For the last 8 years or so, State Sen. Ann Rivers has become that which many people abhor: an all too typical politician.
For years now, We, The People, have been assaulted by politicians following the Steve Stuart school of politics.
Stuart, best known for both selling Clark County out to TriMet, Portland's Nazi-level Loot Rail authority by being the deciding vote to allow an unelected, out of state agency to exercise eminent domain... and for falsely accusing then county commissioners David Madore and Tom Mielke of violating state sunshine laws... got a cushy gig as city manager of Woodland, WA as payment for his betrayal of the people.
Famously, on the way out, he acknowledged that the only person he was representing and advocating for was, well, Steve Stuart himself.
"And I've said it before: I don't speak for the people.. I will NEVER
speak for "the people," I speak for Steve and some of you are going to
agree with me and some of you aren't."
(Strangely reminiscent of now Longview Assistant City Manager Ann Rivers, who, having been primarily responsible for the death of the hated Columbia River Crossing scam, underwent some sort of epiphany, did a complete 180, and is now primarily responsible for resurrecting that hated zombie, only to find herself with an equally cushy gig as Assistant City Manager of Longview. But now? Now it appears there maybe 2.5 million reasons why that gig might not last. Was Stuart's reward for his betrayal of Clark County coincidental to Rivers' reward for selling us out on the massive gas tax/tab fee increases she engineered as a Republican Senator in the then GOP-controlled Senate?
An initial effort to pay her off for the gas tax scam (Employment by a democrat campaign firm while she was "negotiating" with the teacher's union toadies on the rip-off AKA the McCleary budget that, besides wasting unnecessary billions on unearned teacher salary increases and subsequently being responsible in large part for our exploding property taxes, has accomplished nothing concerning academic outcomes in the state of Washington, where only half the kids out of the 1.1 million attending school are actually achieving grade-level competencies in English, 1/3rd in math and less than half in science for the billions we throw away every year, according to state-provided figures) blew up in her face when that employment was made public by the company's owner, Ron Dotzauer (democrat former Clark County Auditor) who up to this point had only been known for a sexual liaison with Maria Cantwell (yes THAT Maria Cantwell) shortly before (as in a few days before) his then impending marriage.
Now, like far too many who practice the art of shiny object politics, she got far too cute acting as Longview's apparent lobbyist in the Legislature. $2.5 million surprisingly got pushed out by the Capitol Budget Committee in the Senate, a small committee that Rivers happens to be one of the more senior members of, and surprise, surprise: Longview now wants to build yet another homeless destination resort, AKA Camp Alabama/Camp Hope.
Clearly, Rivers should have recused herself from any consideration of legislation concerning Longview. Failure to do so is an obvious conflict of interest.
Coincidence?
Nah. There's no coincidences in politics. And neither the Senator (Jeff Wilson) actually representing Longview nor either State Representative (Jim Walsh or Joel McIntire) seems to have known anything about it.
How is that possible?
Much like Rivers' sudden, unexplained promotion to Assistant City Manager from whatever the other made-up position built for her was called.
Rivers was hired in October 2021 as the city’s director of community development. The department manages many of the city’s housing and planning roles including building permits, inspections and the recently created Community Outreach division.
One wonders: Was their a job announcement for the assistant city manager gig? If there was, how long was it up? Did anyone else apply? Did Rivers double dip and get paid for both positions while she was in session?
Who knows?
No comments:
Post a Comment