Kevin P. Casey
“I have an obligation
to serve you.”
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After listening to Sheriff Sue Rahr describe all the ways people in unincorporated King County will lose police protection due to a severe budget cut next year, Bette Filley of High Valley raised her hand: "I think the number-one job of government is to protect the people and I think Ron Sims is wrong," she declared. Filley was met with a round of applause from the 70 people packed into a Maple Valley library classroom and shouts of "Tell Ron Sims!" Rahr clasped her hands and smiled, thanking Filley for saying so.
It didn't take much effort for Rahr to rile up some anti-Sims sentiment. This audience arrived in cowboy hats and jeans; one person drove in with a car sporting a square-dancing vanity plate. People in rural, unincorporated areas laughingly call the King County leadership the Seattle City Council II. Sims and his allies on the council are more than happy to regulate and tax their property, they say. But requests for better garbage or policing are met with silence.
So when Rahr told them at the June 26 gathering that because the Executive's office couldn't manage a budget, her deputies would no longer investigate property crimes under $10,000, the reaction was instantaneous.
"As soon as that gets out, we're all gonna get robbed!" one man cried out. Rahr promised she would cut everything else just to make sure that when they called 911 a deputy still showed up, but beyond that, there was little she could do. "I feel like I have to choose between brakes and a steering wheel for my car," she said, adding that while dire cuts are predicted, Sims will make the final recommendations, so people should feel free to flood his e-mail inbox with their frustrations. Someone wrote that address on the board along with contact info for the rest of the council.
Rahr's "Ron Sims Is Screwing You" tour is the latest in a series of escalating shots traded between the Sheriff and the Executive as they each gear up for possible reelection bids next year. After criticisms were raised, in the first year of Rahr's tenure, about problem deputies operating with little supervision and no accountability, both leaders were quick to blame the other. Now what began as a series of passive-aggressive policy shots—last fall, the Executive called for the Sheriff to become an appointed position, while the Sheriff said she couldn't do anything to curb abusive deputies because of the union contract negotiated by Sims—has turned into an open political fight to ensure the other has to take the heat when voters go to the polls.
It wasn't always like this. In 2005, Sims was seeking his third term at the helm of county government. Rahr had been appointed to replace Dave Reichert, off to Congress, and was campaigning for a chance at a four-year stint. There was no evidence at the time of any tension between the two. Rahr and her husband together had donated $150 to Sims's campaign. (It was the second-biggest donation they made in local races that year. King County Prosecutor candidate Dan Satterberg got the most from the Rahrs, $235.)
But then the Post-Intelligencer began a series called "Conduct Unbecoming" about problem deputies who held onto their jobs or walked away with generous retirement packages.
Within a month of Rahr's winning the top cop spot, with more than 77 percent of the vote, Sims took a shot at her in an interview with the P-I, telling her to "weed her garden."
Rahr responded by putting the blame for problem deputies at the feet of their Sims-negotiated union contracts, which she says makes firing or even disciplining officers nearly impossible.
Reports of deputies facing allegations, of criminal activity, or even convictions, but keeping their jobs, or walking away with generous severance packages, prompted the County Council to convene a panel. Its task: find ways to make it easier to control officers and punish those who step out of line. In 2007, the panel gave Rahr a list of 36 things necessary to make the department run smoothly and ethically, but many of those suggestions required an OK from the union. And she's not the one negotiating with the guild. Sims is.
Even on the things she could do to improve the department, Rahr says she's coming up against a block from the Executive. She says $750,000 was put in reserve by the County Council as part of the 2007 budget to hire more supervisors. But money in reserve has to be released by the Executive, and Rahr claims that when she started asking for the cash, she was told it was no longer available.
County Budget Director Bob Cowan says that money remains in reserve for the Sheriff. County Assistant Executive Sheryl Whitney says that due to the current crunch, everyone who would normally be getting extra cash from Sims' office is being asked to evaluate whether or not they really need it.
Once every 10 years, the County Council appoints a commission to review the King County charter and propose any changes or amendments. Last fall, Rahr and Sims took their fight to the commission.
