Council to call on West to quit

The Spokane City Council is expected to call for the resignation of Mayor Jim West when it meets next Tuesday.

All seven council members are now part of a growing chorus of community leaders who want West to step down over sexual misconduct allegations.

Council President Dennis Hession on Tuesday said the city “is now at a point where the mayor’s continued presence is an impediment to the normal progress of the city.”

At least six council members say they will support the nonbinding resolution calling for West’s resignation when it comes up for a vote Tuesday, and the seventh is reportedly leaning in favor of it.

Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers, who is sponsoring the resolution, and Councilwoman Mary Verner had previously called for resignation. They were joined this week by Hession and Councilmen Bob Apple, Brad Stark and Al French. Councilman Joe Shogan is reportedly leaning in favor of it.

“I fully expect it to pass unanimously,” French predicted.

Stark said, “I don’t believe he is going to resign.” Stark added the council may have no choice but to work with West if he stays.

Under the City Charter, the council cannot remove the mayor, so the resolution is only advisory. As a result, several council members are talking about a charter amendment giving the council possible impeachment authority. Voters would have to approve it.

The shift in council sentiment comes after West declined to take a formal administrative leave. A council resolution calling for a formal leave failed on a 3-3 vote on May 16.

West returned last Thursday from a self-imposed 10-day break, during which he said he was going to prepare a defense to allegations he used his office to solicit dates with young men he met on Gay.com.

On Monday, the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau called for West to resign because his continued presence is seen as a hindrance to economic development and convention business.

An hour later, West reiterated his denial of misconduct allegations, which included statements by two men that West sexually molested them when they were boys and West was a deputy sheriff and Boy Scout leader. The allegations were first made public on May 5 in an investigative report by The Spokesman-Review.

Apple said he hesitated to call for West’s resignation initially because he wanted to give the mayor a chance to defend himself. After nearly three weeks of controversy, West has offered no good explanation, said Apple, who described West’s statement Monday as backpedaling on admissions he initially made on May 5.

West on Monday said he “exercised poor judgment in my private life.”

“That’s not a defense; that’s an excuse,” Apple said.

Apple said he was especially troubled by published statements from Ryan Oelrich, who said he repeatedly rebuffed explicit sexual advances made by the mayor online after the mayor appointed Oelrich to a volunteer seat on the Human Rights Commission. Oelrich said the mayor on one occasion offered him $300 to swim naked with him. Oelrich later resigned the city post.

Olerich said that when he was appointed to the commission he was not aware that West was the same man he’d met earlier on Gay.com. West used screen aliases “Cobra82nd” and “RightBi-Guy.”

Apple said the mayor’s persistence with Oelrich might be viewed as stalking.

In his statement Monday, West said he has received hundreds of messages of encouragement and support, including more than 100 from city employees.

On the day the newspaper investigation was published, West sent an e-mail to all city employees apologizing and asking them to pray for him. About two dozen responses to the mayor were placed on file at the City Council office. They appear to show that the mayor enjoys substantial support among city employees.

“I very much value you as mayor, and even more as a human being,” wrote Brad Blegen, director of the water department, in a May 5 e-mail to West.

Leo Griffin, whom West hired to be the city retirement director, said, “I’d follow you up the hill any day, anytime.”

But council members said comments from the public are running heavily against the mayor. “They want to get him out,” Rodgers said.

The mayor on Tuesday continued a refusal to answer questions from the media about how he plans to continue serving when so many people, and especially political and business leaders, are asking him to step down. City spokeswoman Marlene Feist said the mayor is referring questions to his attorneys.

Hession on Monday said the mayor’s political predicament has worsened.

“This is not going away,” Hession said. “You can imagine how difficult it is going to be for the mayor to interact with the same people who are calling for his resignation.”

Apple said the mayor’s refusal to leave office raises the prospect of changing the city’s form of government from the strong-mayor system to a council-city manager arrangement, in which the council hires its own manager to act as chief administrator.

Apple also said he rejects the idea that West has been such a good mayor. He said West delayed budget cuts by six months last year despite early warnings that quick action was needed. The settlement of the River Park Square garage case was a “bad deal” for taxpayers, Apple said, and too many city employees, including top officials, have gotten big salary increases.

Hession said it would be a mistake to throw out the strong-mayor system over West’s problems.

City Attorney Mike Connelly said he is researching whether a council impeachment process would be constitutional in Washington. And a recall petition has been filed by a North Side woman.

The recall petition is apparently headed for a hearing before a Superior Court judge next month. If the judge finds the petition to be sufficient, it would take 12,567 signatures of valid voters to place it on the ballot, but the action would be subject to appeal.

Hession said the council should have the ability to bring sanctions against a mayor. “The recall process is particularly cumbersome,” he said.

Republican leaders have said the party in Spokane may come out for resignation. West served for more than two decades as a Republican state lawmaker before taking the nonpartisan mayor’s office in 2004.

Apple said the Republican Party ought to find West another job so he can resign.

“I think they have an obligation,” Apple said. “He’s a product of the Republican Party.”