Woman’s Firing Fight Gets Personal

There’s not much worse than having your New Year’s resolutions, diet and exercise plans, favorite recipes and other private ramblings distributed to the press, but so it goes for Nickie Moran.

Moran was fired by Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn last March for what Senn describes as a “pattern of insubordination.”

Moran protested the firing was over Senn’s demand she campaign illegally on state time, and she announced her intention to file a $250,000 lawsuit.

The pending suit made front page news on the West Side. Senn was quick to retaliate.

First, she told the press Moran’s claims are “totally baseless.” Then she gave reporters print-outs of computer files Moran compiled at work, during working hours.

They included a recipe for spinach pie; a list of favorite wines; needed clean-up jobs around home; a proposal for refurbishing a boat; correspondence about Moran’s rental properties, and a letter about a local zoning case.

Then there are the resolutions, the reading of which feels vaguely like peeking through someone’s windows. Here, try it:

“Up every day at 6 a.m. Calisthenics. Evening walk. Two to four times a week, use treadmill. Renew vegetarian efforts. Less than 30 grams fat per day. More fruit and vegetables. Read more non-fiction.”

Meanwhile, Moran complained she was “required” to use her state time inappropriately campaigning for Senn. She provided no examples, and isn’t returning telephone calls.

Senn obtained a review of outreach activities by her office from an assistant attorney general, who determined them not only appropriate, but mandated under state laws that include “public education” among Senn’s charges.

Then Senn wrote the state Department of Employment Security to say Moran wrongfully collected more than $1,000 in unemployment benefits, and directed the agency to recover the money.

Next Senn fired off a letter to Moran’s new employer, another state agency, about Moran using her computer and state time for personal pursuits - like that spinach pie recipe.

Auburn is an anonymous little burg 25 miles south of Seattle, full of fresh bulldozer tracks and pop-up suburban sprawl. Now, it has yet another delight to offer: the SuperMall of the Great Northwest.

This sprawling monument to cut-rate capitalism - all merchandize is at least 30 percent below retail - is a thing to behold.

A gigantic concrete Mount Rainier grafted onto one entrance gives the mall an Elephant Man-like visage on one side. There’s a baroque lavender and gilt carousel at another entrance, and vintage airplanes and trains in between.

The “themed entrance courts,” as they are called in Mallspeak, are supposed to help shoppers remember where they parked. “Oh yeah. By the mountain.” That kind of thing.

Inside, there’s an oval of hardwood floor, to be easy on shoppers’ legs. Around its perimeter march enough stores to stuff 17 football fields, offering everything from virtual golf games to the largest selection of shower curtains in the Northwest.

Promoters predict the mall will attract 16 million visitors a year, more than the Space Needle; Empire State Building; Mount Rushmore; Yosemite National Park or the Eiffel Tower.

But hey, those don’t have orange fake fur Chanel vests for under $800.

State fisheries experts concerned salmon are still in decline have formed, guess what, another bureaucracy to save them.

This one will be different, officials promise.

The first mission of the For the Sake of the Salmon initiative will be to identify what’s working, and streamline overlaps in jurisdiction.

Good plan. The current telephone directory of groups, agencies, task forces and committees at work on the salmon problem in the Columbia Basin fills 33 pages. On both sides.

, DataTimes MEMO: West Side Stories runs every other Saturday.