Request for documents from City of Kirkland denied
The following email was received in response to our request for copies of the documents passed from Councilmember Hodgson to CiViK attorney Richard Aramburu at the July 1 Kirkland City Council Meeting:
This is in response to your records request for the documents provided by Tom Hodgson to Richard Aramburu at the July 1, 2008 Council Meeting. The City must respectfully deny your request for the following reasons:
(1) The request does not seek access to specifically identifiable record. The City does not know what records were in the envelope that Mr. Hodgson provided to Mr. Aramburu. While the context of the meeting provides some indication of what records may have been in the envelope, the City does not know the actual contents of the envelope and cannot make assumptions in that regard.
(2) To the extent the envelope contained records covered by the attorney-client privilege, the request is denied pursuant to RCW 42.56.290, RCW 42.56.070 and RCW 5.60.060(2). Mr. Hodgson’s attempt to waive attorney-client privilege was unauthorized and not an effective waiver of the City’s attorney-client privilege with respect to any privileged records contained in the envelope.
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By N2H
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Mr. Hodgson’s attempt to waive attorney-client privilege was unauthorized…
Now that phrase in itself is telling. Hodson claimed he could waive his own ACP, but this reads to me that he only made an “attempt,” so he didn’t really do it, and it “was unauthorized” to boot.
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More of Jessica Greenway’s “transparent government.” Her friends and supporters have the records but the rest of us don’t get to see?!?!?!?
I have never personally witnessed such corrupt and reprhensible behavior. The vast chasm between the rhetoric espoused by Jessica, Tom and Jim and their actions reads like something out of Mein Kempf.
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The real question at this point is what action, if any, should be taken by the City or the Citizens. Can the City Council act to sanction Tom for his actions? Do the Citizens of Kirkland still have enough confidence in the Council that the wish to continue to have them in power for the next year? If not, what steps can be taken to mitigate the damage being done?
In all of their recent actions - or non-actions as the case may be. It is becoming more and more clear that some in this group have no willingness to actually make a decision and lead the City. They are too busy trying to preserve the wishes of a small group of people without offending others or actually taking any action to which they could be held accountable. Hence we have the delayed decision on annexation (they honestly believe the budget is going to improve in the next six months?), the continued delays on decisions regarding the buildings downtown, no real action on recommendations made about parking (how many times can you study the same issue) …the list goes on.
Clearly there are some on the City Council who deeply care about Kirkland and are trying to do their best in a frustrating situation, but there are others who are impeding Kirkland’s ability to function and so the question needs to be asked - is it time to take action and if so what kind?
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I think the appropriate action is exemplified on the http://www.KirklandRecall.com web site. We need to reclaim our city government from the ineptitude of Jim, Tom, and Jessica.
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Be sure to sign up for this Thursday’s meeting of kirklandrecall.com (somewhere) in Woodinville. I have spoken with the organizer and this is really going to happen but there needs to be citizen participation.
Send an email to recall@kirklandrecall.com asking for an invite, the only thing they ask is you not be a spy for the mayor and we don’t think that’s too much to ask.
“Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead
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Great quote, I’m going to steal it!
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Just curious, am I the only one who finds it rather odd that no general Puget Sound news entity has picked up this story? Neither of the major papers nor Crosscut, nor SoundPolitics have had anything. I keep looking. Even without the proposed recall I would have thought it was a newsworthy story.
Anyone with media experience have any thoughts as to why? Maybe it got lost in the 4th of July shuffle?
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The Kirkland Reporter also tried to no avail to get the city to hand over the Hodgson Documents. What if Hodgson was right? What if the process was tainted and unfair to the appellant as he said? Most people are assuming he did something wrong but there is a real possibility that he was trying to make a statement in protest to those he saw as not acting in an apropriate manner. He did seem agitated saying that both he and Lauinger acted apropriately to the anonymous letter but “others have not”. So, what if the Hodgson Documents now in the hands of the civik lawyer really do show someone else on the council or in the city government did something so bad that Hodgson was willing to act as he did? What is in that envelope? At least nine individuals know the contents of the envelope and they are the 7 on the council, the city attorney and the civik attorney. Who else knows? This is the juiciest story to hit this sleepy town in a long time.
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[...] to never see again. For background on these events, please see: Choas in Kirkland City Chambers and Request for documents from City of Kirkalnd denied. A flurry of reader comments accompany both [...]
[...] to never see again. For background on these events, please see: Choas in Kirkland City Chambers, Request for documents from City of Kirkalnd denied and CiViK asked to destroy all copies of the Hodgson Memo. A flurry of reader comments accompany [...]