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Mayor Jenny Durkan and SPD Chief Carmen Best. (Mayor Durkan, Twitter)
With questions still surrounding missing June 2020 text messages from a collection of high-ranking Seattle city officials, could there be legal ramifications? Public records expert and Kirkland City Councilmember Toby Nixon spoke to KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show to provide some insight.
Evidence of the missing texts first surfaced when a whistleblower complaint alleged Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office failed to properly handle a series of public records requests, after it discovered that the mayor’s text messages between August 2019 and June 2020 had gone missing.
Lawsuits filed against the city regarding the CHOP further revealed that Durkan’s texts weren’t the only messages among local leaders from last June that had disappeared, with the list also including then-SPD Chief Carmen Best, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins, and multiple members of SPD’s command staff.
In Our View: Legislature must end use of title-only bills The Columbian
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Regardless of how one feels about the budget passed by this year’s Legislature, all Washington taxpayers should be appalled by the process. Lawmakers continue to embrace an opaque process that chips at the foundations of open government.
The 2021 session concluded Sunday after lawmakers approved a $59 billion operating budget for 2021-23. The plan includes additional taxes and spending on items such as wildfire prevention, a tax credit for working families and support for the state Teachers Retirement System.
That capped a 105-day session that featured significant legislation relating to pandemic relief and police reform, as well as the constitutionally mandated creation of a budget.
× By Joseph O’Sullivan, The Seattle Times
Published: April 26, 2021, 3:35pm
Share: Daffodils bloom near the Legislative Building on April 6, 2020 at the Capitol in Olympia. (Associated Press files)
OLYMPIA A full slate of legislation to overhaul policing. A pair of major climate-change bills. A new budget that expands child care, public health programs and a tax credit for low-income Washingtonians. A slew of equity initiatives. A capital gains tax.
In any other year, one or of two of those sets of victories could be considered a major success for Washington’s Democratic state lawmakers and Gov. Jay Inslee.
But even before the Washington Legislature on Sunday completed its regular 105-day session, it had become clear that 2021 was no ordinary year.
More than 260 organizations urged President Biden
The Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit that works with whistleblowers and on whistleblowing legislation, led a letter on Thursday with other groups calling for Biden and congressional leaders to strengthen U.S. whistleblower laws to match or exceed those of other democratic nations.
“Truth shared by whistleblowers fuels oversight mechanisms by shining a light on existing weaknesses, inefficiencies, and injustices. We must protect those who courageously speak out about abuses of public trust that undermine our nation’s safety and security and threaten our democracy,” they wrote.
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They called for America’s whistleblower rights to include giving whistleblowers the right to challenge retaliatory investigations, extending whistleblower rights beyond protection from workplace retaliation and giving whistleblowers a legal defense against civil or criminal liability, among other provisions.