Seattle's Satan, Mark Sidran is leaving the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission - apparently to little notice by the media. By my quick survey his 12/16 press release only made the Daily Journal of Commerce, Bellingham Herald, and the online blog of the Tacoma Pierce County Tribune.
I speculated in the comments of that TNT post about Sidran's reasons for leaving - wondering if, perhaps, it was due some political ramifications from white collar criminal defense lawyer Mike McKay's rather duplicitious 'defense' of the Port's actions - masquerading his defense as an 'investigation'.
The reason for the concern is that Sidran, with some UTC influence over the Port, once worked for McKay, so, professionally their relationship is tight. Relationships are something to never underestimate in the legal profession where unspoken history often trumps any articulated rational legal analysis. I was taken to task for daring to so speculate in that comments section (linked above). Don't forget also that there is a history of problems associated with public dollars and white collar crime locally - including the assasination of US Attorney Thomas Wales. As a prominent white collar defense lawyer chances that the perpetrator is only one step removed from McKay are quite high. But I digress.
The Stranger took Sidran to task for some of his so-called civility laws. Personally I think some of those laws were okay, if they'd been progressively enforced. Sidran however used them as rationalizations for control freak excesses, including the targeting of black owned nightclubs.
Personally, my biggest concern is Sidran's involvement in the Nordstrom Parking Garage HUD 'stimulus' scam. Specifically, he put ballot language on a related issue, the re-opening of Pine Street which claimed 100 million dollars of economic development benefit (always a red flag) at zero public cost. In fact, there was quite a bit of public cost and this ballot title language constitutes fraud - a fraud among those ignored by the Democratic US Attorney, Kate Pflaumer.
(He was also involved in a thrown out of court prosecution against moi, that's still in my record)
I think Sidran's career is a great example of the political system working, even though there may well still be unresolved criminal conspiracy issues involving other members of the legal profession.
But Sidran didn't work alone. His legal 'spouse' was the lawyer Anne Levinson, Counsel and Deputy Mayor to Norm Rice.
It's my opinion that between the two of them they cooked up quite the devil's brew of bipartisanship (Sidran is a Republican, even though he claims Democrat - again, IMO) - a brew that continues in this State today as evidenced by Gregoire's appointment of him during her first term.
