Documents say mayor’s city computer contains hundreds of files, photos

Spokane Mayor Jim West’s city-owned computer contains 1,800 files – at least half of them photos – that he doesn’t want the public to see, according to court papers filed Friday.

The files apparently include photos of young men the mayor met on gay Web sites using his city-owned computer, according to documents produced by City Hall. His files of “personal social contacts” also apparently include message exchanges with young men.

“From what I’ve been told by a city attorney, the mayor’s computer contains pornographic pictures and probably very sexually descriptive correspondence with people he met on chat lines with his City Hall computer,” said City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers.

West did not answer when asked Friday by e-mail why he is putting up a legal fight to keep contents of his City Hall computer from being released.

“Mayor West is unavailable today for comment,” his attorneys, Bill Etter and Carl Oreskovich, responded in a statement.

Contacted by telephone, West declined to answer questions. “Talk to my attorneys,” he said.

Assistant City Attorney Milt Rowland said last month the city would release three CDs containing files copied from West’s computer disc in response to a public records request made in early May by The Spokesman-Review.

In response, West’s attorneys took legal action to prevent the city from releasing the CD files or a copy of his City Hall computer hard drive.

A hearing over the release of the computer material is scheduled for Wednesday before visiting Judge Richard Miller of Adams County.

According to city of Spokane written policies, data on city-owned computers “should be considered information available to the public.” In many cases, improper use of government or business computers leads to termination, the policies state.

West, who faces a recall election on Dec. 6, has previously said he didn’t use his City Hall computer to visit gay Web sites.

But his public statements now appear to be contradicted by an index of his computer files supplied this week by the city attorney’s office in response to the newspaper’s records request.

The index “demonstrates that the Web site connections initiated from (West’s) city computer include pictures and-or images,” according to a legal brief by newspaper attorneys Duane Swinton and Tracy LeRoy. “Based on discussions before the court on Tuesday, the content of the records at issue involves images and-or pictures of young men from Internet sites such as Gay.com.”

The two-prong legal test to determine whether such material should be released is whether it would “result in irreparable injury” or not be in the public interest.

“Mayor West has failed to show that disclosure (of the contents of his city computer) would be highly offensive and is of no legitimate public interest,” according to the brief.

West has acknowledged meeting young men at online chat rooms, so privacy issues there no longer exist, particularly if he was using his city-owned computer, the brief states.

The index of his computer activity includes a listing for “manhunt,” a possible reference to manhunt.net, an Internet site similar to gay.com where West admitted meeting young men.

A half-dozen young gay men were offered perks, trips or City Hall jobs and appointments by West, who has claimed he did nothing illegal. The FBI is investigating whether those offers and appointments constituted an abuse of public office.

The mayor’s attorneys argued that material on his government-owned computer was “personal social contact” information that would be “highly offensive to a reasonable person.”

As part of its request, the newspaper also is formally requesting public access to a cloned copy of the hard drive of West’s City Hall computer as it existed on May 5, the day The Spokesman-Review published the first in a series of stories on West.

A copy of the hard drive disc on West’s City Hall computer would show existing files and “unallocated space” where forensic experts said they could recover deleted files.

The FBI has a copy of West’s City Hall computer disc and three personal computers seized in a July.