Doug Clark: The Milk Man has the lead in race for county gravy train

Sound the trumpets. Cue the juggling elves.

Send in the clown!

Well, almost.

I’m thrilled to announce that my endorsement of Todd Mielke as our new King of Spokane County appears to be working.

A recent news story reported that Mielke, a three-term Republican county commissioner (aka The Milk Man Delivers), is the “front-runner” out of the final two who are competing for the county’s top administrative post.

What an amazing lightning-bolt stroke of luck.

Technically, the job is called the Spokane County CEO, although King of Spokane County has a much sexier vibe.

Whatever.

Instead of wasting a whole lot of money on one of those huge national job search firms, the county’s CEO search included taking out some advertisements in newspapers like ours plus periodicals and probably some of the more leading seed catalogs.

When it was all over, the search saw 84 hopefuls applying.

After that, an impartial selection committee was formed to examine the top candidates. We know this because the committee members were selected by Mielke’s GOP commission cronies, Al French and Shelly O’Quinn.

The committee then examined the candidates and – miracle of miracles – decided Mielke-Mielke he’s our man, he’s the best in all Spokane!

God bless America.

For those of you keeping score at home, the CEO job pays $160 grand a year, or about $159,879 more than you need to hire a hit man on East Sprague.

It also represents a $70,000-a-year boost from what Commissioner Mielke collects for committing acts of dubious public service on the rest of us.

Don’t worry. I won’t beat that deceased horse about that crappy racetrack that Commissioner Mielke stuck us with.

I know what some of you are thinking.

You’re thinking …

“Quite frankly, Doug, I’ve sat on highway rest stop commodes that had a better aroma than all this, um, Mielke business.”

Rest assured that everything is completely on the up and up.

I know this because of the following paragraph that was part of our news story:

“Mielke and Davis are scheduled to be interviewed by French and O’Quinn within the next couple of weeks.”

(We will now take a short time out for snorting and hyena-like laughter.)

In all fairness, I wish I had what it takes or the connections to be county CEO.

It sounds like a positively great job.

You get to boss 2,000 employees around. You get to oversee a $150 million budget. Why, practically every day there’s someone brand-new to step on.

Small wonder that outgoing CEO Marshall Farnell has been in county administration since Nixon was secretly taping his pals. Farnell’s such a Spokane County icon that he should have a statue in a park.

But before we begin the coronation and anoint King Milk Man the 1st, an important question must be asked.

What about this other dude who’s still in the running?

His name is Richard L. Davis, former city manager of West Jordan, Utah.

According to our story, Davis “resigned his last post amid controversy.”

Hmm. What have we here?

Reading further, Davis stepped down in August “after allegations that he was moonlighting for an Arizona-based municipal government consulting firm.”

Okay. Let me get this straight.

Davis got in trouble for being so industrious that he started working a second job?

As opposed to the typical lazy louts in government who take up space?

Sound the trumpets. Cue the elves.

All hail King Davis!