Lynch absence unexplained

Spokane Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch’s request to be placed on paid medical leave comes at a time of increasing questions about recent visits to a city park known for lewd conduct and drug abuse.

What prompted the surprise medical leave remained unclear Wednesday but Mayor Dennis Hession, in an unusual move, personally addressed City Council members Monday night, saying only that the deputy mayor would be away for up to “several weeks” and is under a doctor’s care.

Lynch’s sudden departure comes almost a month after reporters with The Spokesman-Review, acting on information from sources within law enforcement and close to City Hall, began asking about two of Lynch’s personal vehicles being spotted by police in High Bridge Park, a high-crime area where neighbors openly complain about the city’s inability to crack down on drug use and public sex. It also comes after Lynch was spotted with a black eye and other injuries suffered the weekend of Aug. 25, which he blamed on a bicycle mishap.

Hession, in a recent interview, said it was his understanding that Lynch had made personal trips to High Bridge Park to see if police had stepped up their patrols of the area, which also is known as a meeting place for gay men. Spokane police launched emphasis patrols to combat drug and other crime problems in August, which continue today.

The deputy mayor, the top appointed administrator at City Hall, is paid $134,494 a year and is the city’s chief liaison with the Spokane Police Department.

Lynch has a personal services contract that gives him 13 days per year of medical leave at full salary, plus potential vacation days to augment his medical leave, said Marlene Feist, public affairs officer for the city. The medical leave accumulates each year if not used, she said.

City officials say they are unaware of what medical condition prompted Lynch to request the leave, which came as a surprise to even his closest co-workers. Hession said he hasn’t spoken with Lynch since last week and that it was the deputy mayor’s wife, Paula, who called to request the medical leave.

Lynch, 58, could not be reached for comment by telephone or in a visit to his home in southwest Spokane this week. Those who are closest to Lynch at City Hall said they haven’t heard from him for a week.

But in an unsolicited phone call to the newspaper’s City Hall reporter last week, he angrily denounced “rumor-mongering” surrounding his injuries and the sightings of his vehicles at the popular Spokane River recreation spot west of Peaceful Valley. He made no mention of any kind of illness or medical condition during the call.

Lynch has been at the center of intense media interest for almost a month.

The mayor and then-Acting Police Chief Jim Nicks were first asked on Aug. 31 by The Spokesman-Review about information provided to the newspaper that Lynch’s private vehicle had been spotted by police at High Bridge Park on the weekend of Aug. 25. They said they would immediately check it out.

Lynch did not respond to two requests for interviews made at the same time.

The newspaper, using the state’s Public Records Act, specifically asked if police records showed that officers had run any license plate numbers belonging to Lynch’s vehicles through their computers during routine patrols or for other law enforcement purposes.

The acting police chief reviewed the department’s computer-aided dispatch records and found that officers had run vehicle registration checks after having seen Lynch’s vehicles at High Bridge Park, but not on the specific weekend the newspaper had initially inquired about. Nicks submitted his findings to Hession on Sept. 1.

On Sept. 11, Hession and Feist met with two Spokesman-Review reporters and provided them a prepared statement dated Sept. 7 saying Lynch’s vehicle wasn’t spotted in High Bridge Park on Aug. 25. “It should be noted that Deputy Mayor Lynch was in Montana with family on both Aug. 25 and 26,” the mayor’s written statement said.

But the statement went on to say a vehicle registered to Lynch was seen in the area of High Bridge Park on two other days in August. The mayor’s statement does not say whether Lynch or someone else was driving the private vehicles registered to the deputy mayor.

“Police did record seeing the Deputy Mayor’s vehicle in the (High Bridge Park) area on Aug. 11 and 18,” said the statement. Feist also confirmed that police actually spotted two separate vehicles registered to Lynch on those dates.

The mayor’s prepared statement did not say what activity prompted police officers to use their computers to check vehicle registration information after they spotted Lynch’s vehicles.

“The City has been concerned about criminal activity in the High Bridge Park/People’s park area…..Within the last month, the Deputy Mayor has driven through the area on a few occasions to check on the activity himself and to verify whether patrols are occurring in the area,” Hession said in his prepared statement.

But in response to questions, Hession said he had been previously unaware Lynch had decided to conduct personal spot checks at the park. Nor did the deputy mayor share with Hession what, if any, conclusions he had reached based on those personal inspections. The three-member city Public Safety Committee also was unaware Lynch felt the need to conduct the spot checks, said City Councilman Bob Apple.

“We haven’t been told anything” about Lynch’s unexplained absences from City Hall, Apple said Wednesday.

After a July 31 newspaper story reporting that neighbors were upset that the city was ignoring continuing problems at the park, Lynch sent an e-mail to city Parks Director Mike Stone and Acting Police Chief Nicks, asking, “Is there or will there be an increase police presence?”

The acting police chief said he was having the department’s crime analysts “determine the appropriate course of action.”

Stone, in his e-mail response, said the Parks Department would provide a cell phone to its staff people working at High Bridge during daylight hours and would consider installing and locking gates “during non-park hours.”

Lynch responded on Aug. 7, saying he wanted to know what the police and Parks Department were planning. “The City Council or Public Safety Committee may also ask and I’d like to say we’re responding without giving a lot of detail,” Lynch wrote in his e-mail to the heads of the Police and Parks departments.

Other e-mail messages prepared by Feist in response to inquires from a local radio station, which also were made available to the newspaper, said a black Ford Expedition registered to Lynch was spotted “parked” about 4 p.m. on Aug. 11 at High Bridge, and a white Ford Expedition registered to him was “mobile” when seen by police about 1 p.m. on Aug. 18. Both occasions were on Fridays during work hours.

Police also submitted a “registration check” on a vehicle registered to Lynch at 5:16 p.m. on March 9, 2005, but the mayor’s office did not give a location or a reason for that incident.

Lynch appeared at the regular Sept. 11 weekly council briefing but did not appear on Sept. 18 at a morning meeting of the council’s Public Safety Committee, where Police and Fire Department issues are discussed. The new police chief, Anne Kirkpatrick, appeared before that committee for the first time on that date. Lynch also was not at the Sept. 18 or Monday’s council briefing sessions.

Lynch is the No. 2 administrator in Spokane’s current strong-mayor form of government – a post he has held since March 2001 when he was hired as city administrator by former Mayor John Powers.

He had previously served 10 years as the elected executive officer of Butte-Silver Bow County’s consolidated government.

After Jim West was elected mayor in 2003, he changed the title of Lynch’s job to deputy mayor in early 2004. Lynch holds what is seen as the single most influential political appointment at City Hall, and he has earned a reputation as a skilled administrator capable of serving three mayors and navigating among conflicting interests both at City Hall and in the community at large.

Lynch became acting mayor for a brief time in May 2005 when West took a leave of absence in the wake of published reports that West was offering City Hall jobs and appointments to young gay men he met in an online chatroom. After West was recalled in December, 2005, Hession retained Lynch as deputy mayor.