Seattle saddled with millions in WTO bills

City turned down 1998 federal offer to pay expenses

Thursday, June 15, 2000

By KERY MURAKAMI SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

As it considered which city should host last fall's World Trade Organization conference, the federal government offered to pay millions toward the cost of the gathering.

But Seattle business officials, aware that other cities might do the same, told the federal government to keep its money.

They promised to cover the cost of the event themselves. But seven months after the close of the conference, they have been unable to pay $1.5 million promised to help cover police costs, and the city is saddled with a $9 million bill from hosting the conference.

In a sense, the federal government's offer was just part of the mating dance federal and local officials play when a conference is up for grabs. The offer to Seattle was made in an Oct. 22, 1998, letter from State Department official John Dieffenderfer to Seattle-King County Convention and Visitors Bureau sales Manager Kathy Paxton.

"Let me note once again, all actual expenses generated by the WTO in holding the event in your city rather than at the headquarters in Geneva are the responsibility of the U.S. Government (WTO staff transportation and sustenance, shipment of documents to and from Geneva, meeting space, delegation office space, providing one vehicle/driver for each delegation and the like)," wrote Dieffenderfer, the State Department's 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference manager. But in an interview, Dieffenderfer acknowledged he made the offer knowing the competing cities would insist on paying in the hopes of outbidding others.

Like most of the other cities, Seattle turned the offer down. Bob Rohan, chairman of the Seattle City Council citizens panel examining how the WTO was invited here, noted Seattle's bid to pay $7 million toward conference costs was $2 million more than Honolulu's $5 million bid. The cities' proposals are confidential, and the Honolulu bid is the only one the panel has been able to obtain.

In a Dec. 16, 1998, letter to Dieffenderfer from Paxton and Washington Council on International Trade executive director Pat Davis, the city offered to take care of all the costs the federal government had offered to pay for. Included in a $7 million budget they submitted were $840,000 to get the convention center ready, $1.6 million for delegate offices, and $860,000 for WTO delegates and ministers' transportation.

"The Seattle Host Organization will cover whatever the final costs are," they wrote.

Had Seattle's Host Organization not reached for the bill, Dieffenderfer said the State Department would have picked some other city.

But Seattle's host organization apparently went too far. Having offered to pay for such things as getting the convention center ready, the Seattle Host Organization spent all of the $7 million it raised on the conference itself, leaving nothing for the police costs it promised to pay.

The city may recoup about $3 million of its $9 million loss from Congress, but even then, the city will have to spend about $6 million in next year's budget that could have gone for other things.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), June 16, 2000

Answers

Gregoire faults the other side

by Eric Nalder Seattle Times staff reporter Attorney General Christine Gregoire, whose office is under fire for missing a crucial court deadline, says the opposing lawyer in the case shares the blame.

"We have opposing counsel who did not live by the standard of conduct that this office uses to practice law," Gregoire said yesterday. It was her first interview since the revelation Monday that her underlings had failed to file an appeal of the largest jury verdict ever rendered against the state of Washington.

Gregoire acknowledged that "we have an attorney who did not do her job" in missing the deadline "and we have some other contributing factors."

But she and her aides say the lawyer who successfully sued the state in the civil case, David P. Moody of Seattle, should have made a courtesy call to the attorney general's torts office as the deadline for appeal approached.

That assertion rankled Moody and others in the legal community.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), June 16, 2000.

Oh, don't woory too much about that last one. It was only $17.8 million. If I was the plaintiff, I would have expected MY lawyer to call the state and tell them they were about to miss an appeal date so they wouldn't have to pay me the judgement. Right.

Craig said something once about the voters wanting government that works.

Every time the government at any level does stupid stuff, it convinces the voters that it doesn't work, and encourages further citizens initiatives. They need to get back to the basics, stop pandering to special interest groups, and get over being so damn arrogant, or they are going to have a lot less toys to play with as they lose money and support.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), June 16, 2000.

And lets not forget the $30 million for the King County computer system that's now down the drain - at least unless the County comes up with an additional $20 million to start up the project again.

-- Albert Fosha (AFosha@aol.com), June 16, 2000.

Why should the taxpayers pay? Because the courts found their bureaucrats liable, of course. But the better question is what should our elected representatives be doing to reign in the stupidity and abuses that lead to such things as the Wenatchee witch trials, and similar costly stupidity?

Washington Supreme Court holds CPS liable for negligence  
 
OLYMPIA (AP) - The state's Child Protective Services agency can be 
held liable for mishandling a child-abuse investigation, the 
Washington Supreme Court said Thursday. 



The court voted 6-3 to reinstate a jury's $201,500 verdict against 
the state Department of Social and Health Services. 



The money was awarded to David Tyner III, a King County man accused 
by his wife in 1993 of sexually abusing their 4-year-old son and 6-
year-old daughter. 



No abuse was substantiated by CPS investigators, though Tyner was 
barred from seeing his children for over four months. He won joint 
custody after he and his wife divorced. 



Tyner sued the state and won after convincing a jury that CPS 
withheld information from the courts, particularly a caseworker's 
notation early in the investigation that the claims against Tyner 
were "unfounded." 
 

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), June 16, 2000.

And from the Bremerton Sun:

OUR VIEWS 
Published: Friday, June 16, 2000 
State AG drops ball in verdict appeal 



 Justice will be best served if the Appellate Court rejects the 
attorney general's request to extend the deadline for appealing this 
case. 


The government of the state of Washington is capable of doing 
something right. You'd just never know it from the case of Eric 
Busch, Damon Beckman and William Coalter. 

The three men with severe mental handicaps were physically and 
sexually abused in a Bremerton group home despite the fact that 
social workers who served them repeatedly told the state Department 
of Social and Health Services that they suspected the abuse was 
taking place. The state agency, which licensed the group home, did 
nothing to intervene. 

As a result, the state was taken to court, where a jury awarded the 
three men $17.8 million in damages, believed to be the largest 
personal-injury verdict in state history. 

It's bad enough that the state's inattention to the needs of these 
three men could cost taxpayers $17.8 million. 

But now we find out that another state agency's inattention to the 
biggest personal-injury verdict in state history may also have robbed 
the taxpayers of their right to appeal the verdict. The office of 
Attorney General Christine Gregoire missed the deadline to file its 
notice of appeal. 

And they weren't just a few minutes late, or a few hours. They were 
10 days late. 

Now they're trying to blame their failure to meet the deadline on a 
"junior" attorney in the office and "gamesmanship" by the opposing 
attorney. 

The attorney for the three men gave the attorney general's office 
minimal notice of a court hearing that triggered the appeal deadline. 
So that's an excuse to miss the deadline? Since when is it the 
opposing attorney's job to make it easier to appeal the judgment he 
won? David Moody, the attorney for the three men, did what was 
required of him. It was the attorney general's office that failed to 
do what was required. 

A law office that loses a $17.8 million judgment shouldn't be 
depending only on a junior attorney to follow up on the case. Where 
was the "junior" attorney's supervisor? Where was the supervisor's 
supervisor? Wasn't a $17.8 million judgment big enough to get 
Gregoire's attention? 

You'd think everyone in her office who worked on the case and every 
one of their supervisors all the way up the line would have had a 
sign taped to their office door with $17.8 million in big red letters 
and a reminder to follow up on the appeal. 

Now the attorney general wants the Appellate Court to extend the 
deadline, after the fact. Chief Deputy Attorney General Kathleen Mix 
said it would be a "miscarriage of justice" not to allow that. 

On the contrary. Justice will probably best be served if the 
Appellate Court rules loudly and clearly that the attorney general is 
subject to the same deadlines as every other attorney. 

If the state can't get its act together to protect people in its care 
from abuse, then maybe a $17.8 million judgment is needed for a wake-
up call. And if the state can't get its act together to make a simple 
legal filing to appeal the biggest judgment it's ever lost, then it 
should have to live with the verdict ... and leave it to taxpayers to 
decide whether their elected attorney general has served their best 
interests. 

Jeff Brody, Opinion Editor 

This doesn't strike me as government that works. It's more like amateur hour at Olympia. the craigster

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), June 16, 2000.

Amateur hour is right!!

Gregoire takes some blame over award case Friday, June 16, 2000 SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF and NEWS SERVICES OLYMPIA -- In her first public reaction to outrage over her agency's botched appeal of the largest personal-injury award ever levied against the state of Washington, the state's top attorney said she has to accept some of the blame. "We've got 20,000 cases, so I don't normally get involved in the cases," Attorney General Christine Gregoire said. ". . . I have every right to expect the assistant attorney general to do her job. "But in the end, this office has to bear some responsibility. I still am amazed at what happened on a case of this significance." Earlier this week, Gregoire's office acknowledged that it missed the deadline to appeal a $17.8 million decision awarded to three men who said they were abused in a state-licensed home in Bremerton. David Moody, the lawyer who represents the three men, said the settlement is accruing interest at a rate of about $6,000 a day. Yesterday, Gregoire revealed details of an internal investigation into the fiasco. The investigation placed the blame primarily on Assistant Attorney General Janet Capps. Capps withheld information from members of her own legal team and failed to show up in court without notice, the investigator found. Another state attorney erupted in temper tantrums in open court. Gregoire said she's focused on hopes that an appeals court will give the state an unusual extension in light of its own bad lawyering. "It's hard to get one granted because they're really sticklers on the rules, but it happens," said Gregoire. "The argument is, justice would not occur (without an appeal)," Gregoire said. "The citizens of the state of Washington would not be served." In reaching the award, the Pierce County Superior jury ruled that the state was negligent in licensing the home in which the three men said they were abused. The state Court of Appeals is scheduled to consider the state's request to waive the deadline June 28. If that court rejects the motion, taxpayers will have to pay the men without benefit of an appeal. Gregoire said yesterday she has not considered -- nor ruled out -- pursuing a bar association complaint against Capps. "At this point in time we haven't decided to do anything like that," said Gregoire, adding she is focused on the extension request. "I haven't had time to think about it." The state was alerted to its mistake in mid-May when Moody, of Seattle, sent a letter stating that the deadline had passed 11 days earlier and asking when the men could expect the money to be deposited. Susan Barnes, a former federal prosecutor hired by Gregoire to investigate what happened, concluded that rivalries among state lawyers and ineffective case management helped produce "every lawyer's nightmare." According to the report, Capps "hoarded information" and was absent from the courtroom without notice. She later admitted she was angry that a fellow assistant attorney general, Lori Lamb, had replaced her as lead attorney on the case and was reducing Capps' involvement, according to the report, which included copies of frosty e-mails between the two. After the verdict, Barnes wrote, Lamb expected a long delay before the jury's decision was formally entered. Eleven days later, though, Moody sent a legal messenger to the attorney general's office in Seattle with a notice that the official judgment would be entered in 10 days. The papers were then relayed to Capps at a time when Lamb was home sick from exhaustion related to the trial and Lamb's secretary was off work after being hit by a car. Capps said she couldn't remember why she didn't forward the documents to her colleagues, a response Barnes dismissed as "not believable." As a result, no state lawyers were present when the judgment was made official during a hearing April 14, which marked the start of the 30- day time limit to file an appeal. Capps was pressured to resign, effective July 1. She is on administrative leave until then. Lamb also must share some of the blame, Barnes said, noting that Lamb "had a temper and on at least one occasion exploded in open court at Jan, very inappropriately, according to one of the team." Gregoire said yesterday that Lamb, whom the attorney general described as "a very fine lawyer for whom I have a lot of regard," was reprimanded and counseled. Gregoire said she was unaware of the growing conflict between Capps and Lamb and said there was no excuse for such conduct. "Everybody in my office knows how I think we ought to conduct ourselves, and that is in the absolute, ultimate professional way," Gregoire said. "If there are personal conflicts, they have absolutely no place whatsoever in a case."

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), June 16, 2000.

Wow, you mean two people working for a state agency were more interested in going round'n'round with one another than going round'n'round with the plaintiffs' attorney? I'm shocked. . .I really am ;-).

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), June 18, 2000.

 Child-rape suspect has history of parole violations - Teen has 
been in and out of juvenile detention for 4 years
2000-06-20
by Noel S. Brady
Journal Reporter

MERCER ISLAND -- Before his second child-rape arrest last week, 
Christopher Shelley repeatedly committed other crimes, violated the 
terms of his parole and failed to check in as required with his 
parole officer.

Records filed in Snohomish County Juvenile Court indicate that 17-
year-old Shelley, who pleaded guilty in 1994 to raping a 5-year-old 
boy, spent much of the past four years in and out of juvenile 
detention for failing to meet the requirements of a sex offender and 
his parole. 

But despite the fact that his parole officer, Steven LeBert, sometimes didn't know exactly where or with whom the boy was living, Snohomish County probation manager Bruce Ecklund said the officer was diligent in keeping tabs on Shelley.

``We did do a thorough investigation when this came up'' last week, 
Ecklund said Friday. ``We have found exemplary work on the part of 
the parole counselor.''

Last week, Shelley was arrested again for having sex with the 12-year-
old daughter of a family he was living with on Mercer Island. 
 

If anyone out there believes they can explain this one to me, I'm waiting to hear any sort of reasonable explanation. If "exemplary work" doesn't stop this from happening, why should we have parole officers at all?

If the system failed and resulted in tragedy, that's a matter of trying harder to make the system work. But if the system WORKING still results in tragedy, what good is it? Mark Stilson

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), June 20, 2000.

Costly error not the first by Gregoire's attorneys 




by Eric Nalder 
Seattle Times staff reporter 
State Attorney General Christine Gregoire said in an interview last 
week that as far as she knew, her office hadn't lost a civil case in 
27 years due to a missed appeals deadline. 



Make that 20 months. 



Records show the Office of the Attorney General failed to file an 
appeal to the Washington State Supreme Court on time in October 1998. 
As a result, the Department of Social and Health Services and two 
Child Protective Service caseworkers had to swallow a half-million-
dollar judgment without getting a chance to argue it before the high 
court. 



The assistant attorney general in charge of that case, Peter Berney, 
apparently miscalculated the deadline by a day. Then, instead of 
rushing the appeal papers to the court, he mailed them. The papers 
arrived five days late. 



Berney submitted a 12-page brief asking the court to accept his 
appeal anyway, but on Jan. 6, 1999, he got this terse reply from 
Chief Justice Barbara Durham: 



"The Court rejects the contention that the petition was timely filed, 
and denies the motion for an extension of time." 



Berney didn't recall the details of the case, but said he wasn't 
disciplined for it and it wasn't as serious as the latest fumbled 
appeal by Gregoire's office. 

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), June 20, 2000.

 No plan for botched computer system 




by Roberto Sanchez 
Seattle Times staff reporter 
Almost a month after King County Executive Ron Sims announced he was 
suspending work on the county's troubled financial computer system, 
managers have yet to come up with a plan for handling its remains. 



In fact, the county has continued spending on the project, and 
managers expect to have only $921,187 of the original $38 million 
budget left by the end of this month. 



"The kind of suspension listed in the press release (of May 25) did 
not occur," said Rebecha Cusack, lead staff analyst for the budget 
committee of the Metropolitan King County Council, speaking yesterday 
at a committee meeting. 



"Spending continued, and staff were retained." 



David Martinez, the new manager in charge of the project, said his 
team is still trying to figure out what to do with the partly 
installed software and hasn't come up with a detailed plan for the 
future. 



Caroline Whalen, executive project coordinator, said she expects Sims 
to introduce a plan early today. She did not release details 
yesterday during the budget-committee meeting. 



"My hope is that at some point I can come to you with some good 
news," Whalen told the committee. 



The $38 million project was supposed to combine the old accounting 
and payroll computers from Metro and King County, which have remained 
separate since the governments merged in 1994. 



However, the project ran into serious problems last summer and 
managed to only partly install a software and computer package to run 
payroll for former Metro employees. Completing all of the systems 
would have cost millions more - $17.5 million in one estimate - and 
no one was sure of when the project would be done. 



On May 25, Sims fired the chief consultant on the project, KPMG, and 
assigned new managers to figure out a way to continue some or all of 
the project, or kill it altogether. 



Since that announcement, the county has continued to spend money on 
consultants and rent to finish work and fix problems. All together, 
expenses will total about $5.5 million between May 1 and June 30, 
including $1.5 million in salaries. 
 

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), June 22, 2000.

I can't help but noticing on the front page of today's Tribune, that the AGs office is mentioned twice. In one story, the lawyer who failed to appeal the decision is blaming it on her ADHD (I s**t you not!) while the headline demonstrates that the AG demanded and got a new trial after losing $350,000 in damages, and in the retrial lost $8 million.

Talk about the gang that couldn't shoot straight!

zowie

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), July 01, 2000.

County will pay $17.9 million in 'permatemp' case 

Tuesday, July 25, 2000

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF 




Completing a settlement reached last month, the King County Council 
yesterday earmarked $17.9 million to cover damages against temporary 
staff who worked full-time hours but were denied the wages and 
benefits of regular employees.

Calling it a problem the county inherited from its 1994 merger with 
Metro, council members approved the money in a 12-0 vote.

The decision stemmed from one of several lawsuits filed against the 
county and the former Metro for the practice of hiring temporary 
contract workers, only to keep them on extended, full-time schedules 
without offering wages or benefits, such as sick leave and vacation 
time.

To date, King County has paid more than $40 million to settle 
lawsuits from "permatemps."

You'd sort of expect with what we pay these guys, they'd stop making "little" $40 million errors.

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), July 25, 2000.

OOPS! Another $40 million error. Seems to be the King County standard error size, $40 million.

Computer Shut Down Costs 
King Co. Millions
July 25, 2000, 07:00 AM, PST
 
 
The Metropolitan King County Council has approved a $3.7 million 
proposal to shut down the county's failed new finance computer 
system. 

That's less than the $8.4 million requested to pull the plug on the 
project by Executive Ron Sims, but it still pushes the total cost of 
the doomed project to more than $40 million. 

The $38 million system, intended to handle payrolls, accounting and 
general finances for the county, has been fraught with glitches since 
it went online in June 1999. 

Most of the money approved by the council Monday -- about $3.2 
million -- will be spent on fixing bugs and training people running 
the only part of the system that has been installed, a payroll system 
that writes checks for some 6,000 of the county's 19,000 workers but 
that only works with the help of a team of consultants and overtime 
from payroll employees. 

The remaining money will go to plan how to revive the entire project 
later. 

The vote was 12-1 with Councilman Ken Pullen, R-Kent, opposed. 
 

-- (mark842@hotmail.com), July 25, 2000.

$38 MIL to cut 6000 checks every two weeks? How about you just give ME the job. I'll do it for a tenth of that, as long as you want me to.

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), July 25, 2000.

A simplistic answer would be...

Taxpayers pay the government's bills. Whether the government that taxpayers elect are competent or not does not change that fact.

-- Gene (Gene@gene.com), July 28, 2000.

and what if we stop, Gene?

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), July 28, 2000.

Zowie,

Option #1 - If you stop... Paying taxes, then the government will be all over you one way or another.

Option #2 - If you stop... Electing an incompetent government, then good for you.

I think that too many contributors to this forum can not see beyond Option #1.

-- Gene (Gene@gene.com), July 29, 2000.