Copy of the email that Tim Eyman sent to the City of Monroe:
Maybe they didn’t get the news that a major controversy of their own making is brewing in Monroe. Today, I did several interviews with local papers and news sources who wanted to hear more about the scandalous actions of the Monroe Mayor and City Council. They have committees to write ballot arguments For and Against Prop 3. This measure is different than the one Monroe citizens were sued over but is instead an alternative contrived by the Mayor and City Council to neutralize opposition to for-profit automatic ticketing cameras and offer citizens a deceptive set of alternative choices. When the Mayor and City Council chose the committees, they had a clear ethical obligation to act in good faith, appointing pro-camera government officials to the pro-camera committee and anti-camera citizens to the anti-camera committee.
The reporters that I spoke with today all wanted to know why the Mayor and City Council would appoint their pro-camera political consultant Chad Minnick to the anti-camera campaign. Minnick’s disdain for anti-camera advocates is well-documented. As you can imagine, Minnick has been busy defending himself by propagating lies and distortions about myself and those who have worked tirelessly on this issue, trying desperately to dodge questions about his own history of ethical violations. Chad Minnick is a gifted political attack dog — he has been like an armored tank absorbing all of the shots fired at the Mayor and City Council while simultaneously trying to distance himself from the Mayor and City Council.
The loudest shot fired in the battle over traffic cameras today was the shot not fired by the Mayor and City Council. Where are they in this battle? After working tirelessly to obstruct citizens who have attempted to participate in the traffic camera discussion, suing their own citizens, insulting the citizens by offering false choices at the ballot box and finally breaking all ethical boundaries by contaminating the anti-camera committee with their pro-camera obstructionist, the Mayor and City Council’s silence in the wake of this broiling battle has been absolutely deafening.
It all makes sense when you put the entire scandal into perspective. Minnick, who, in his own words, worked very hard to elect a conservative council, has been solicited to both prevent a meaningful ballot argument from reaching the November ballot and to protect the Mayor and City Council (that he admits he helped elect) from the political fallout of their clear ethical violations.
Minnick is a political hit-man and body guard by trade. Everyone knows he’s a political thug and lacks a moral compass. Furthermore, his actions are both predictable and irrelevant. The real question is: where are Monroe’s elected officials? Why haven’t they taken responsibility for their corrupt and unethical obstructions to the democratic process?
As the emails below make clear, Minnick’s allegiance to the Mayor and City Council and opposition to our efforts over the past 10 months have been fully exposed with his own words in extemporaneous emails.
They sent their hand-picked obstructionist Minnick to today’s meeting. It was tense. All efforts to include the facts of the Mayor and City Council’s obstruction were opposed by Minnick. His sole focus was protecting the pro-camera Mayor and pro-camera City Council from criticism in the voters pamphlet. Absurdly, references to “the Mayor and City Council” were censored and replaced with “the City”. Telling voters that their tax money was being used to hire a Seattle law firm to sue was deleted. The word “sue” was objected to, the preference being that “the City” simply “asked the court for its interpretation.”
The vote on Prop 3 is a dog-and-pony show, manufactured and manipulated by the Mayor and City Council to put them in a no-lose situation: if voters approve Prop 3, they’ll claim voters support cameras. If voters reject Prop 3, they’ll claim voters support keeping cameras until 2013. Insultingly, it’s not even a binding vote, it’s a toothless advisory vote that they can simply ignore. The Mayor and City Council have denied the voters of Monroe an honest up-or-down vote on ticketing cameras that they demanded with Monroe Initiative #1 and Chad Minnick wants to insulate them from public criticism. The Mayor and City Council have lied, delayed, ignored, and violated every known standard of decency throughout this sordid controversy. They have embarrassed themselves and demeaned their offices, all in an effort to prevent the people from deciding this issue. If they thought voters were on their side, the Mayor and City Council would not be stacking the deck at every turn.
Only the pro-camera Mayor and pro-camera City Council, that voted unanimously to sue their own citizens, can end this. As we did yesterday, we again call on the Mayor and City Council to remove their chief protector Chad Minnick from the No on Prop 3 committee.