Both sides busy on West recall

As Mayor Jim West finished an hour-long appearance Wednesday morning on a Spokane radio station in which he argued he should remain in office, a new group was announcing plans to campaign for his ouster.

A short time later, across the state in Olympia, the state Supreme Court explained the reasoning behind its Aug. 24 ruling that set the stage for the recall, issuing a main opinion, two concurrences and one strenuous dissent in the 8-1 vote.

It was a busy day for developments in the recall, which West faces in a special all-mail election on Dec. 6.

In an appearance on KXLY radio, West said he’s raised about $10,000 so far for his campaign to defeat the recall, contended the city was making progress under his leadership for the first time in years and asked for forgiveness from Spokane voters.

“I’d hope that people will give me a second chance,” he said.

The mayor said he’s admitted visiting gay Web sites in search of young men but couldn’t explain his motivations. After he said he’d been told he could use his city-owned computer for personal uses, a caller asked, “Would you allow city employees to take computers home at night and use them that way?”

“I won’t comment on that,” West replied. “It’s part of the ongoing investigation.”

The City Council has hired a special investigator to determine if West violated any city policies. The Federal Bureau of Investigations is also conducting a public corruption investigation.

Another caller expressed skepticism in West’s references to God and prayer, and asked him to “explain your lack of judgment.”

West said he couldn’t, adding, “I wish it hadn’t happened.”

After the mayor wrapped up his session with broadcasters Mike Fitzsimmons, Bud Namek and Debra Wilde, rival station KGA began fielding questions about West from its listeners. One woman who called herself a conservative Christian Republican said she was offended by West’s use of religion in the recall battle.

“Christians can forgive him, but he doesn’t have the right to be in office,” she said.

About the same time, a new group pushing for West’s ouster announced its formation and unveiled a television commercial it plans to run – if it can raise the money.

The Committee to Recall Mayor Jim West formed in the last week with several veterans of local political races.

Supporters of the recall have struggled to form a cohesive group since the author of the recall petition, Shannon Sullivan, stepped down after the petition was certified for the ballot. Sullivan said she was exhausted by months of shepherding the recall effort through the courts and leading an effort that gathered more than 17,000 signatures to put the proposal on the ballot.

Leading the new effort is David Bray, a local Realtor and civic activist who once ran for a Spokane City Council seat.

“A trust has been violated between the man we elected and the man we have in office,” Bray said. “He misrepresented himself to the people of Spokane.”

Bray and others insisted the campaign has nothing to do with West’s sexual orientation or his private life. But they took issue with some of West’s previous statements defending his relationships with young men as legal because they were older than 18.

“Those of us with teenagers know there is nothing magic about them turning 18,” said Tom Keefe, a former Democrat county chairman and candidate for Eastern Washington’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000.

“It may be legal, but it is no less immoral,” said Shaun Cross, a local attorney who ran unsuccessfully in last year’s Republican primary for that seat. The recall “has nothing to do with sexual orientation,” he said.

The committee is also expected to file its financial data with the state Public Disclosure Commission this week. Bray said it had raised very little money, although it did receive donated services to produce a 30-second television commercial it hopes to broadcast, and has a goal of raising $35,000 for the campaign.

In Olympia, the state Supreme Court explained in detail for the first time its decision two months ago to let the recall process proceed over West’s objections. West had challenged the wording of the recall ballot language, blocking the signature-gathering process until the state’s high court denied his appeal in a briefly worded decision less than two hours after the case was argued.

On Wednesday, the court revealed that it split 8-1 in favor of letting the recall proceed. West’s objections, the majority said, were “at most only technical,” the court said.

“Constitutional rights do not submit to red tape,” Justice Jim Johnson wrote in one of two concurring opinions.

But Justice Richard Sanders, the lone dissenter, sharply criticized his peers, saying that “public office holders have the right to conduct their private affairs in a lawful manner without fear of recall.” He blasted his colleagues’ ruling as “high on innuendo” and full of “wild speculation.”

At issue was whether Sullivan’s petition was sufficient to justify a citywide recall election. Her initial charge, based largely on Spokesman-Review stories, alleged that West “solicited internships for young men for his own personal uses.” The charge was gleaned from reports that West encouraged a person he thought to be an 18-year-old high school student to apply for a city internship. That person was actually a forensic computer specialist hired by the newspaper, and the two met in an online chatroom where West reportedly sought dates.

After a hearing in Superior Court, Judge Craig Matheson added details to the ballot language saying that West had sent the purported applicant a photo of himself, raised the topic of sex, discussed dating, and urged the applicant to keep West’s identity a secret.

In the Supreme Court’s majority opinion, Justice Tom Chambers said the court doesn’t have the job of deciding whether the facts are true.

“It is the voters, not the courts, who will ultimately act as the fact finders,” he wrote. Courts are just gatekeepers, he said, to prevent harassment of public officials with frivolous charges.

“Fairly read, all the trial judge did was flesh out the factual details amply supported” by Sullivan’s supplemental documents, Chambers wrote. The gist, he said, is the same.

In his dissent, Sanders said that the high court had misconstrued the law, ignored precedents and “embellish(ed) the evidence” offered by Sullivan. He said he disagreed “and would protect the mayor’s right to a private life.”

Despite the majority’s conclusion, Sanders said he saw no connection between sex and the invitation to apply for an internship.

“Nothing in (Sullivan’s) attachments links Mayor West’s private affairs with the discharge of his duties,” Sanders wrote. The court should not have allowed the recall to move ahead, he said.

Sullivan said she and attorney Jerry Davis, who shared the time arguing before the court, were gratified that the overwhelming majority agreed that the recall process is a constitutional right. Sullivan has no legal training but spent weeks researching recall cases and Davis wound up donating some $20,000 of legal time fighting the appeal.

The ruling should make the law clearer for someone seeking to recall elected officials in the future, she said.

“It’s a great ruling that allows one person to make a difference,” Sullivan said.

In a press release, West’s legal team of Bill Etter, Carl Oreskovich and Susan Troppmann said that while the ruling allows the recall election to go forward, the court did not say West engaged in any improper conduct.

“The court acknowledged that the recall charge against Mayor West is based on a conclusion reached by only one person, Shannon Sullivan,” the lawyers said.

They cited Sanders’ dissent as being the correct conclusion that public office holders have a right to privacy.