Council members say search reinforces calls for resignation

Spokane City Council President Dennis Hession on Friday renewed his call for Mayor Jim West to resign in the wake of a report that the FBI searched the mayor’s home last week for evidence of public corruption.

Council members Cherie Rodgers, Mary Verner and Bob Apple said the FBI search validates the council’s unanimous vote in May calling on West to step down over allegations of sexual impropriety and abuse of office.

“I was so surprised with how extensive it was,” Rodgers said of federal search warrant documents that were made public Friday.

West at the same time issued a statement through his attorneys denying any wrongdoing, and continued to resist widespread pressure to step down.

But the mayor’s personal conduct has now broadened from a heated political issue into a confirmed criminal investigation.

“Of course we’re taken aback by the seriousness of this,” Hession said in a telephone interview while attending a wedding reception Friday.

“We knew the FBI investigation was ongoing, but we didn’t really have any knowledge of the scope or the progress of that investigation.”

Hession said questions of sexual impropriety involving the mayor are still unresolved three months after West’s activities were documented in a series of stories in The Spokesman-Review. Those stories showed that West offered city positions and favors to young men, which apparently has become the focus of the FBI probe. Hession said members of the public are becoming restless about the lack of resolution of the controversy.

“I don’t believe the council has in any way reduced or retracted its resolve to have the mayor resign, and I expect that to continue with the same fervor that has existed all along,” Hession said, explaining that a resignation would put some distance between the mayor’s troubles and City Hall.

West’s presence in office “is continuing to have a negative effect” on the city, Hession said. “That’s why we asked him to resign and that’s why we continue to ask him to resign.”

West, meanwhile, underwent a second round of chemotherapy on Friday to combat a recurrence of cancer that spread from his colon to his liver and was first treated in 2003.

Contacted by telephone, West said he was feeling good after the treatment and planning to attend a wedding this weekend. When asked about the FBI search, West said, “Talk to Bill,” in reference to Bill Etter, one of two attorneys who issued a statement on West’s behalf later in the day.

Councilwoman Verner said details in the search warrant documents demonstrate a lack of judgment.

“For me it was disconcerting to learn that there are additional witness statements that involve the mayor offering jobs for the purpose of pursuing personal sexual relationships,” she said, and that one of the individuals had “no other basis for receiving a job from the city of Spokane.”

“It appears his (West’s) willingness to offer what he considers to be the perks of his office was not very tightly controlled,” Verner said.

“For me this reinforces the previous positions that I and other council members have taken that there is a legitimate basis for us to be concerned about the mayor’s behavior,” Verner said, adding “he apparently has an unusual sense of propriety about his actions as mayor.”

Verner said the community has split into two camps on the West controversy – those who want the mayor out and those who want to wait for evidence.

“If the FBI could persuade a United States magistrate to issue this search warrant, that’s pretty compelling, and I look forward to the ultimate release of the results of all the numerous items that were seized from the mayor’s home,” she said.

After news stories first documented the mayor’s activities on May 5, West took a 10-day leave of absence before returning to City Hall to serve the remaining 29 months in his term. He has defied not only the council, but the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Spokane Area Economic Development Council, and the Spokane County Republican Party, which have publicly urged him to step down.

The City Council passed its resolution calling for his resignation on May 31, the same day West appeared on the nationally televised “Today” show in an effort to both defend himself and explain his actions.

A recall petition brought by a North Side woman is pending before the state Supreme Court on an appeal by West and his attorneys. A hearing is scheduled later this month.

After the scandal first arose, West apologized to city employees and the community.

In an e-mail in June to a city resident, West said, “I’ve decided to fill the emptiness in my life that I was trying to fill through other means with a relationship with God. I’m reading a proverb and three psalms a day and am attending church on a regular basis for the first time in my life and it’s been wonderful and I’ve felt very welcomed. I also meet weekly with a few pastors and they are very supportive.”

Rodgers noted that printouts from Gay.com were seized from his desk and garbage can, suggesting West may not have sworn off his behavior “unless you didn’t empty your garbage can since May 5th.”

Rodgers, who read the FBI’s search warrant documents Friday afternoon, said, “I think they are probably going to build an extremely good case.”

“Of course they are going after everything in his house, all of his personal computers, it looks like the title for his house, credit cards, debt, anything associated with what he could be doing,” she said.

“This is pretty extensive when you take a look at the search warrant.”

Apple said he was pleased the FBI is moving ahead with its investigation.

“They’ve undoubtedly interviewed a number of people, looked at present evidence. They’ve apparently got enough information to go to a judge and get this warrant,” Apple said.

Council members Al French and Joe Shogan were unavailable for comment. Councilman Brad Stark declined to talk about the FBI investigation because, he said, it is not a matter before the council.

Verner said, “What they find and what they’ve confiscated is going to be the real truth.”