Search Results for: performance audits

I guess some folks just aren’t willing to share pain:

Both the House and Senate budget proposals this week would take a chunk out of the State Auditor’s Office performance audits, which measure the bang-for-the-buck worth of government programs.

“To take more than half of the revenue that voters permanently designated for performance audits and use it to fund other programs undercuts the performance audit authority that citizens directly gave to their independent state auditor,” Brian Sonntag, that auditor, told senators this afternoon. “That change . . .and the precedent it sets is absolutely unacceptable.”

He said the plan to move $15 million in performance audit money from his office to auditing programs in the Legislature and the governor’s office as “nothing short of an assault on what citizens expect the state to do.”

Oh boo-hoo.  Where or where will he find the money for yet another Sound Transit audit?

I didn’t hear Brian crying about the Legislature defunding voter approved initiatives to decrease class size and increase teacher pay, or about gutting I-937’s widely popular renewable energy targets.  But God forbid he temporarily lose half his performance audit budget, and it’s “absolutely unacceptable.”  I guess in Brian’s world, Eyman initiatives should be unassailable, whereas those other initiatives… well.. citizens didn’t really “expect the state to do” what those initiatives told the state to do.

If you don’t like your budget cuts Brian, either suck it up, or join me in fighting for some responsible revenue increases.

Incumbent Lt. Governor Brad Owen and State Auditor Brian Sonntag.  I won’t necessarily be voting for their Republican opponents, but I will definitely not cast my ballot for these two “Democrats” this November.

I’ve never been much impressed by Owen, but Sonntag, well, I’ve grown pretty damn disillusioned with his confrontational, punitive, and thus counterproductive use of performance audits these past couple years. Rather than promoting efficiencies in government, Sonntag’s performance audits have only served to enable and embolden anti-transit, anti-tax, anti-government activists.  If he audited himself to see what kind of return taxpayers have gotten for their performance audit dollars, his office wouldn’t look so good.

Geov thanks Tim Eyman for I-900, the ballot measure under which the scathing Port of Seattle performance audit was conducted, but I just have to point out that I-900 was largely redundant, a bit overreaching, and merely superseded a long fought for performance audit bill that had just been passed by the legislature the previous spring. Yes, it was by far the least toxic of Eyman’s measures, but it was unnecessary, and thus I don’t think Tim deserves any thanks at all.

My main complaint about the I-900 is that its effectiveness entirely depends on the willingness of the State Auditor to use it, and use it judiciously. Performance audits can be a bitch to comply with, yet require the full cooperation of the target agency if they are to achieve the stated goal of uncovering new efficiencies. If agency employees perceive an audit is being used punitively or politically, it can quickly become a waste of taxpayer money in itself. Under I-900 there is little or no oversight of the Auditor’s office, a failing that could undermine the entire process should the office become heavily politicized. One can easily see a partisan auditor using his power under I-900 to harass public agencies and influence the public debate.

That said, I have long supported performance audits in theory, so much so that I made the trek to Olympia to testify on behalf of the bill that eventually passed. In fact, I would like to see the practice taken even further by routinely subjecting tax “preferences” (you know… tax breaks, exemptions, loopholes, etc.) to the process. If Tim weren’t such a hypocrite, I’d expect him to join me in that quest. I’m not holding my breath.

OK, now that I have your attention, let me point out that it was Eyman’s one genuinely non-toxic initiative, I-900, that gave State Auditor Brian Sonntag the authority and resources to go after the Port of Seattle, resulting in the performance audit released Thursday.

Yes, Goldy is right; the “$97.2 million waste” figure is a shot in the dark (the actual figure is probably much, much higher, because corporate corruption isn’t being counted as “waste” here); performance audits are necessarily subjective; and the news that the Port is an arrogant cesspool of waste and cronyism is no news to anyone who follows local politics. But the latter point vastly underestimates the impact of this report, for two reasons. One, not that many of us weirdos closely follow local politics — not compared to the number of people who will see today’s (and subsequent) headlines.

And secondly, the Port’s abysmal performance is intimately wrapped up in an Old Boy (and Gal) network of privilege and you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours winking (and smirking) that also implicates our local media. For far, far too long, every journalist in town has known what the Port of Seattle, with its own independent taxing authority, is doing to taxpayers (hint: it’s not “serving”). To date nobody has mounted the sort of investigative initiative needed to drag the sewage into the light in the way that, say, the P-I has relentlessly gone after the King County Sheriff’s Office. The material is undoubtably there, but it requires a commitment from the management that hasn’t been forthcoming, ever, because at the top our local dailies and TV stations are part of the same local elite. Even if they don’t play golf together with the Port of Seattle and its “friends,” how ever would they face them at the parties?

Editorially, the Times and P-I (especially the Times, not surprisingly) have favored business-backed Port commissioners and candidates and not reform-minded candidates. That and the lack of public education (i.e., media coverage) are a major part of the reason why the Port has been bad news for years, if not decades. They’re not named in Sonntag’s report, but they’re still culpable.

So where now? Sonntag’s report at minimum legitimizes and in all probability forces more media coverage (though look for the damage control efforts to begin soon as well). Sonntag’s report recommends several steps be taken in the state legislature; legislators are already talking about the need for more oversight. Relatively new Port CEO Tay Yoshitani came in last year, replacing the relentlessly corrupt (and well-compensated for it) Mic Dinsmore, promising a changed culture. There’s no time like the present. The same applies for the two newly elected commissioners, the business-backed Bill Bryant (who narrowly ousted reform leader Alec Fisken, a result that probably wouldn’t be repeated now) and Gael Tarleton, who ran as a reform candidate but whose own potential for cronyism has been widely questioned. We’ll be watching.

It’s only a shame that Sonntag’s report was released a few days before Christmas, when news is generally slow and not as many people are paying attention. The Port of Seattle deserves the widest possible scrutiny.

Thanks, Tim.

No doubt the anti-rail folks were disappointed to read the report issued today summarizing the independent performance audit of Sound Transit… though that won’t stop them (or bumper sticker writers like Rick Anderson) from attempting to turn an overwhelmingly positive audit into a PR disaster.

Writing at the Daily Weekly (does anybody actually read the Weekly’s blogs if real bloggers like me don’t link to them?) Anderson characterizes the report as “stinging,” before cutting and pasting a list of bullet points under the headline “New Audit: ST Wasted $5 Mil“. By comparison, Mike Lindblom of the Times (bless their hearts) instantly cuts through the crap:

Though significant, that’s a fraction of the project’s overall budget of $2.4 billion, and Sound Transit maintains the losses are actually lower.

Sound Transit may have “wasted” as much as 0.2% of its budget… not exactly the “Big Dig” scenario critics keep warning about. To put that $5 million in perspective, one of the auditor’s primary recommendations is, surprise, annual performance audits — at a YOE cost of nearly $50 million over 50 years! ($500,000 per audit, 2.5% inflation.) And for some reason, Anderson fails to include in his bullet points the approximately $6.5 million the audit says Sound Transit saved during preliminary ST2 design through its “value engineering studies.” Huh.

Whatever. Here is the audit’s actual conclusion, as summarized at the top of the report:

Sound Transit has faced, and continues to face, challenges in delivering capital construction contracts for the Link Light Rail Project. Through the course of initially planning, designing, and building the system, the agency experienced delays and cost overruns.

Before 2002, the agency experienced a lack of expertise, no established practices or procedures relating to ROW acquisition, environmental, or construction management, and limited management oversight. Gaps in best practice tools and procedures created variability in early project delivery success and resulted in project cost and schedule impacts. The agency essentially started as an inefficient and ineffective organization. As a result, the initial light rail project communicated to voters in 1996 ultimately was modified. Its original length, Central Link, 19.7 miles (19 stations) at $1.7 billon (1995 dollars) with an expected completion date of 2006 became the following:

Segment (Expected Completion)	Miles	Stations	Cost
Initial Segment and Airport Link (2009)	15.6	13	$2.6 billion (Y.O.E.)
University Link (2016)	3.2	2	$1.7 billion (Y.O.E.)

However, in the last five years, Sound Transit has responded to its challenges through improvements in construction planning and management processes and implementation of “best practices.” Indications of diligent review of proposed change orders by Sound Transit Project Controls were also identified. From its inception in 1996, the agency has gradually developed management techniques and construction project controls and procedures.

Sound Transit has improved its structure to manage projects and has standardized guidelines on cost estimating, change and cost management, project management, and risk assessments. Sound Transit has also developed procedures for addressing emerging lessons learned.

Although Sound Transit has made great strides in improving its project delivery practices, opportunities exist that will contribute towards its present culture of continuous improvement.

That’s the unedited summary of the auditor’s conclusion, and it is far from the stinging rebuke Anderson makes it out to be. Of course the report highlights things Sound Transit could do better. That’s the purpose of a performance audit: to help an agency improve its performance. But rather than merely focusing on the agency’s shortcomings, the report actually documents a remarkable turnaround, in which Sound Transit overcame its early management woes to grow into a mature and well-run organization that is largely delivering projects on budget and on time. That’s also the conclusion of state Treasurer Mike Murphy, who in enthusiastically endorsing Proposition 1 yesterday, praised Sound Transit’s cost and revenue projections as conservative, while criticizing opponents’ numbers as “bogus.”

Opponents keep reaching back a decade or more to when Sound Transit, then a start-up agency, initially over-promised the Central Link light rail, but they intentionally ignore the progress that’s been made since then. Still, voters are largely getting the same 19 miles of rail first promised (though with fewer stations, and over a longer construction period,) and without raising any additional taxes. Opponents would like this election to be about Sound Transit’s management problems in the late 1990’s, but Murphy — whose condemnation of the Seattle Monorail’s financing package played a huge role in killing the project — succinctly sums up the real issue facing voters:

“Do you want something to happen or not? If you do, vote yes,” he said. “If you don’t, vote no.”

Indeed, if there is a lesson to be learned from this performance audit, and the parallel histories of both Sound Transit and the Seattle Monorail Project, it is the inherent danger of starting large transportation agencies from scratch… which ironically, is exactly what we’ll eventually be forced to do should voters reject Proposition 1. The pro-rail critics of the roads and transit package have this pie-eyed idea that we can just come back next year or the year after that with a transit-only package, but they ignore two basic realities: a) polls show that neither roads nor transit would pass on their own, and b) there’s no guarantee Sound Transit will even be allowed to bring a package before voters.

There are many in the Legislature and the pro-roads camp who are just itching for Proposition 1 to fail, so that they have an excuse to finally pass “governance reform,” implementing a multi-county, multi-modal transportation agency intended to dilute the influence of pro-rail Seattle voters, and essentially dismantle Sound Transit as an independent agency. Such a “reform,” whatever its merits, would be so disruptive, and introduce so many delays into any effort to pass and implement a project even remotely based on ST2, that Sound Transit would surely lose the bulk of the management and engineering infrastructure it has so painfully constructed over the past five years, and the expertise that goes with it. We would, in essence, be starting from scratch, ignoring yet another one of the audit’s primary conclusions:

Strong management and mature agency skills are not created overnight. It took five years from start-up to the time Sound Transit had its policies, its systems and its management practices fully in place. The Puget Sound region should be careful to preserve and nurture this knowledge base and not to assume that every new program needs a new agency to manage it.

No doubt Proposition 1 is filled with compromises, and I welcome a debate on its costs vs. benefits. But the measure’s opponents reveal themselves to be fundamentally lazy and dishonest in their persistent efforts to slander Sound Transit itself as corrupt and incompetent.

Given the timing, I had grave doubts that this performance audit would be fair and impartial, but I see nothing in this report to suggest that Sound Transit’s management is not dedicated to constantly improving its internal processes, that its ridership, revenue and cost projections should be held suspect, or that the agency itself is not positioned to deliver ST2 largely as promised. Large capital projects are inherently risky, and in that context the report concludes:

The use of the aforementioned “best practices” in conjunction with input from technical and subject matter experts and FTA oversight demonstrate that Sound Transit’s construction planning and management systems are maturing. This should be understood in the context of the complex and high risk contracts that Sound Transit is delivering, where challenges and risks will always be present. Focus, innovation, and due diligence will always be required to avoid surprises on such projects.

A “stinging performance audit”… my ass.

Maybe some day, when I’m old and curmudgeonly and stuck in the past enough to get a job writing a column for a major daily newspaper, I can be just like the P-I’s Ted Van Dyk…

One of the most difficult things to do, in any part of life, is to make judgments on the basis of facts and principles rather than on our feelings about personalities.

Yeah, and when you’re talking about facts and stuff, it might be a good idea to actually research them, rather than just kinda-sorta drawing from your personal recollection. Take for example Van Dyk’s defense of Tim Eyman, whose initiatives he both criticizes as “arbitrary” and “disruptive”, and lauds as resonating with an angry electorate.

But wait a minute. Why do Eyman’s proposals gain broad public support, even when losing?

Um… in a democracy, isn’t “losing” an election kinda the opposite of “broad public support”…?

It is because they resonate in an electorate just plain fed up with undisciplined and even mischievous state and local spending and taxing decisions. Eyman’s ballot measures become send-a-message blunt instruments for ordinary citizens.

Eyman’s initiatives resonate with voters? Really? Let’s take a look at Eyman’s electoral performance over the past few years and see how Van Dyk’s assumptions hold up:

	2006:	I-917 — YATDCTB ("Yet Another Thirty Dollar Car Tab Initiative") Eyman spent nearly $738,000 — most of it Michael Dunmire’s money — yet failed to collect enough signatures to qualify this dog for the ballot.
	2005:	I-900 — Performance Audits Passed with 56% of the vote.  By comparison, the other two winning initiatives that year, the "Indoor Clean Air Act" and the totally unsexy "Commission on Judicial Conduct," pulled in 63 and 68 percent of the vote respectively.
	2004:	I-892 — "Slots for Tots" Failed with only 38% of the vote, the worst of that year’s five statewide measures.  Eyman’s I-864, which would have cut local property tax levies by 25% across the board, failed to qualify for the ballot after five months of canvassing.
	2003:	I-807 — "Super Majority for Tax & Fee Increases" Sounds familiar?  Well without Michael Dunmire’s money, this first incarnation of I-960 failed to qualify for the ballot.

So… um… how exactly do you “gain broad public support, even when losing,” initiatives that never even get far enough to lose? Van Dyk imagines he has his finger on the pulse of Washington voters, but if he did, you’d think he might have noticed that Eyman politically flat-lined years ago. Eyman didn’t even manage to qualify a single anti-tax initiative over the previous four years, let alone pass one, and since 2002 has relied almost exclusively on sugar daddy Michael Dunmire and the gambling industry to finance his paid signature drives. In the interim, voters have overwhelmingly rejected both gas tax and estate tax repeal, while local levies routinely passed throughout the state. Yeah… voters are clearly “just plain fed up.”

Van Dyk goes on to berate the rail portion of the coming Roads & Transit measure, warning it will “snarl traffic and harm the economy,” and yet polls consistently show that light rail is exactly the portion of the measure most popular with voters. What exactly is Van Dyk’s definition of an “ordinary citizen”…? Kemper Freeman Jr.?

With logic like that Van Dyke almost makes Eyman seem sensible. Almost.

UPDATE:
Andrew’s got a more comprehensive Eyman Failure Chart up at Permanent Defense.

I just got a call from 710-KIRO asking me to comment on the news that I-917, Tim Eyman’s Yet Another Thirty Dollar Car Tab Initiative has officially failed to qualify for the ballot. I’m not sure what soundbite they’ll use but I’m guessing I won’t come off sounding very surprised.

According to reports coming out of the Secretary of State’s office, 41,186 signatures have already been disqualified with about 30,000 left to verify. Considering Eyman only turned in 266,006 signatures, that leaves I-917 mathematically shy of the 224,880 signature threshold.

I’m not sure exactly how or why, but when it comes right down to it, Tim Eyman fucked up. Give me half a million dollars to buy signatures, and I could qualify for the ballot an initiative declaring September 11th “Osama bin Laden Day.” Yet somehow, Timmy flushed over $460,000 down the toilet, without reaching to the open wallet of Woodenville investment banker Michael Dunmire for the extra 40 grand needed to put I-917 over the top.

What a horse’s ass.

For years now Tim has been lauded as some kind of initiative guru but his track record is actually quite laughable. For the second time in three years Tim won’t have a single initiative on the state ballot, with only his over-reaching but superfluous performance audits initiative being approved by voters. Meanwhile, four out of five of his infamous anti-tax initiatives have subsequently been ruled unconstitutional.

The only thing remaining between Tim and political obscurity is Dunmire’s checkbook. Hard to imagine Timmy’s personal sugar daddy indefinitely throwing good money after bad.

One of the primary recommendations of the Independent Task Force on Elections appointed earlier this year by King County Executive Ron Sims was the creation of an outside “turnaround team” to evaluate and, if necessary, shakeup management of the elections department. In following through on his promise to follow the task force’s recommendation, Sims has chosen a contractor and requested $1.35 million from the council.

But now, as the council balks at appropriating the money, it’s own independent Citizen’s Election Oversight Committee is recommending against hiring a turnaround team at all.

Several members of the Citizens’ Election Oversight Committee, reconvened by the County Council after errors in the 2004 election, said Tuesday that the elections division has made great strides in improving the elections process.

But League of Women Voters representative Joan Thomas said a turnaround team could end up “turning around every bit of progress we’ve made, and starting all over again.”

The county virtually eliminated the mishandling of provisional ballots and dramatically improved its ballot accounting in the November election.

“It’s too late” for a turnaround team, committee chairman A.J. Culver said.

While administration insiders have previously assured me that Sims fully intends to follow the Task Force’s advice, and that Dean Logan’s fate would eventually be determined by the turnaround team’s recommendations, there has also been some internal debate over whether the turnaround team might disrupt the reforms already underway. The general administration consensus is that procedural improvements within elections have already been dramatic — an evaluation strongly echoed by the Citizens Oversight Committee — but that the turnaround team could be useful in recognizing and fixing the “cultural” and management issues that have long afflicted the department. Sims and his staff have also considered the turnaround team a necessary step towards restoring public faith in the system.

In telling the Seattle Times that Sims welcomed the council’s thoughts on a turnaround team, administration spokesman Sandeep Kaushik didn’t so much backpedal as he did leave the door open to reconsideration.

“We did make a commitment to the task force, which is the group that Executive Sims created, to implement this turnaround-team idea. That remains our position at this point.”

Well, at this point, the Council won’t be ready to vote on appropriating funds for the turnaround team until they reconvene in January… right around the time the Task Force is scheduled to reconvene as well. Considering how much is at stake both in terms of money and in continuing the successful transformation that is already occurring in the elections department, the first task before the Task Force should be to reevaluate their turnaround team recommendation in light of the improvements that have already been made.

After successful primary and general elections, the Citizens Oversight Committee seems downright enthusiastic about the improvements they have seen, while council members on both sides of the aisle seem to be questioning whether a turnaround team is still necessary. If the Task Force publicly agrees and drops this recommendation, it will save taxpayers $1.35 million, while further shoring up public faith in the system.

I’m not suggesting that just because KC elections has managed to run a couple of smooth elections, all the endemic cultural issues have been solved… but there are less dramatic and costly remedies. A management consultant could be brought in to review operations and make recommendations. Or perhaps State Auditor Brian Sonntag might be invited to come in and conduct one of those much-ballyhooed performance audits… on the state’s dime.

In any case, I think it’s time for everyone to stop viewing KC elections through the prism of the hyperbolic election contest controversy, and start evaluating it based on its recent performance. We may discover that a turnaround team is a solution in search of a problem that no longer exists.

Back in 1991 I co-authored the book and lyrics for an Off-Broadway musical. Much to my dismay the NY Times sent Mel Gussow to opening night, a theater reviewer who occasionally confessed that he didn’t really care for musicals. (He didn’t much care for ours either.)

And so in talking about the initiatives on today’s ballot, I should start with a similar caveat: I don’t much care for the initiative process. Indeed, for those unfamiliar with my bio, this blog’s domain name is a vestige from my accidental pratfall into the political arena, when a joke between me and some friends somehow turned into an initiative to officially proclaim Tim Eyman a “horse’s ass.”

Oh, I think that initiatives are fine in theory, but in practice, I don’t find anything particularly direct or democratic about direct democracy. All it takes to get an initiative on the ballot is half a million dollars of paid signature gathering (or free use of the airwaves.) And the battle at the polls is too often won by whoever spends the most money. Moreover, the vast majority of initiatives are actually complex pieces of legislation that would greatly benefit from a more deliberative legislative vetting, rather than just being thrown together in some watch salesman’s bonus room, and shoved onto the ballot for an up or down vote.

Perhaps the only initiative on today’s ballot that remotely resembles the type of simple, straightforward policy issue direct democracy is equipped to deal with, is I-901, which bans smoking in public places. Do you want smoke-free bars and restaurants? I do. Cigarette smoke is a nuisance and a health hazard, and a smoker’s right to puff away in public clearly infringes on my right to breath clean air. Breathing trumps smoking. So I’m voting Yes.

The other initiatives, I’m voting No.

I-900…? Say what you want about my anti-Eyman posturing, but I’m guessing I’m one of only a handful of citizens in this state to actually read the full text of I-900 and compare it section by section to the performance audits initiative passed by the Legislature last spring. I-900 is superfluous and over-reaching, placing too much power in the hands of the State Auditor. Sure, I trust Brian Sonntag to use this power wisely, but he won’t be auditor forever. How soon do you think it’ll be before the BIAW spends a million bucks to put some hack into the auditor’s office, who can use I-900 to harass and disrupt state and local agencies of their choosing?

And finally, while I certainly support experimenting with performance audits (I even testified on behalf of the bill last spring), Eyman is dramatically over-promising the impact. These are complicated audits that require a great deal of expertise… and the full compliance of those being audited. It’s kind of like psychoanalysis… it only works when you have a good therapist and a cooperative patient.

I-912…? What can I say… it’s a shortsighted, intentionally misleading, possibly life-threatening load of crap. Our state’s economic health, and the safety of its citizens, depends on maintaining our transportation infrastructure… that’s why I-912 has drawn opposition from such an unusually broad coalition of groups: labor, business, environmental, etc. Indeed, the only groups that seem to be actively supporting the initiative are politicians and radio talk show hosts.

The bipartisan transportation package that I-912 would repeal was painstakingly negotiated, and includes hundreds of desperately needed safety and improvement projects scattered throughout the state. Kill it now, and nothing will replace it for years. This is too important an issue to fall victim to petty political maneuvering.

I-330 / I-336…? Confused as to which is which? Well one is backed by the insurance industry and the other is backed by the trial lawyers… and they both deserve to be defeated. There is most certainly NOT a medical malpractice insurance crisis going on in WA state right now, as I-330’s backers deceitfully claim, and even is there was, I-330 is a totally one-sided solution that takes away your rights, and hands them over to the insurance industry.

As for I-336, it contains a few good ideas, but this is much too complicated an issue to warrant a thumbs up at the polls. Medical malpractice and tort reform need to be addressed by an open, deliberative process in the Legislature, not in an advertising war on the airwaves.

And I almost forgot… the Seattle Monorail. It’s never fun euthanizing a pet, but show some mercy and put this dog to sleep now. It’s not that I don’t want a monorail, it’s just that this particular one just isn’t worth the money.

I’ve got nothing against the technology, and I’m a big fan of elevated rail, but the monorail folks went about this entirely backwards. They started with monorail technology, and then tried to figure a way to fit it into our cityscape and transportation infrastructure… when really, they should have started by looking at our transportation needs, and then finding the solution that would make the most sense. Maybe that would have been a monorail? Or maybe dedicated bus lanes? Or maybe a giant roller coaster from West Seattle to the downtown waterfront? (Wheee!) But we’ll never know.

But yet, you gotta admire a city that still has the youthful joy to give something like this a try.

So in summary, Yes on I-901, an emphatic No on everything else. (And I wouldn’t be so disappointed if all the initiatives failed.)

I try not to get too caught up in the polls, especially the cheap-ass, robo-call variety that KING-5 commissions from Survey USA. Any race close enough to be worth the effort of polling is almost certainly too far within the poll’s margin of error to let either side rest comfortably at night. And with a large majority of voters now casting ballots by mail, even an accurate two or three day snapshot of voter opinion is only marginally useful in predicting the outcome of a three-week election.

That said, I’d rather be up than down, and with a recent round of polling results being bandied about in the comment threads, I thought I’d take a moment to share a few comments of my own.

Some of you may have noticed an apparently stunning turnaround in the race between Ron Sims and David Irons for King County Executive. On 10/17 Irons led Sims 46% to 43%. Two weeks later Sims leads Irons 48% to 41%. Of course much of this movement is likely explained by the rather zaftig +/- 4.1% sampling error rate. But the pollsters do point out one statistically significant shift:

Most of the movement is among women voters. Women support Sims by 21 points today, compared to 3 points on 10/17/05.

Why would women suddenly flock to Sims? Hmm, I dunno… perhaps it’s because he never beat his mother?

Of course, assuming these numbers actually represent a real swing in broad public opinion, there are a lot factors that might have contributed to the shift. Still, one can’t help but wonder how much of an influence Mrs. Irons’ story might have had on women… most of whom love their mothers, and many of whom are mothers themselves. Physical abuse and verbal harassment of women at home and in the workplace is much more common than we might like to admit, and so many women found a mother’s description of her own son’s abusive behavior both believable and disturbing. Knowing little about the Republican candidate other than his parents’ character testimony, it is not surprising if voters reject the undefined Irons’ “anyone but Sims” campaign.

The truth is, negative campaigning works, a fact that Karl Rove has made a career of proving. Had Christine Gregoire spent a million dollars during the final weeks of the gubernatorial campaign defining her opponent, there never would have been an election contest. Had the eminently fair-minded Dave Ross abandoned the moral high ground and gone negative on Dave Reichert’s ass, we’d likely have one more Democrat in Congress. I respect Ron Sims for refusing to sling mud… but not so much that I was going to sit back and watch him lose an election while voters remained blissfully unaware of Irons’ explosive temper and his well documented history of showing it. (Not to mention his pathological lying and embarrassingly inflated resume.)

Would I rather talk about issues? Sure… Sims kicks Irons’ ass there too. But I’m comfortable that my mudslinging was truthful mudslinging, and that I didn’t do anything to Irons he wouldn’t have done to Sims… had Irons actually had any mud to sling. (Remember, this is the guy who sprung a closed FBI investigation on Brian Derdowski the night before the absentee ballots dropped. What goes around comes around.)

All that said, I have no idea if my efforts have had any impact on public opinion, and I’m certainly not relaxing now that the KING-5 poll shows Sims with a 7 point lead. This race could still go either way, and anybody who throws away their vote on a third party candidate that is neither qualified for office nor has a snowball’s chance of winning, risks putting King County’s $3.4 billion government in the hands of a lying, resume inflating, mother beating, tantrum tossing, tool throwing, unqualified Bush Republican. Third terms are extremely difficult to win for any executive office, and Sims would be struggling regardless of the opposition. Irons biggest backers, the gambling and building industries, want you to believe that you have the luxury of casting a protest vote. You don’t.

Irons is all but guaranteed a floor of about 35% of the vote; this represents the Will Baker Wing of the Republican Party… those who will vote for any candidate with an “R” next to his name, regardless of qualification or pulse. Then there are those single issue voters who will reject Sims on Sound Transit or the CAO or the nixed SWA deal… or who have totally bought into the GOP bullshit that KC Elections is corrupt and incompetent. (It is not.) This puts Irons’ floor firmly in the low to mid 40’s.

The Democrats have their own robotic voters, but they are much less reliable than those in the GOP, eroding the D’s natural numerical advantage. The result is that Sims too has a floor in the low to mid 40’s, leaving the election in the hands of undecideds and would-be Greens. While I can certainly envision Sims winning with greater than 50% of the vote, Irons squeaking by on a 45% to 44% margin is just as likely.

So while I find the latest polls somewhat encouraging, I feel far from reassured. And neither should you. If you don’t want Irons to be King County executive… vote for Sims.

KING-5 also commissioned polls on Initiatives 900, 901 and 912, which make one thing perfectly clear: I-901, which bans smoking in public places, is going to pass. Of course, we all knew that.

We’ve also always known that I-900, Tim Eyman’s superfluous performance audits initiative is a bit of a toss-up. It’s a rather complicated subject likely to confuse voters, and so there’s the natural instinct to vote no. But it is vaguely anti-government, and voters like that, so I still think it’s likely to manage a couple point victory. Still, it won’t come anywhere close to passing with a kind of mandate that could be understood to say anything about the mood of the electorate.

But it’s the numbers on I-912, the anti-transportation initiative, that has spurred the most interest. Survey USA shows I-912 failing, 44% to 50%, but as encouraging as this may be, I’d take these results with a large boulder of salt. Eyman’s own anti-tax initiatives have routinely polled 10 points lower than the final vote — I suppose some supporters are embarrassed to reveal themselves as selfish bastards — so I-912’s defeat is anything but a sure thing. But clearly, the initiative has not generated the overwhelming support some had predicted.

A look at the crosstabs are in fact fascinating, with I-912 supposedly drawing only 43% in Eastern WA… statistically comparable to the 42% support in Metro Seattle. I find both these numbers hard to believe, but in different directions.

I’ve always felt this was going to be a close vote, and if voters really understood the gas tax and what it pays for, I-912 would go down to defeat. But win or lose, if Republicans were looking for some voter backlash to slap in the face of Gov. Christine Gregoire and the Democrat controlled Legislature, this poll suggests I-912 won’t be it.

So there you have it… I find the recent round of polling interesting, encouraging… but ultimately, meaningless. With the exception of I-901, these races are all too close to call. So don’t throw away your vote.

A SurveyUSA poll commissioned by KING-TV has some interesting numbers about several of the state-wide initiatives on the November ballot:

		Yes	No	Undecided
	I-912	52%	41%	7%
	I-901	67%	32%	1%
	I-900	45%	48%	6%

I-912 would repeal the state transportation improvement package, I-901 would ban smoking in public buildings and vehicles, and I-900 is Tim Eyman’s superfluous performance audits initiative. Of course, everybody expects I-901 to pass by a large margin, but I was pleasantly surprised by the relative weakness of both I-912 and I-900.

That I-912 is only polling at 52% just 7 weeks out from the election proves that this incredibly short-sighted initiative is beatable, and should encourage opponents to spend whatever is necessary to defeat it. Anybody who still thinks I-912 is a sure thing, is kidding themselves. Voters may not like higher taxes, but the more they understand what they’ll lose by passing the initiative, the less attractive it looks.

As for the over-reaching I-900, it looks like Eyman’s comeback initiative may fall short after all… a particularly amusing prospect considering it’s drawn no organized opposition. I think it is quite possible that the reference to the sales tax in the ballot title might actually confuse voters into thinking this is a tax increase… thus hoisting Timmy on his own anti-tax petard. I’d say the closeness of this poll would portend an election night drama… that is, if anybody actually cared about I-900 besides me and Timmy.

In any case, I’m liking these numbers.

For those of you righties who insist that WSDOT projects are always late and over budget, I just thought I’d post the above chart from page four of WSDOT’s quarterly performance report, the Gray Notebook. (Don’t complain to me that it’s too small to read… go download the original for yourself.)

The chart shows the 12 projects that have been completed thus far from those in the package financed by the 2003 nickel gas tax increase. Eight projects were completed early, and only one late, while six of the projects came in under budget, and only one over.

I apologize in advance for any cognitive dissonance I might cause by inserting actual facts into the public debate.

UPDATE:
I guess I should have mentioned the obvious typo in the chart above… the figures are of course in thousands, not millions as stated. Silly me… I hadn’t imagined that folk would try to use a little typo to drive the debate off topic.

And for those of you who insist that we can’t trust any of the audit numbers coming out of WSDOT, well here’s a little more cognitive dissonance to stick in your craw… a list of the performance audits conducted since 1991:

Performance Audits at WSDOT: Inventory (as of April 2005)

• Washington State Ferries (WSF) Vessel Construction Audit, Booz Allen, 1991
• Environmental Organization Study, WSDOT, Transportation Commission, 1994
• Environmental Cost Savings and Permit Coordination Study, Legislative Transportation Committee, 1994
• Procurement Audit WSF, Federal Audit, 1995
• Department of Transportation Highways and Rail Programs Performance Audit, Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC), 1998
• Department of Transportation Ferry System Performance Audit, JLARC, 1998
• Public Private Initiatives Audit, Transportation Commission, 1999
• WSF Risk Assessment, Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation 1999
• Standards Review Team Report to Governor Locke, Transportation Commission, 2000
• Triennial Review WSF, Federal Audit, 2000
• Performance Audit of the Washington State Ferry System Capital Program, Office of Financial Management, 2001
• Washington State Legislature’s Joint Task Force on Ferries, 2001
• Washington State Ferry System Capital Program, OFM-Talbot, 2002
• WSDOT Aviation Division Study, JLARC, August, 2002
• Statewide Agency Capital Construction Practices (limited scope performance audit), OFM – KPMG, January, 2003
• Statewide Agency Performance Assessment, OFM-KPMG, January, 2003
• Personal Services and Purchased Services Contracting, (limited scope performance audit), OFM, January, 2003
• Department of Transportation Highways and Ferries Programs Performance Measure Review , TPAB-Dye Management Inc (November 2004)
• Department of Transportation Capital Project Management Pre-audit, TPAB-JLARC: Gannet-Fleming (January 2005)
• Environmental Permitting for Transportation Projects Pre-audit, TPAB-JLARC (January 2005)
• Business Process Review of Environmental Permitting for Transportation Projects, TPAB-JLARC; currently underway, April 2005
• Business Process Review of Accountability Oversight Mechanisms and Project Reporting for WSDOT TPAB-JLARC, April 2005
• Review of Port Angeles Graving Dock Project TPAB-JLARC; planned as of April 2005

Other Regular Audits:

• Annual WSDOT Financial & Legal Compliance audits (State Auditor)
• Internal Financial Audits (Internal Audit Office)
• IT Security Audit-( Internal Audit Office)

Has anybody seen people gathering signatures for I-900, Tim Eyman’s superfluous performance audits initiative? He’s got the sugar daddy, so he’s got the money… and he claims to be spending it. But I haven’t seen a single signature gatherer myself.

This weekend kicks off the stretch drive of the signature gathering season, so I’d welcome reports of where you’ve seen petitioners, professional or otherwise. Particularly for those of you attending Folklife and other such events, a little recon would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Tim Eyman’s career as a grassroots initiative sponsor ended a couple years ago. (Actually, it probably ended with I-695, but let’s not get too technical.)

And so, when on election night, in an effort to deflect attention away from the spectacular defeat of his gambling industry backed Initiative 892, Tim announced to the media his plans for a performance audits initiative, I was more than comfortable predicting that he didn’t have a snowball’s chance of qualifying for the ballot without the financial support of a sugar daddy.

Well, as David Ammons of the AP reports, Timmy’s pinched his pigeon:

Michael Dunmire, 60, a wealthy investment executive from the Seattle suburb of Woodinville, has contributed nearly $240,000 to Eyman’s Initiative 900 and says more could be on the way. The initiative, now circulating for signatures, would require regular performance audits of state agencies and programs.

The Dunmires have also given $20,000 to Tim’s personal compensation PAC “Help Me Help Myself” (or whatever he calls it.)

Oh, I could go on and on about how Tim hasn’t qualified a grassroots initiative for the ballot in over two years, and about how people need to get it through their heads that he is just a shill for wealthy special interests, and about how Dunmire is just propping him up. But I think the expert quoted in the AP story sums it up best.

Eyman critic David Goldstein, a Seattle software designer and blogger, said Dunmire is “basically propping up Eyman. People should finally get it through their heads that Eyman is not some grassroots guy. He is a front for the monied special interests.

“It’s not scary. It’s disappointing. There is no way he gets on the ballot without a Sugar Daddy. Clearly, Eyman is no longer a grassroots activist in any way whatsoever. For two years running, he couldn’t get a grassroots initiative on the ballot.”

Now that guy knows what he’s talking about.

I hate to give incredibly wealthy right-wingers, eager to distort our political system, any free advice, but the Legislature just passed a very thorough performance audits bill, so perhaps you could have marshaled your resources a little more efficiently, huh? Hey, I know… how about financing a bill that legalizes discrimination against gays and lesbians!

Anyway, so now we know why Tim chose this dog of an initiative in the first place: Dunmire told him to… and the customer is always right. Sure, I-900 generates about as much excitement as a Pam Roach Pin-Up Calendar… and yeah, it’s almost totally superfluous now that the Legislature has passed its own performance audits bill. But Timmy knows a meal ticket when he sees one, and Dunmire is his a free pass to, um… less irrelevance.

My only hope is that Dunmire is as sharp a businessman as he claims to be, and eventually realizes what a crappy investment Tim Eyman really is.