Tag: Reagan Dunn

human services, King County, labor

County Considers New Contract Oversight Office; Return-to-Office Booster Calls In Remotely as County Employees Criticize Three-Day Mandate
Two recent views of King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn, a return-to-office proponent who frequently calls in to council meetings from remote locations.

1. In the wake of an audit that revealed potential fraud and waste at King County’s Department of Community and Human Services, County Councilmembers are proposing an office of inspector general to provide a new layer of oversight to receive tips and conduct investigations into claims about contractor misuse of county funds. A new inspector general’s office would cost around $800,000 a year, according to a presentation by the county auditor’s office last week.

County auditor Kymber Waltmunson said last week that an independent inspector general could augment the work the auditor and ombuds are already doing by setting up a hotline for anonymous tips, investigating fraud (the auditor does analyses but does not investigate), and actively monitoring contracts.

Rod Dembowski, one of the councilmembers who’s pushing for more oversight of county contracts, told PubliCola a new inspector general would “fill in a gap that we’ve identified” between the ombuds office, which oversees complaints about county employees, and the auditor’s office, which comes up with a work plan every year and conducts audits based on that plan.

“I’m trying to cover that gap where somebody believes something is being improperly done by a contractor or recipient of county funds,” Dembowski said. The IG would be “able to look at the actions of contract and grant recipients and see if there’s malfeasance or misfeasance there.”

County Councilmember Claudia Balducci said she agreed with Dembowski’s intention to encourage more active investigations into complaints about misuse of county funds, but isn’t convinced yet that the county needs to add a whole new office for that purpose. “I do think whatever happens needs to be nested within our current oversight [system.] I want to avoid creating overlaps and confusion.

She also isn’t convinced that the damning DCHS audit, which looked at a subset of contracts, necessarily indicates there are similar issues in other county contracts.

“I was hoping after the audit uncovered real lapses in oversight in a small number of our contracts, that someone would raise their hand and say, ‘Is this a bigger problem?'” Balducci said. “It might be. Or is it contained to some areas? But nobody in the system came out and said we should look more deeply.”

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2. More than a dozen King County employees showed up to a King County Council meeting this week to testify against King County Executive Girmay Zahilay’s “return to office” mandate, which would require most county employees, including those who were hired as remote workers, to commute to offices in downtown Seattle three days a week.

The mandate will require King County to rent a substantial amount of private office space in downtown Seattle, since the county does not have enough room for all its employees. Last week, county employees delivered a giant blank check to Zahilay’s office, representing the millions of dollars they estimate it will cost to rent office space so that everyone can have a desk downtown.

One of the most vocal advocates for a strict return-to-office policy has been Republican Councilmember Reagan Dunn, who went on KIRO Radio this week to declare, “There’s a new sheriff in town bringing employees back to King County so they can hang out around the water cooler and collaborate and do the people’s work.”

The county staffers, represented by PROTEC17, had a minute each to explain why commuting to a desk downtown would not make them more effective or efficient. Dunn, who lives 35 miles away from downtown Seattle, wasn’t around to listen, though. Instead, as he often does, he had called in to the meeting from a remote location.

 

homelessness, King County, Women

Reagan Dunn Joins Chorus Calling for Resignation of Assessor Accused of Stalking; Advocates Appeal Ruling Upholding Burien’s Sleeping Ban

1.  King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn, who was the only council member absent from last week’s 8-0 vote demanding the resignation of King County Assessor John Arthur Wilson, took a “point of personal privilege” at Tuesday’s council meeting to say that he, too, believed that Wilson should resign over allegations that he stalked and harassed his ex-fiancée, Lee Keller.

The no-confidence motion notes that the claims against Wilson include allegations that he “improperly used county resources to engage in the stalking,” potentially including the use of private information he’s able to access through his job as the county’s tax assessor.

“Assessor Wilson has been accused of extremely serious allegations in a domestic dispute, including stalking, harassment and improper use of county resources for the purposes of stalking,” Dunn said. “While all of this is disturbing, the real linchpin for me is the allegation of improper use of county resources. … I find that all of these allegations are extremely disturbing, and Mr. Wilson’s public behavior to be inconsistent with the professionalism expected of an elected official. Had I been able to vote for Resolution 16829, I would have voted yes.”

In text messages to Keller, Wilson repeatedly claimed to have Dunn’s support.

Keller has obtained multiple restraining orders and filed several petitions for dissolution of her partnership with Wilson over the past two years, providing documentation of Wilson’s actions, which include calling and texting her incessantly, tracking her movements and the location of her car, and calling the workplace of a man she dated to falsely accuse him of sexual assault in an attempt to get him fired. Last Friday, a judge denied Wilson’s request to have the latest restraining order lifted.

Wilson has not denied Keller’s allegations, many of which are documented in text messages that are part of the public court record. However, he has claimed that his behavior “never posed a threat to” Keller, and has weaponized a photo the two of them took during a brief reconciliation in May to claim that Keller is being irrational and blackmailing him for rent money. (A text message in the court record shows that she asked if he could help with rent on one occasion during the period when they were speaking to each other; previously, they had lived together).

In the post, Wilson noted when and where the photo was purportedly taken—”after I bought her lunch,” he adds—and says an unnamed local reporter agreed with him that Keller looks happy and unafraid of Wilson in the image.

“I have never posed a stalking threat or harassed Ms. Lee Keller, my former fiancé. I have posed no danger to her whatsoever,” Wilson wrote, adding later, “Ms. Keller was never at any danger from me.” Wilson is still trying to get a judge to lift Keller’s protection order against him “[b]ecause of the looming August primary,” he wrote. Wilson is running for county executive.

Wilson also thanked the Seattle Times for its editorial opposing the county council’s unanimous vote of no-confidence in him, which grudgingly allowed that, “to be sure, such accusations are disturbing” before arguing that “due process” should require independently elected officials to keep quiet about his behavior.

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2. The Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness has appealed a King County Superior Court ruling that upheld the city of Burien’s total ban on sleeping in public, a law that effectively banishes unsheltered people from the city. As PubliCola reported, the Coalition and three plaintiffs who’ve lived unsheltered in Burien argued that the total ban on sleeping in public constituted cruel punishment under the Washington State Constitution, among other claims, because it bans people from engaging in a biological necessity—sleep—if they have nowhere to live except outdoors.

Elizabeth Hale, one of the three homeless plaintiffs in the lawsuit, died on May 30, about three weeks after the ruling that she and her co-plaintiffs could be arrested for falling asleep in public.

In a statement, Coalition director Alison Eisinger said, “Beth’s untimely death reminds us that real human beings bear the brutal costs of collective failure to respond to homelessness with urgency and enough resources. The Coalition on Homelessness joined this lawsuit because any law that excludes people from their community must be challenged. Washington state’s constitution must apply to all who live here, regardless of how much money we have in our pockets, or whether we have a place to lay our heads and call home.”