Saturday, August 27, 2005

When democrats run the place 6: You want FOIA documents? Screw you!

When the democrats in King County decided to get on their collective knees in front of Paul Allen over the stadium rape job, an intrepid (Then young man) wanted to get ALL of the information out of the government to determine what the impacts of building that billionaire welfare boondoggle. Democrats, BEING democrats, knew that the whole thing was a MASSIVE con job, so they also knew that releasing the studies would hurt their case.

So, given the monumental arrogance of democrats, they did the only thing they could do.... nothing.

They refused to disclose the possible silver bullet to the Allen rip-off.

This article picks up the story from there:

Saturday, August 27, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM




Fine in stadium verdict called "peanuts"

By Christine Clarridge

Seattle Times staff reporter


Armen Yousoufian took case to state high court.

A Seattle hotelier, who took on King County for its failure to release public documents on what the county would gain from a Seahawks football stadium, lost an eight-year court battle this week when a judge fined the county $15 per violation for each day it flouted the public-records law.

The fine and fees levied against the county of almost $500,000 make it the largest Public Disclosure Act verdict in the state's history, but the ruling was seen by some as a blow to the act.

"It's peanuts to the county, and it won't change their behavior," said David Balint, an attorney for hotelier Armen Yousoufian. "The message to the people is that they will have to be wealthy and able to hire a lawyer to get the government to give them documents."

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

For the latest updates, comments, and Seattle Times and Seattle P-I articles on the verdict released August 24, 2005 in my long-running Public Disclosure Act lawsuit, see recent entries at www.Yousoufian.blogspot.com . I was awarded another approximately $300,000, but, as you'll see from reading my blog entries, this record award is not a good outcome at all. Considering all that was involved, the $330,000 in legal expenses I incurred, 4000 hours of effort over 8 years and still without all the documents, there is still no incentive for government agencies to release documents they don't want the public to see. I believe the public was deceived in 1997 into voting for a stadium project based on intentionally misleading statements by King County Executive Ron Sims, who orchestrated "rigged" studies to back his hidden agenda. As it stands now, Sims is still in office, and his defense costs and my attorney fees and penalties are all being paid for by the public. Something's still wrong with this picture - which the Open Records Act of 1972 was supposed to have empowered citizens to be able to do something about.