to Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana. He is a frequent contributor to several national publications and a twice-weekly guest on The Al Franken Show. Sirota will be speaking and signing books Thursday, July 27, 7:30 PM at Seattle’s Town Hall.

9PM: Has the Republican Party abandoned its libertarian base? Are small “l” libertarians abandoning the Republican Party? Joining me to answer that question is local blogger Lee Rosenberg (Blog Reload,) a self-described libertarian and the co-host of the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Huh? How can he be both? In a lengthy and oddly titled post, Lee explores the inherent contradictions of economic libertarian absolutism, and describes how an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party is driving social libertarians to support Democrats. Also, be sure to check out Glenn Greenwald’s controversial post: Libertarians and the Republican Party — Irreconcilable Differences.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

I have a confession to make: I am a scofflaw.

Several days a week I take my dog to a small, lakeside park that has in recent years become an unofficial dog park. It is an oasis of sorts, where dogs and humans peacefully coexist in violation of Seattle city ordinances that threaten fines of from $50.00 to $500.00.

Throughout much of the year this small stretch of shoreline is virtually abandoned but for the occasional dog owner exercising his companion in Lake Washington’s frigid waters. But on hot Summer days like today, the beach is usually crowded with dogs and humans joyously escaping the heat together.

Except for a small designated area at Magnuson Park, the city bars dogs not just from patrolled beaches, but from all public shoreline, ostensibly for health reasons. Let’s face it, nobody wants to lay their beach blanket down by a mound of dog poop. But ironically, my secret, neighborhood beach is not only one of the dog friendliest in the city… it is also one of the cleanest.

Visit nearly any public beach in the city and you’ll likely find yourself dodging random piles of poop left by the thousands of geese that inhabit our shorelines. Hell, forget about the fines… I wouldn’t even take my dog to one of these beaches for the fear absolute knowledge that she would roll in the feces, cleverly masking her own distinct scent. (Um… she’s a dog.)

Our beaches can get pretty damn disgusting. As the Seattle Times notes today:

Beachgoers should not have to sit out the heat at home because of geese-polluted shorelines.

But this isn’t a concern at our little illicit dog beach. There is no goose poop because there are no geese. Our dogs make sure of that. Think of it as organic pest control.

As for the dog poop, well, most of us regulars are vigilant to the point of vigilanteism. The other day I witnessed a woman being angrily harangued for failing to pick up after her dog. When she claimed she didn’t have a bag, three of us quickly whipped out spares, and watched like hawks as sheepishly cleaned up the mess.

I’m also very mindful of dogless visitors, and usually ask permission to take my dog off-leash in their presence. I also never let my dog off-leash around small children unless they are also accompanied by a dog. Even a gentle dog can appear threatening to a child.

Us regulars all understand that we have a good thing going, and that it will only take a couple complaints before the city steps up enforcement and shuts us down. So we patrol the park ourselves, letting people know in no uncertain terms that it’s not a place for out of control dogs or careless owners. We try to follow the spirit of the ordinance if not its letter.

I’m sure there are some neighbors who would probably prefer that the leash laws were strictly enforced, but if we were to abandon this beach to the geese it would quickly become unusable. It’s one of those delicate balance things that makes city life both challenging and rewarding, and for me it is also a tiny microcosm of the natural tension between the rights of individuals and the needs of the community that dominates so much of politics.

Of course to my dog, it’s just a great place to chase a stick in the water.