Shawn Vestal: Stuckart’s email forward fails the smell test

A few months back, Don Waller, the head of the Spokane firefighters union, criticized the mayor’s plan to expand political appointments as “not the way government is supposed to work.”

He could just as easily have been referring to the more recent news that Ben Stuckart, president of the City Council, passed along an internal legal memo to Waller himself – who just so happened to be the city’s opponent in the legal case in question. The subject line of the email, sent to City Council members from a city attorney, read: “ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED appeal decision.”

Stuckart forwarded the email to Waller within minutes of receiving it. When the forwarding came to light in the course of a separate inquiry by the city attorney’s office, an ethics complaint was filed against Stuckart.

Stuckart apologized quickly and repeatedly. He said it was a “stupid” decision. “I shouldn’t have done it and I wish I hadn’t done it,” he said.

He was right to say so.

He also says that “no harm was done to the city” by this particular action. He notes that the contents of the email – which were blacked out in the public release but known to be about the city’s decision to appeal a judge’s ruling – were widely known already and had been reported in the media. He notes that his position on the legal matter in question – the mayor’s attempt to expand the number of political appointees in city government – was clear from the first. He had proposed legislation undoing the mayor’s system and was the one who encouraged the firefighters to sue over it, he said.

“I thought it was clearly illegal, and it’s not like I was off-base,” he said. “The judge called it ludicrous.”

He’s right about that, too.

But he was more right when he said he was wrong.

Ask yourself: How would Stuckart, Waller and the rest of the Spokane left feel if a developers’ organization sued the city, and it turned out a City Council member was forwarding confidential emails to the head of that organization? Especially if the City Council member in question had, say, received campaign contributions from the group he was informing? Imagine it was Mayor David Condon doing that, and then try your best to imagine Stuckart saying: No harm, no foul.

My imagination fails that test. I find it impossible to imagine that there would not be an outcry – perhaps even a gathering of the five liberal council members before news cameras. And in that hypothetical world with that hypothetical breach, those hypothetically outraged council members would be absolutely correct.

The problem with this email chain is the same: It seems to confirm the worst suspicions of cronyism. It’s a fertile little plot of earth that nourishes the most cynical view of politics – that it’s only a battle between special interests and their hand-servants, covered by a shiny public veneer. In particular, Spokane critics from the right cast a gimlet eye on the relationship between the firefighters union and Democratish politicians, and the quid-pro-quo vortex created by union campaign donations going to those who vote on the salaries of the contributors.

Waller’s organization, Local 29 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, has been in a long-running conflict with the Condon administration. The firefighters and their union – due to their high salaries and their power under Washington’s labor-friendly legal system – have long been in an antagonistic loop with some people at City Hall, and conservatives especially. On more than one occasion, I have heard members or past members of the City Council speak of the firefighters in a kind of sputtering outrage.

Whatever the depth and source of that antagonism, it is very real. And the union has been aggressive in seeking to defend its membership and in battling Condon’s efforts to expand political appointments outside the civil service process.

In fact, it was one of several union complaints over a Fire Department hire that brought the Stuckart email to light. City Attorney Nancy Isserlis was reviewing emails to investigate Waller’s complaint when she came across the forwarded message.

Isserlis referred to the email as “highly confidential” and called Stuckart’s action a violation of the city’s code of ethics and an instance of “official misconduct.” She referred it to the Ethics Committee.

Isserlis’ referral said the email contained information about “pending litigation, specifically, the course of conduct the City would be undertaking with respect to a lawsuit brought against the City by Mr. Waller’s organization, Local 29. Within twenty minutes of receipt of Ms. Jacobson’s email, Council President Stuckart forwarded the email, in its entirety, to Mr. Waller at his personal email address. I believe Mr. Stuckart was aware he was forwarding confidential information to the party opposing the City in pending litigation.”

Was the information in the email all that important? Maybe not. But the forwarding was a foul, even if there was no harm – no matter what the Ethics Committee eventually decides.

It’s like someone once said: That’s not the way government’s supposed to work.