Flap Over Elections Boils Over Munro Visits Feuding Auditor, Commission

Secretary of State Ralph Munro paid a visit Friday to help mend some fences - if that can be done after what one official calls an attempted coup.

At issue was whether Auditor Eugenia Goldsworthy’s office is equipped to handle this fall’s congressional and presidential races, among others.

Two of the three Whitman County commissioners have questioned Goldsworthy’s staffing and last month suggested the creation of a “team” to handle elections independent of her office.

Goldsworthy on Friday said the suggestion amounted to an attempted overthrow.

“I’ve been in umpteen million countries and gone to school abroad and been in the Middle East, and yeah, I know a coup when a coup is a coup - c-o-u-p,” she said.

Enter Munro. Responsible for elections in the state’s 39 counties, he spent the morning in closed-door meetings, pressing for the hiring of four election workers.

“We’re just offering to help, trying to offer some positive suggestions,” he said, taking obvious pains to avoid taking sides in the county’s biggest showdown outside the Apple Cup.

Munro left assured the commissioners and Goldsworthy would be able to work out their differences.

That wasn’t so evident from their own remarks.

“It’s this ongoing thing of auditor versus commissioners,” said an exasperated Commissioner Nora Mae Keifer. “Frankly, I’m at a loss. I don’t know how to solve it. Usually, you can sit down with people and have a meeting of the minds … We have not been able to accomplish that.”

The auditor and commissioners have fought for nearly two years now over staffing for Goldsworthy’s office and who should set the overall county budget.

“I think they’ve mismanaged things,” Goldsworthy said of the commissioners Friday. “And they’ve run out of money and our office has been excluded totally from this process.”

Keifer says Goldsworthy’s concerns about the budget are out of line and are hurting the county’s reputation.

And while Goldsworthy has asked the board to give her county budget information, said Keifer, “She has all that information right in her office but doesn’t know how to access it.”

The latest tempest started last month as the commissioners, fielding concerns from the auditors in Adams and Yakima counties and Munro’s office, questioned Goldsworthy’s ability to handle the upcoming elections with the recent illness of Phyllis Leland, elections supervisor.

While Goldsworthy was at an auditors conference in Ellensburg, the board met in an emergency session with Sheriff Steve Tomson, Budget Director Dick Brown and Prosecutor Jim Kaufman. After a conference call with Gary McIntosh, state elections director, they resolved to have Commissioner Les Wigen drive to Ellensburg and give Goldsworthy a letter saying the secretary of state’s office suggested creating a team “to handle the elections.”

“The team will be temporary and independent of the control of the Whitman County auditor’s office,” the letter said.

Wigen was to give Goldsworthy the letter and get a signature from her confirming she received it. But on the way to Ellensburg, Wigen said he decided the letter was “too vicious.” He refused to deliver it.

“If I had forced this signature, it would have been a real zoo around here,” Wigen said Friday.

Instead, Wigen and Goldsworthy decided she should hire Russ Harlan, an election consultant, to temporarily act as elections supervisor.

Goldsworthy now plans to ask the commissioners for a $103,000 budget amendment to hire the other staff Munro has recommended. Munro said he didn’t expect there to be any problems.

“This is not unusual at all,” he said. “This happens in 38-1/2 counties.”

, DataTimes