City Council addresses letter claiming malfeasance / misfeasance
The Kirkland City Council has called a special meeting to evaluate claims and charges brought against members of the Council. Kirkland Views has received a copy of a letter written by the publisher of The Eastside Sun, in which he asks for the Mayor’s resignation based in part upon actions surrounding the July 1 City Council meeting.
The Council is taking this matter seriously, hence the special meeting.
UPDATE: The special meeting addressed the issues surrounding an agreement made between the City Council and Councilmember Tom Hodgson.
Kirkland Views received a copy of the letter from the City Clerk’s office on July 24th. We chose not to publish the letter because it was merely a series of accusations. Based upon the City Council’s decision to meet “To Receive and Evaluate Complaints or Charges Brought Against a Public Officer,” we changed our decision to publish the letter. Attached is the resignation request letter.
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19 Responses to “City Council addresses letter claiming malfeasance / misfeasance”
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I don’t mean to sound rude, but dose this Gilday guy have a thing against Mayor Laurninger? He seems to really dislike the man. I don’t know the mayor, but I have shaken his hand and he is a nice enough person. Is Gilday’s claim based on anything or is it a promotional stunt for his paper?
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Jim Lauinger is a kind and honest man. John Michael Gilday is a promoter and cheap-shot artist who is looking to sell newspapers. Or is it to give away newspapers and sell advertising. I don’t think anyone would buy that “news” paper if it cost a penny. This looks like an opportunistic attempt to change the makeup of the council. Gilday himself will probably run for council next time there is an opening.
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Wonderer, you must not have been following the goings on at City Council meetings over the last several months. Many of us who have don’t like what has happened. I too have shaken the Mayor’s hand. I too think he is a nice man. Has he done his job to the best of his ability? Probably. It is his lack of leadership and perhaps incompetence that is at issue. I don’t know Mr. Gilday but I do know that a lot of people read his free paper.
Enough,
I am sure Jim Lauinger is a kind man. Honest? I guess we’ll see after the dust settles. It is certainly within Gilday’s or anyone elses right to run for Council. It is up to us as voters to remember and approve of someone’s behavior or not.
To the both of you. If neither of our local papers are willing to check to see if the King is wearing clothes then who do you think should? This blog goes along way towards that but is only as good as those who will take the time and make the effort to investigate. Without the information we are sheep and deserve whatever we get.
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KBB makes an excellent point about obtaining information - you can never have too much information in my opinion. The problem for many is determining the bias of the author. Unfortunately most news sources these days are not without bias - but if you read multiple sources with a critical eye you might be able to ferret out something resembling a full picture.
As to Mayor Lauinger he really is a nice man and I believe an honest one. Incompetent, but honest. Should he be running the City Council into the ground - probably not, but should he be vilified - in my opinion he should not. The issue really is trust and at the moment I do not trust that the Council can operate effectively. So hopefully some steps will be taken to restore that trust at this meeting.
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For those of you who believe Mayor Lauinger to be honest and even honorable, then why can’t you see what has happened under his reign? Why don’t you urge him to do the right thing for Kirkland and step aside? Give Deputy Mayor McBride and a new Deputy Mayor a chance to try and heal this Council. This is a critical time for the City that requires a trust amongst the Council members that does not appear to be possible under the current leadership.
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I’m too new to judge anyone and I haven’t met the Mayor. From what I have seen so far Councilman Hodgson should probably resign and the Mayor step aside. The Kirkland form of government is called weak Mayor because that position is not voted from a public election. The Mayor is elected on a majority vote of the City Council. I have to assume that Council Members put their trust in him to lead within statutory and customary guidelines. It appears that there are problems perhaps deeper than anyone of us on the outside knows. The town information sources including this one, other blogs and the weekly paper are buzzing with comments regarding this continuing saga. I understand the potential legal reasons for the Mayor’s silence. However, to those of you who know him and like him and to those of you on the other side I would hope that the Mayor issues some kind of statement explaining his actions.
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I do hope he issues a statement and I do hope both of them do the right thing and step down. There is nothing I think would be better for the City at the moment to have Joan McBride as the new mayor. However, I think it only fair to offer them both the chance to do so tonight before calling for them to resign. If nothing happens at the meeting along those lines then I would say the gloves are off - but give them a chance to do the honorable thing first.
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It appears some are interested so here is the place to find what prompted Mr. Gilday to start the Sun: http://waterfund.org/trees/
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I too have shaken the man’s hand.
I have had pleasant words with him and, as a person, I find him as nice or nicer than most regular folks.
But he is not regular folks.
He is the mayor in a period of dispute, a period of disagreement and a period of simple disgust with the actions of the council. the buck always stops at the desk of the top dog.
As much as I love the bumper sticker that says ‘More Wag Less Bark’, I believe the time has come for a strong and sensible council.
We have not seen that in recent months and it has cost us dearly.
FOR THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH US….
PLEASE write a letter in support of the mayor and Tom Hodgson. Quite frankly it’s your duty as citizens.
Lead, follow or get out of the way.
With all due respect,
John Gilday
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Never met a man I didn’t like? There just might be some exceptions.
IF there needs to be a housecleaning and IF it starts with the top dog, then start with the City Manager. In the Council-Manager form of government, the Mayor has limited additional authority as compared to the other members of Council. However, the City Manager can run the city well or, not so well. I’d like to know more about his contract and his performance reviews.
GotOut - thank you for the link to the website. Very interesting. I can’t help but wonder how a nonprofit (waterfund) can use the proceeds of the sale of a vehicle to pay a fine assessed against an individual (Gilday). Of course we cannot assume something went wrong here, just because it sounds like it could have, because we don’t know all the facts (hmmmm, sounds like good advice all around)
The link to waterfund led to a bit of googling and http://soundpolitics.com/archives/008640.html
Kudos to Butcher and Eddy for their intelligent comments about annexation (and Piper is interesting as usual). But carefully consider the postings by O’Rourke and Gilday - about the City, its planning director and a reference to a website with a name that is too vile for me to post here.
According to the website for waterfund, it lists both O’Rourke and Gilday as contacts so depending on what happened first, likely that they did not just bump into each other on the blog.
And therefore my hesitance to follow Mr Gilday’s recommendations for who should lead and who should leave.
BTW, the agenda changed before last night’s meeting and the words “or charges” were removed.
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If the law warrants removal from office, so be it. If not, elections are soon enough. Perhaps by then some promising new blood will have emerged. Any suggestions on candidates? Perhaps a new topic thread?
The Council will be under intense public and internal scrutiny from here on. The City has serious work to do in addressing the code issues that have emerged. I would like to see the energy and passion from this blog focused in that direction. Elections will take care of the rest.
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Will Rogers, I’ll address your points re: Waterfund one by one.
Waterfund is a self-financed memorial to a great woman to whom I was once engaged. She died before her time (44) and Waterfund is her legacy from me.
As a self-financed non-profit, 100% of the expenses of operation and outfitting were borne by me alone. No donations are accepted except medical professionals donating their time at the clinics, no government financing, no tax exemption.
When Waterfund’s offices were moved to a new location we asked whether Cottonwoods were under any special protection, we were told they were not. After they were cleaned up we were told we broke an ordinance and would be required to pay $6,000 and plant 36 new trees - so long as they were NOT Cottonwoods (since Kirkland considers them noxious weeds).
At first I decided it was better to sell the ambulance and keep our budget intact - that didn’t happen in a timely enough manner for The City of Kirkland, so I wrote a personal check for $6,000 and kept the ambulance for a couple more years.
Kathy O is a trusted and hardworking volunteer. Her counsel and friendship are invaluable. She never hid her association with Waterfund or me.
Lastly, please do NOT follow me anywhere. Use your own brain and come to your own conclusions. I am not a Pied Piper and you are not a rat (so far as I can tell).
If you want any advice from me it’s this:
When you attack someone or the organization they represent, have the courage to sign your REAL name. I think (the real) Will Rogers would have agreed.
signed,
John Michael Gilday
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I accept Mr. Gilday’s story as being truthful. I also know that this City’s Tree Ordinance is a fiasco. The Council adopted this ordinance on a 6-1 vote. I was there and heard the no from Mr. Sternoff. I remember clearly his reasoning was that if your goal is to increase the tree canopy then encourage the planting of trees. It was Mr. Asher that came up with a random percentage number of canopy cover that had no basis in any science. I also remember that Council sans Sternoff felt compelled to adopt the ordinance since the Planning Commission had been working on it for over a year. Now after over 2 1/2 years there has been no report made public that shows the the new percentage. As I recall there was suppose to be a check in after 1 year. Oh well. Be assured that when it is reported it will be a glowing report that killed more trees than were planted. For what it’s worth I was at that meeting with my high schooler that night so that he could get some class credit. What a way to run a City.
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I too find it humerous that the blogger that hides behind the name of Will Rogers who was famous for his forthrightness would aatack John Gilday who appears to be using his real name.
I say Bully for The Eastside Sun. It was a long time coming for this city and the august issue calling for the ouster of the mayor is a masterpiece.
I do know that the Kirkland Tree Ordinance is meant to do one thing only and thats to raise money through fines on our citizens. I learned about the danger of letting weedy trees grow too big on our lots because of an article in The Eastside Sun which I believe was written by Mr. Gilday. We hired a man to cut all 29 trees down and pull out the roots. If we hadn’t within a few years they would have been too big to remove and we could never develop the property.
We would have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to Mr. Asher’s ignorant tree canopy law.
So keep on their backs dear Sun, we support you 110%
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The tree ordinance of the city of kirkland is there for a reason. The city wanted to retain trees especially old trees and prevent deforestation of our already developed city. Whatever trees we still have were meant to be protected by the ordinance. If someone with a not so sunny demeanor choses to ignore the law, then there is a penalty. Claims of injustice are for a court of law to settle. If the city acts wrongly, then that is the recourse. Anything else is self-promotion.
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I remember the Great Cottonwood Dispute between Mr. Gilday and the City of Kirkland, and that was probably a big reason that he launched The Sun and continues his criticism of city government.
So is he part of the problem or part of the solution?
I often don’t care for his rhetoric or his approach, and I don’t always agree with his opinion, but Mr. Gilday has helped put City Hall under a microscope, and that’s a good thing. In fact, isn’t the main goal of Mr. Butcher here in Kirkland Views to do just that?
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Dear ‘enough’
ANYTHING else is self-promotion????
Anything at all a person might do to protect themselves is self-promotion?
What your saying is you’ve got one chance to get things squared away once you get hosed by the city / council / planning dept… then you need to suck it up???
No, I don’t think so. Incompetant or corrupt public employees need to get pink slipped. Period.
Had you examined the dispute you’d see that no one ignored the law. We went to city employee David Barnes and verified that Cottonwoods - especially Cottonwoods that were toppled by a windstorm - were not covered by the ordinance. Then, in a cowardly move, Barnes refused to stand up an say he’d erred. Director Eric Sheilds lied in a letter to the editor re: the controversy.
People like you may not have the stones, resources or guts to see it through… others do.
And I also have a very sunny disposition, buttwipe.
John Gilday
PS: I see you are still hiding behind your pseudonym, taking potshots… very brave.
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Now you kids stop your bickering! Wait till your father gets home and you’ll learn the meaning of the word trouble.
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uh-oh. Now we’ve done it!
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