In the linked article below written by Erick Smith, reporter for Washington State Wire regarding Governor Gregoire not releasing public records and making comparisons with former president Richard Nixon was an eye opener to this former DSHS social worker/public disclosure coordinator and off and on whistle blower during my more than 20 years inside the state government bureaucracy.
I appreciate the non-partisan reporting by this...what looks to be a fully on line newspaper...so to speak. The article caught my attention when it mentioned the Freedom Foundation, as recently I came across an excel spreadsheet on line created by the Freedom Foundation in March 2009 with my name on it (Margo Logan).
The spreadsheet shows that four emails I had written to the Governor regarding SEIU 925 related to the so-called 2009 collective bargaining bills which was once more making its way through the state House and Senate that year were withheld from the Freedom Foundation's public disclosure request.
Those emails were and are wholly public records and, indeed, had been written as open letters (emails) not only to the governor, but also to senators and representatives on both sides of the aisle.
I made whistle blower reports in 2005 and testified to Rep. Ruth Kagi's children's committee about DSHS managers hiding, concealing, ordering public records altered whereby the managers then had the originals destroyed. I gave Rep. Kagi a copy of a packet of background clearance documents I found in a notebook in the office and testified those documents had been removed from a licensing file.
I made this report not only to the State Auditor, Brian Sonntag, but up the DSHS chain of command to DSHS Secretary Robin Arnold-Williams to Governor Gregoire and to Attorney General Rob McKenna.
DSHS child care licensing supervisor Lzady Culver in 2005 (and still a supervisor today in the Department of Early Learning) emailed me that the Attorney General's Office didn't want emails put into licensing files. I replied back, why? Culver wrote it was so our computers would not be subpenaed. My reply was why would it matter...it is all public business and public records.
I can't tell from Washington State Wire article if my four 2009 emails will be going to the Washington State Supreme Court as part of this legal issue. If so, I am willing to submit an affidavit as a former DSHS public disclosure coordinator and now private analyst/consultant/expert witness that withholding my four emails was in violation of the public records act.
Please click on the link below...well done non-partisan journalism.
http://www.washingtonstatewire.com/home/10015-shades_of_richard_nixon_%E2%80%93_governor_claims_%E2%80%98executive_privilege%E2%80%99_and_some_say_she%E2%80%99s_conducting_business_in_secret.htm
From All the President's Men, Deep Throat, Mark Felt told Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money" and in this case the money comes from at least AFSCME/WFSE and SEIU as well as other such taxpayer unions. See my other blog entries on SEIU to give you the history I researched as well as experienced with AFSCME and SEIU.
The government of the people, by the people and for the people is the focus government must have whether they are elected officials or unelected bureaucratic managers.
The amount of work, from my experience and opinion, that could get done within these bureaucracies would be amazing if they weren't so focused on covering up some of their work product.
To the Governor: Please release my four 2009 SEIU emails to the Freedom Foundation.
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