Recall effort out of the way, but other issues loom for Washam

Three years ago, 65,513 Pierce County voters marked an unorthodox three-tiered ballot and selected Dale Washam as their first choice for Pierce County assessor-treasurer.

Three years later, almost the same number of voters signed petitions seeking an election to recall him from office.

Thursday evening, county elections workers finished a lengthy review of those petitions. The outcome was plain earlier in the week before the count was done. Recall backers fell short.

The numbers are now official. The final count, after a triple-checked review: 64,387 verified signatures.

It was a near-miss, less than two percentage points. Another 1,108 signatures would have triggered the largest recall campaign in state history.

Washam did not respond Friday to a request for comment left with his assistant.

Robin Farris, the Puyallup resident and political novice who steered the recall drive, was still in the second-guessing stage Friday. She fears that employees in Washam’s office who supported her will face repercussions at work.

“The disappointment has not worn off,” Farris said. “It’s Monday-morning quarterback time right now. Fundraising was really a challenge.”

She came far closer than Washam, who tried and failed five times between 1994 and 2005 to recall opponents who defeated him in elections. He reached the signature-gathering stage once, in 2000, but gave up before turning any in.

Farris blames bad timing for the narrow loss. She won a pair of legal victories in federal court that allowed her to hire paid signature-gatherers and raise money in bigger chunks, but the latter came months after her campaign began, leaving less time before an Aug. 30 deadline to turn in signatures.

County auditor Julie Anderson and elections manager Mike Rooney praised a crew of staffers who spent more than three weeks reviewing 84,602 signatures gathered by recall backers. The signature review cost $40,000, with yet-to-be-determined costs for three extended days of checking.

“My staff did a tremendous job,” Anderson said in a Friday news release. “A great deal of care, time and due diligence was taken by each worker to make sure all signatures were properly checked.”

The total signature tally was slightly higher than Farris’s final estimate of what she’d collected (84,503), but it still wasn’t enough. In the end, 20,215 signatures – 23.89 percent – were challenged and rejected on final review.

The high number of challenged signatures raised questions among recall backers, who wondered whether potentially valid signatures were rejected for flimsy reasons, such as someone signing with an initial instead of a full signature (“J. Doe” instead of “John Doe.”)

Such fears were groundless, according to the state-mandated criteria for signature verification. Under those rules, a single difference isn’t enough to reject a signature or verify it. Multiple factors come into play when comparing petition signatures to official voter signatures kept on file in the county’s voter-registration database.

In other words, if the address of “J. Doe” matched “John Doe,” if the letters and spacing of the handwriting were similar, and distinctive irregularities appeared in both examples, the signature probably passed the test.

“A single distinctive trait is insufficient to conclude that the signatures are by the same writer,” the state rule says. “There must be a combination or cluster of shared characteristics. Likewise, there must be a cluster of differences to conclude that the signatures are by different writers.”

ISSUES REMAIN

While Washam avoided the stigma of a recall campaign, his troubles are not over.

He’s still locked in a long-running feud with other county leaders. He’s barred from posting statements on his official website without prior approval from county executive Pat McCarthy. Three weeks ago, Anderson instructed him not to visit her office without an official appointment; Washam reportedly harassed her assistant during the signature review.

Claims for damages loom over Washam’s administration, filed by four current and former employees of his office who say he mistreated and harassed them. He’s been accused of violating the county ethics code, and faces an upcoming hearing on the matter.

The damage claims, preludes to lawsuits, seek $4.3 million. They cite various examples of misconduct by Washam and his chief deputy, Albert Ugas.

The claims rely on the findings of four investigations of Washam’s office, which found that he retaliated against employees, wasted government resources, abused his power and hindered the investigations. Costs of those inquiries and other legal matters tied to Washam’s tenure exceed $150,000. The findings of the investigations formed the basis for the failed recall campaign.

The claims have not reached the lawsuit stage; they are the subject of continuing mediation between county risk managers and Jack Connelly, attorney for the employees. The next mediation round is set for late October. Following standard practice, the two sides won’t discuss details.

In March, the county settled an earlier claim filed by Mark Williams, a former employee of Washam’s office who cited the same circumstances mentioned in subsequent claims. The settlement amount: $79,000.

ETHICS COMPLAINT FILED

Washam also faces an ethics complaint filed by an unidentified county resident. The complaint, sent to the county ethics commission and subsequently approved for a hearing, accuses Washam of 15 ethics violations. Many of the charges were aired in earlier investigations of Washam’s conduct.

The News Tribune obtained a redacted copy of the complaint through a public disclosure request. County officials denied the request at first, citing provisions in the county code that state such complaints are confidential.

The News Tribune argued that state law trumped the county code, and the records were subject to disclosure. The newspaper relied on advice from Tim Ford, open-government ombudsman for the state attorney general’s office.

The hearing date for the ethics complaint has not been set, according to county officials.

Among other things, the complaint accuses Washam of politicking on taxpayer time. In September 2010, he and Ugas met at the assessor’s office with Bertha Fitzer, a former deputy prosecutor who was running against county prosecutor Mark Lindquist in the upcoming general election. Washam requested the meeting and discussed unseating Lindquist, according to court records and Ugas’s statements in open court.

Lindquist, like his predecessor, Gerry Horne, refused Washam’s repeated demands for a criminal investigation into past practices at the assessor’s office. Other state and local officials had given similar replies.

A few weeks after the Fitzer meeting and shortly before the election, Ugas and Buckley resident Dan Fishburn filed a recall petition against Lindquist, charging him with obstruction of justice. The petition relied on materials and rhetoric developed by Washam.

The Ugas recall attempt boomeranged. Visiting Superior Court Judge James Cayce threw the petition out of court, ruled it frivolous, and ordered Ugas and Fishburn to pay $50,000 in attorney fees. Ugas and Fishburn appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The high court responded in July. The justices rejected the appeal, characterizing the recall petition as political harassment and upheld the lower court’s ruling, including the fees.

In August, Lindquist asked the court to award additional fees based on the cost of responding to the appeal. The high court is scheduled to consider that matter on Thursday. If Lindquist prevails, the fees owed by Ugas and Fishburn could climb to $84,000, according to records.

WEBSITE PRIVILEGES RESTRICTED

Though the recall campaign is over, Washam’s website privileges have not been restored. In April, McCarthy, citing legal advice, stripped two postings from Washam’s official website, ruling that they amounted to unlawful politicking with public resources. Washam also was prohibited from posting additional statements without prior review from the executive’s office.

Washam’s past use of the website to criticize his own employees and other county officials is a topic of controversy, cited in the damage claims that are still the subject of active negotiation.

Last week, after the results of the recall campaign became clear, Washam asked to have his website privileges restored, according to Hunter George, spokesman for the executive. McCarthy is considering the request, and expects to make a decision this week, George said.

Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486 sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com