On Friday I, and others in at least my neighborhood, was the recipient of a flyer delivered intending to influence my vote for Mayor of Olympia. The flyer, likely delivered in the middle of the night, was on my doorstep and completely anonymous with absolutely no indication of who produced or delivered it.

 

The flyer, actually an 8/15 by 11 while piece of paper probably produced on the coward’s computer, attempts to convince us why we should vote against Buxbaum. The piece contains nothing at all about any issue before (now or ever) the council, or Buxbaum’s record on the Council. It is merely an alleged recitation of Buxbaum’s state employment history. Haven’t we been here before? Oh, yes I remember, last time he ran for the Council – and won.

 

This is nothing new in politics or Olympia. Last time he ran a similar attempt occurred and was completely irrelevant in the election. When Jeff Kingsbury ran he was the subject of a similar act of cowardice when someone or some group delivered a veiled attempt to expose his sexual preference – apparently as some sort of disqualification of his fitness for office.

 

The best thing Buxbaum can do is laugh at this feeble attempt at cheating. That is what it is after all. These people are pissed off that he has won before and likely will win again and because they can’t win at the ballot box they will, and are trying anything.

 

 

CDC seeks confidential informant identity in Joe Hyer case

On February 18, 2010, Olympia city council member Joe Hyer was arrested by agents from the forfeiture-funded and citizen-feared Thurston County Narcotics Task Force for allegedly selling pot. An acquaintance of Hyer had contacted the task force and reported that he was able to procure cannabis from the council member, and that he was ready and willing to wear a wire and go "undercover" in a month-long, taxpayer-funded marijuana investigation cum political vendetta. ...

 

My name is Russ Lehman. The flap over Rich Nafziger’s blog, where he comments about the very un-Democratic way we make laws and policies in Olympia, as well as his view of the Governor as, well, somebody less than the leader we need at this time of crisis, misses the point just as the comments about our city council members who have the attention span and restraint of children missed the most important point about their egregious behavior. The voices of disgust about certain city council member’s prurient and truly anti-Democratic impatience and intolerance, focuses on the violations of the Open Public Meetings Act instead of the true “crime” committed – an affront to our very Democracy. They validated people’s worst fears about policymaking - that politicians are interested in primarily, if not only, the interests of those who can pay to have their voice heard. Nafziger is right about what plagues our lawmaking system. It is not truly interested in “the little guy’s” voice; responds very differently to those who make a living lobbying; is populated by many (though not all) people who seem much more interested in ego gratification then open, deliberative, courageous policymaking. The problem is, according to those inside the Olympia beltway, not what he said, per se, it’s that he “pissed where he sleeps”. The common refrain in Olympia is that he was crazy to lambaste his political patrons (read: bosses). Having served with Mr. Nafziger on the Olympia School Board, and watched his many various “insider” jobs in the very system he (correctly) critiques, the biggest problem with what he wrote was not suicidal naiveté but instead hypocrisy. As a school board member Nafziger was known for his impatience with any member of the public who didn‘t share his views