By Professor Robert Dean
Eric H: Mr., Mayor, Council, as 2011 draws to a close I thought this might be an opportune time to present you with the 2011 Performance Evaluations for each of our key staff – along with a request for a modest 3.5% pay raise for each of them. Time constraints prevent me from detailing each one and so I’ve condensed everyone’s evaluation into the one – City Consigliere. As you know, the Consigliere is ultimately responsible for all advice, from all departments that reaches the desks of the Mayor and Council.
The Consigliere’s duties are codified in Washington State Court Rules relating to the Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers.
RPC RULE 2.1
ADVISOR
In representing a client, a lawyer shall exercise independent professional judgment and render candid advice. In rendering advice, a lawyer may refer not only to law but to other considerations such as moral, economic, social and political factors that may be relevant to the client’s situation.
For brevity’s sake, I have confined this performance evaluation to what I feel are the top ten most brilliant pieces of advice that our city Consigliere has handed out to date. Here goes:
1) Citizen’s communications (at 14:20) are where citizens get to speak about matters relating to city business – the CRC is not city business.
2) Tell David Madore, “Get out! You’re done!” (at 22:20).
3) Let a $46 million no-bid professional services contract for operation of the sewers expire and renew automatically without comment or public input.
4) Stall any vote on light rail.
5) Approve the unpublished CRC Final Environmental Impact Statement, while serving on the boards of joint operating agencies, without taking public input.
6) Make sure the public never learns that disruption due to construction of light rail and the CRC will destroy Downtown commerce – do not let Resolution M3663 Attachment A see the light of day. Page 19.
7) Publish the names and mug shots of citizens who speak too often at Citizen’s Communications.
8) Pay a landscape architect $50,000.00 to design a nice green park under the dark underbelly of the CRC bridge where nothing will grow but mushrooms.
9) Turn off the CVTV cameras whenever a citizen says something you don’t like during Citizen’s Communications.
10) Don’t do anything stupid.
