From: David Goldstein <david@horsesass.org>
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2005  8:49:29  AM US/Pacific
To: board.ethics@metrokc.gov
Subject: Ethics complaint

King County Board of Ethics:

I am writing to file a formal complaint against King County 
Councilmember David Irons Jr., who is currently running for county 
executive, specifically regarding his apparent use of county resources 
for political purposes.

A quick look at Irons' campaign website finds that over half the press 
releases on his press page were written by council staffers, with 
links going directly back to his official council web page.  This is 
especially troublesome considering the volume of press releases during 
this campaign season:  since officially announcing his candidacy for 
county executive on March 14, 2005, his staff has written 28 press 
releases, compared to only 19 during the same period last year, and 
only 16 in 2003, when he was running for reelection to the council.

Both the King County Ethics Code and Washington State laws expressly 
prohibit the the use of public resources to support political 
campaigns, and it is hard not to conclude that Irons is in effect 
using county staff to produce campaign website content on the 
taxpayers' dime.

I thus request that the Ethics Board look into this matter and 
determine whether such use of county staff to create press releases 
for campaign purposes, violates county ethics code.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

David Goldstein