Good evening, Netizens…

The mouse that roared has once again aroused the powers-that-be in a positive way and, although we haven’t heard a final resolution yet, the fact remains authorities have opened an active investigation. The Washington State Board of Accountancy’s Executive Director, Rick Sweeney, has opened an investigation into allegations by Ron Wright (AKA rocketsbrain) that Spokane’s Chief Financial Officer Gavin Cooley was listed on a city web site as a Certified Public Accountant. Cooley, by his own admission, was no longer a CPA, having allowed his license to expire in 2006.

I neither know nor do I truly care if I am allowed by the rules of conduct to jump for joy, but given the time and effort Ron Wright put into researching his claim about Cooley, nor the smarmy response he garnered from Cooley when the error, if that is what it was, was first made public, I’m jumping for joy.

It all comes back to something a former editor of mine once stated, lecturing me in front of the entire assembled news room, that any good investigation by a journalist must first begin with a single brick.

“You take the edifice apart, one brick at a time,” he stated, and that quote has stuck with me ever since.

I believe many of the claims that Ron Wright has made over the last few years. I believe we are paying a steep price for the corruption and waste that is being allowed to continue in City Hall. Thus far despite extensive research and studious analysis by Wright, no formal charges have been placed against anyone, and thus that is not really news.

However, despite Gavin Cooley’s weak protestations, one of the bricks of City Hall is being investigated, and that first brick counts, whether or not formal charges are ever brought forth by the State Board of Accountancy.

Kudos are in order for Ron Wright.

Dave

Good evening, Netizens…

For the edification of those who either haven’t been following local news closely or simply no longer care about such things, there is a little bulldog with a big bite running amok in the current office of the County Prosecutor, Steve (Absent-by-design) Tucker. Tucker, as recently as this afternoon, made local news headlines by firing his Deputy Prosecutor, David Stevens, because he dared to challenge Tucker in the upcoming election. However, unfortunate as it might be, David Stevens has yet to establish any credentials as a bulldog. One may hope that might come later. We need a bulldog as our County Prosecutor, not an absentee manager.

The bulldog who has proven himself quite effective at rooting out white collar crime wherever and whenever it appears is Ron Wright, (AKA Rocketsbrain), a retired Riverside, California white collar crime detective. He has proven himself to be a one-man army filing charges against the high and powerful, getting public documents that are seemingly impossible to obtain without a lot of pain, and most recently, breaking news about both Steve Tucker and Gavin Cooley, neither story which were given much coverage by the news media until recently.

His coverage about CFO Gavin Cooley’s lapsed Certified Public Accountant license caught more than a few in City Government with their hands in their pockets, including Cooley himself. See the link http://friendsofmarkfuhrman.org/blog/?p=225 and it will explain the facts, according to what Ron The Cop has been able to determine. He and former Sheriff Tony Bamonte are unafraid of what others might think; they will pursue what they believe to be the facts, regardless of where the rocks might fall.

But for what this is worth, this is an open door for Ron The Cop to fill in any details I may have overlooked, having just returned from a three-day work project. I am delighted to see Ron is on the job, keeping things stirred up and holding our public officials to a higher set of standards than we have become used to recently.

Dave

Spokane Police were told Thursday to begin thinking creatively about a cut to their budget next year which could top $2 million.

Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, Mayor Mary Verner and Chief Financial Officer Gavin Cooley held a closed-door meeting with more than 100 members of the department, both commissioned and civilian, to say that the budget looks steady for 2009 but cuts may be coming in 2010.

At a press briefing outside the meeting, Kirkpatrick emphasized that nothing has been settled and all options were “on the table.” All city departments have been told to look at ways to cut their budget by 4.07 percent in 2010, and for the police department, that would be about $2.2 million.

“We’re not making major changes right now in 2009,” Kirkpatrick said. “We must prepare for 2010.”

Personnel cuts of between 20 and 50 employees have been mentioned, but only as a starting point for discussions, Kirkpatrick said.