Search Results for: kemper freeman

For six years, David Irons Jr. has supported building “I-605”, a four-lane freeway cut through the heart of rural King County:

“When 605 came up in the past, it was largely pie-in-the-sky,” said David Irons Jr., newly elected King County councilman who represents the district where the freeway could be built. … “It’s time for discussions and hard decisions. It’s time to talk about 605.”

And in his recent radio ads and prerecorded robo-calls, Irons continues to talk about I-605, though not by name. When he refers to a study claiming that adding more lanes is the only way to relieve congestion, he’s referring to Bellevue Square developer Kemper Freeman Jr.’s selfishly skewed study… which of course, relies on I-605 at the heart of its plan. It’s all there, documented on a new website, IronsHighway.com.

With I-605 would come the unmitigated sprawl that accompanies all freeways… exactly the kind of land use policies Irons’ financial backers in the building industry were looking for when they yanked him out of obscurity back in 1999. Freeman builds malls, and what do you find at nearly every freeway off-ramp? A mall! Indeed, Freeman alone has contributed over $6,760 to Irons over the past couple years.

So if you want to transform rural King County into an endless swath of strip malls and sub-divisions… vote for Irons. Because that’s clearly what he intends to deliver.

This week an “anonymous”, “independent” committee stepped into the Democratic primary for attorney-general by launching a million dollar media campaign attacking front-runner Deborah Senn. I put those words in quotes because the committee is anything but independent, and despite elaborate efforts to maintain anonymity, these desperate and dishonest attack ads can clearly be traced back to the Washington State Republican Party.

In the spirit of the now infamous “Swift Boat” ads, the so-called “Voters Education Committee” (VEC) has attempted an end-run around state public disclosure laws by filing with the IRS as a 527 committee. To hide its identity, the VEC uses a rented mail-drop as a street address, and employs a domain name proxy service to hide its web site’s registered owners.

Even the name of the committee is deceptive, a transparent attempt to misdirect suspicion towards the similarly named “Voter Education Committee”, an organization founded under the auspices of Democratic political consultant Christian Sinderman, who now serves as an advisor to Senn’s primary opponent, Mark Sidran.

With an astounding total media buy of $1,170,000 during the final two weeks of the campaign, the VEC will outspend the four Democratic and GOP candidates combined. Not until long after the primary votes are counted will voters finally learn exactly who paid for this unprecedented smear campaign.

What we do know are the names of some of the GOP operatives behind the VEC: attorney John White, director Bruce Boram, and Valerie Huntsberry who filed the IRS paperwork.

John White is an attorney for the Washington State Republican Party, representing them numerous times before the Public Disclosure Commission. He is an expert on the intricacies of state and federal disclosure laws, and has cynically used his expertise to conceal the identity of the VEC’s financial backers.

Bruce Boram is Executive Director of United for Washington, a state-wide PAC representing business interests, whose board includes a Who’s Who of GOP insiders and conservative money-men (KCGOP Chair Patricia Herbold, BIAW Director Patrick Conner, uber-developer and self-serving initiative financier Kemper Freeman, etc.) Mr. Boram is a longtime GOP political consultant, currently serving as manager and spokesman for Dave Reichert’s campaign for the vacant 8th District congressional seat.

Valerie Huntsberry is Associate Director of United for Washington, and currently serves as Secretary of the King County Republican Party.

The VEC’s Republican bona fides are indisputable. But until we learn the identity of those funding this unprecedented attempt of one party to so lavishly influence the primary election of another, their strategy will be harder to discern.

Perhaps this is merely political payback from an insurance industry still bitter over Senn’s indefatigable defense of consumers during her term as insurance commissioner? Or perhaps the GOP views Senn’s primary victory as inevitable, and has started softening her up for the general election?

Or just maybe… the GOP would simply prefer to face Sidran?

Senn clearly has a huge advantage in statewide name recognition over all the other candidates, and by eliminating her, the GOP puts their candidate on a more equal footing. I don’t have access to any polls, but I’m guessing their internal numbers show McKenna or Vaska vs Sidran to be a helluva lot closer than either vs Senn.

And even if they are underestimating Sidran as a candidate — and I believe they are — the VEC’s backers still come out ahead. Sidran, with his strong support of Seattle’s controversial “civility laws,” the unpopular “car impound law” and the unconstitutional “poster ban”, is by far the more conservative of the two Democrats, and thus much more acceptable to business interests. So knocking out Senn is a win-win situation.

Look, I like Mark Sidran. He’s smart, he’s competent, he’s funny… he’s exactly the kind of moderate Republican I could see myself voting for in a general election. But in a Democratic primary an equally qualified Deborah Senn deserves the edge for her unchallenged advocacy of consumer rights, and her clear stance as, well… a Democrat.

Over one million dollars of “independent” expenditures in a primary tells you how important this race really is, and if I had any doubt about who to vote for, it’s been totally erased by the GOP-backed VEC’s disgraceful smear campaign. Deborah Senn is obviously feared by powerful business interests, and for that alone she deserves the job.

The VEC fat-cats clearly have more than enough money to defend their interests… I’m voting for an attorney-general who will defend mine.

I spend a lot of time criticizing the media for their factual errors. For example, I keep reading that I-892 (Slots for Tots) allows about 14,000 slot machines, when in fact, it allows exactly 18,255. So it’s only fair that I correct my own errors.

The other day I poked fun at Kemper Freeman Jr. for spending over $190,000 on consultants while spending only $42,000 on paid signatures (“Why did God creat Kemper Freeman Jr.? Somebody’s got to pay retail.“) Well, I was wrong. The PDC posted the pages of the form out of order, so I didn’t see page 1, and thus missed another $50,000 in expenditures on signatures. (Plus another $7500 on consultants.)

And I wouldn’t have caught this error if not for a detailed article in today’s Seattle Times exploring initiative campaign expenditures: “School-initiative supporters lead in fund raising.” So kudos to the Times, and healthy serving of humble pie to me.

So I apologize if I implied Junior’s expenditures were REALLY stupid, when in fact they were just plain stupid.

Just to prove this blog is not “all Eyman all the time” this week’s Lie of the Week focuses on another lying sack of crap, Kemper Freeman Jr., and his intentionally misleading Initiative 883.

Listen to Junior’s paid signature gatherers and you’d think the initiative simply opened HOV lanes to all traffic during non-peak hours. (As if there are non-peak hours in the Puget Sound region.)

But flip the petition over and read the fine print and you’ll see the true intent of the legislation (take note, Tim…) clearly stated in the title:

AN ACT Relating to reducing traffic congestion by making road construction to reduce traffic congestion the top priority of the state transportation system;

That HOV stuff is just a slick pick-up line, intended to distract voters while Junior slips them a mickey. Come November 3, the body politic is going to wake up bruised and disoriented, wondering if it really said “yes” to building new highways at the expense of maintaining our existing roads, bridges, rail, buses and ferries.

Of course, nobody other than a pathetic wonk like me actually bothers to read the text of the initiative. Apparently, not even many of the journalists we rely on to keep us informed of the issues.

The Tacoma News Tribune refers to I-883 as “the car-pool lane initiative,” The King County Journal calls it an “initiative campaign to open up car-pool lanes and spend gas taxes on fixing congestion,” and the venerable Seattle Times kicked off their coverage with the headline: “Initiative filed to open HOV lanes in off-hours.”

Yes… I-883 does have a provision that opens up HOV lanes in off-hours. And Eyman’s I-892 dramatically expands the authority of the Washington State Lottery Commission. But neither of these provisions are the legal or actual subject of their respective initiatives.

Voters deserve to know the primary subject of I-883: that it reduces state spending on road maintenance and mass transit by 20%, and earmarks the money towards new road construction.

You know what else it would be nice for voters to understand? That the initiative is personally financed by Kemper Freeman Jr.

Why? Well Junior is the state’s largest developer of shopping malls. New freeways will have new exits. And along these exits, what do you build? Shopping malls!

I’m not naive. I expect Junior’s paid signature gatherers to be selling I-883 with lies. I just expect a better job from the media refuting them with the truth.

When it comes to the initiative process, I’ve come to expect columnists and editorialists to miss the point. But in his current column [Stir up enough people, and you get initiative(s)], Bill Virgin seems to miss his own point when he writes:

“To get a reading on the hot-button issues that have the citizenry riled up, you could monitor the letters-to-the-editor column. You could sample what callers and hosts are gabbing about on talk radio shows.

Or you can scan the list of initiatives on file at the Secretary of State’s Office.”

Huh? Bill correctly states that all that is required to file an initiative is a $5.00 fee, and makes a point of mentioning some of the truly screwy initiatives that have been filed over the past couple years. So then, how does he jump to the conclusion that scanning the list of filed initiatives somehow puts his finger on the pulse of the people?

(Come to think of it, monitoring the letters-to-the-editor or talk radio shows is not a very reliable finger in the wind either.)

The bulk of initiative sponsors are crackpots, wide-eyed idealists, monied special interests… and paid professionals like Tim Eyman. Only the rarest of initiatives truly represent the popular expression of a riled citizenry.

Rarer still is a populist initiative that claws its way onto the ballot with a grassroots volunteer campaign.

Bill’s attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff, and look to those initiatives with the best chance of qualifying as a stronger measure of popular sentiment is an even more pointless exercise. Unless of course, one measures popular sentiment in dollars… which I suppose wouldn’t be surprising coming from a business columnist.

Let’s be totally honest about this. The initiatives that qualify for the ballot will be those that raise the most money — usually in large chunks from the special interests who have the most to gain by their passage.

It is not a riled citizenry that gets initiatives on the ballot… it is cold, hard, cash.

When I was in high school I took an SAT prep course where the instructor started by saying: “The only thing the SATs test, is how well you take the SATs.”

The Secretary of State’s list of initiatives tells you a lot about the intent of the sponsors, but in itself, it says little more about the will of the people than, well… Bill Virgin’s column.

So Bill… please don’t give Kemper Freeman and Tim Eyman any more credit than they deserve. They don’t need your credit. They already have plenty of cold, hard, cash.

Yesterday I suggested that Tim Eyman’s reputation as a lying, thieving, blowhard actually works to his advantage, as the media seems to treat his lack of credibility as an unspoken assumption. I suppose they think it a waste of time to research his claims, when nobody believes him anyway.

This is part of a larger double standard, where the “good guys” are expected to be good, and the “bad guys” are expected to be bad. And if the two sides ever stray from their assigned roles, it results in shock and dismay, or unwarranted praise.

An example of this has stuck in my craw the past few days, so I thought I’d better spit it out:

[Read more…]

Goldy, January 29, 2010:

[C]ategorizing Freeman’s market philosophy as somewhere to the right of Rich Uncle Pennybags, well, that’s about as speculative as predicting a Seattle Times editorial endorsement. (November, 2012: “Rob McKenna for Governor; a different kind of Republican.” You mark my words.)

The Seattle Times, October 6, 2012:

Rob McKenna is the best candidate to replace Chris Gregoire as governor of Washington. … McKenna has an independent mind. He is willing to work with Democrats and he is willing on occasion to buck his party.

I don’t lay claim to any peculiar powers of prescience. This is just who they are and what they do.

I’m told the Seattle Weekly’s Rick Anderson really isn’t a nitwit — that he’s an experienced reporter and all around good guy. But you wouldn’t guess that from his recent crusade to expose Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels as an environmental hypocrite.

Among those still not heeding Mayor Greg Nickels’ advice to use their cars more sparingly is Mayor Greg Nickels. The mayor’s vehicles consumed more than 1,130 gallons of gas, costing $3,500, in the 12 months since he urged Seattleites last year to find alternative transportation to save the Earth, according to newly released City Hall figures.

The thesis: Mayor Nickels has made a name for himself challenging America’s mayors to have their cities voluntarily meet or beat the Kyoto standards, and yet he still drives a car. A lot.

The figures show the mayor has consumed about three times as much gas since putting his economical hybrid SUV into service last June as he did for a comparable period when his previous car, a 17-mile-per-gallon Cadillac limousine, was in service.

Oh gee. Where to start? Hmm. How about simple math? Or maybe, the English language — for when Anderson calculates gas consumption over “a comparable period,” it is instructive to understand exactly what he means by “comparable.”

The new records show that from Oct. 1, 2006, to April 1, 2007 (the billing period covering the time after the Cadillac was retired), the mayor charged more than 800 gallons of gas, costing $2,400. That compares to 260 gallons at a cost of $870 for the shorter, five-month March 2–Aug. 6, 2006, billing period, when the leased Cadillac was in service.

Uh-huh. Anderson’s spelling is impeccable, but I think he might want to yank out his dictionary and look up the meaning of the word “comparable.” I’m no professional journalist, but if you ask me, “a comparable period” to October, 2006 through April, 2007, might be, gee… I dunno… the same exact seven-month period during the previous year? And when we actually compare these two periods, we find that, oops… the mayor only charged 835 gallons of gas during the hybrid era, compared to 995 for the limo.

Not exactly the “three times as much gas” Anderson rails about. In fact, it’s actually… um… less.

While the hybrid switch … may have helped clear the air in several ways, the mayor wound up using more money and gas than he did when he cruised around exclusively in the limo, according to city records.

No he didn’t. And I know this, because I know how to do math. And, because I acquired additional data. Of course, to be fair to Anderson, he didn’t really have a large enough data set to make any sort of reasonable, vehicle-to-vehicle comparison. But if Anderson wanted to be fair to Nickels, he never would have implied that he did.

(Our good friend Stefan — a self-proclaimed Excel spreadsheet savant — lauded Anderson’s reporting. Hmm. Given the same mathematical expertise he used to so accurately predict the contested 2004 gubernatorial election, you’d think Stefan might have at least taken pause at Anderson’s less than scientific analysis of “comparable” periods.)

Apparently, Anderson had a gotcha story in the works, and he was gonna run with it come hell or bad data.

City officials repeatedly warned Anderson that they didn’t keep the records required to make the sort of calculations Anderson wanted. But that didn’t stop him. Indeed, even in acknowledging his inability to track the hybrid’s gas consumption, he sneeringly blamed the city for any inaccuracies in his futile attempt to do so.

Schubert-Knapp this week said she was referring to her “sincere doubts” about my ability to accurately report the data. That’s maybe understandable, given the confusing mess of records her department released, showing they can’t even track how much gas is used by each of the mayor’s two and sometimes three cars.

And while Anderson makes clear that the seven-month period from October, 2006 through March, 2007 also includes trips made in the mayor’s backup vehicle, “a Ford Explorer SUV that gets 11 miles to the gallon,” he glosses over the fact that the vast majority of the Explorer trips weren’t actually made by the mayor.

“The Explorer is now the backup car, and is also the car the mayor’s security takes home each night.”

That’s right, the Explorer is not just a “backup” car; it’s driven almost every single day, and usually, sans mayor. And all of its fuel receipts are mixed in with those of the hybrid.

So what exactly is Anderson’s point? That the mayor’s hybrid gets crappy fuel economy?

The EPA has already lowered the Highlander’s mpg rating from 31 to 27, and some consumer road tests come in at 20 mpg.

And he tells us this twice. But instead of trying to extrapolate the MPG from incomplete data, or implying a worst-case scenario by authoritatively citing “some consumer road tests,” Anderson could have just used his noodle and asked the right question. Like all hybrids, Nickel’s Highlander has an on-board computer that definitively records actual fuel economy. Nickels spokesman Martin McOmber told me it currently reads about 24.5 mpg.

Not quite the EPA rating, but a helluva lot better than the typical, full-sized SUV, and possibly as much as twice the MPG of the limo it replaced. (I’m not sure where Anderson plucked his number, but according to the EPA, the supposedly “17-mile-per-gallon Cadillac limousine” actually rates 11.9 city/18 highway.)

Or maybe Anderson is simply implying that the mayor is driving more miles now than he did a year ago?

Perhaps. I don’t know. Not knowing which receipts were for which car, or the exact fuel economy of each vehicle, or even what percentage of fleet miles were actually driven transporting the mayor, it is impossible to extrapolate from this data an accurate mayoral mileage report. But what we do know is that the mayor’s fleet cut its year-to-year fuel consumption by about 16-percent over a comparable seven-month period.

If every household and business in Washington state were to cut their motor fuel consumption by 16-percent, we’d save about 500 million gallons of fuel annually, putting over $1.5 billion back in our pockets, and 10 billion fewer pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That sounds like a pretty good start to me.

But I suppose what Anderson is really implying is that the mayor simply drives too much: if Nickels wants us to use alternative modes of transportation, he should lead by example, I guess, and hop on the bus himself.

Hmm. How do I best explain Nickels’ driving habits to Anderson? Oh. I know: um… he’s a FUCKING MAYOR! Of a major American city. It’s his job to rack up tens of thousands of miles a year traveling from one constituency group to another, and he couldn’t possibly do it relying on our region’s bus system. You couldn’t ask him to give up his car any more than you could ask a traveling salesman. (In fact, politicians and traveling salesmen have an awful lot in common.)

Still, all of this nitwitpicking is beside the point, because Anderson’s entire thesis — whatever it is — is a complete and utter load of bullshit. It is little more than a local variant on the same intellectually lazy frame that attacks a jet-setting Al Gore as a hypocrite for emitting copious greenhouse gases while advocating that these emissions be cut.

Sure. Gore could stay at home, bicycling around the family farm. But by stingily counting his own carbon emissions he couldn’t have anywhere near the impact he has traveling the world, persuading others to make modest cuts of their own.

The same holds true for Mayor Nickels. He makes an effort, however imperfect, to bring greater awareness to what municipalities can do locally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and Anderson thanks him by devoting two whole “news” articles and a blog post toward trashing him as a hypocrite.

Apparently it takes a nitwit to ask whether the self-professed “green” mayor is practicing what he preaches – as the records show, he doesn’t.

No, it takes a nitwit to misread a spreadsheet, and totally dismiss the warnings from those who gave you the data. It takes a nitwit to focus your contempt on those who at least attempt to do good, while giving a free ride to right-wing nutcases like Kemper “Transit Equals Communism” Freeman Jr. and his lifelong campaign to kill rail in this region. It takes a nitwit to echo the hate-filled, partisan rants of a science denier like Stefan, and then dare to call it journalism.