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Integrity v. Extremism

Bob McCaslin’s showcase strength as a candidate for the office of Spokane County Auditor is not his demonstrated competence for managing a large, detail-oriented office. His primary qualification is his devotion to the election fraud conspiracy theory carried forward, without evidence, from the 2020 election. McCaslin is running on the strength of his ability to cast doubt and distrust (even as he publicly downplays it), not on his competence. 

Who is this Challenger?

Judging by the biography on his campaign website, Bob McCaslin Jr.’s prior work experience is not in management but rather as a teacher in grades K through 5 in Spokane Valley, and as a volunteer at the Union Gospel Mission and at His Place Evangelical Free Church in Post Falls. In 2014 McCaslin Junior saw an opportunity to enter politics. His father, Bob McCaslin Sr., died in 2011 after serving as the well-respected conservative Republican State Senator from LD4 (Spokane valley north to Mt. Spokane) for thirty years. McCaslin Junior sailed into a State Representative seat in same legislative district, besting an exclusively Republican field of candidates while garnering 58% of the vote. His victory was arguably based on the name recognition built up by his dad.

McCaslin’s performance as a legislator was more of a follower than a leader. The vast majority of bills on which McCaslin is listed as one of the sponsors in the current session are of the “honoring, recognizing, celebrating, or acknowledging” variety, not substantive legislation. The one piece of substantive legislation that stands out is WA HB2115 “Improving election integrity, security, and accountability for Washington voters”. HB2115 stands out in part on account of McCaslin’s co-sponsors: Rob Chase (R-LD4), Robert Sutherland (R), and Vicki Kraft (R). McCaslin, Chase, and Sutherland have been tireless promoters of the Trumpian election fraud narrative, even as the public face these and all other local Republicans put on this pig is to blandly suggest they just want to “restore trust”. “Oh, no, it is not we who doubt the integrity of the Washington State election system: the doubters are other people in need of reassurance.” 

Here’s McCaslin Junior’s public statement to the Spokesman meant to reach people who don’t share his hidden views on election fraud:

“Really, I don’t have any proof of wrongdoing,” McCaslin told the paper. “I’m not running for this because I think there are serious problems. I just think I can contribute really positively to this.”

That isn’t just poppycock, it’s a lie.

In the Washington State legislature McCaslin Junior’s seat-mate from LD4 from 2014 to 2020 was the now nationally infamous Matt Shea, author of The Biblical Basis for War, a road map to insurrection. Shea is a theocratic firebrand who now serves as pastor of On Fire Ministries & Kingdom Christian Academy in Spokane. When Shea and McCaslin Junior were seat-mates from LD4, McCaslin Junior was a consistent co-sponsor of Shea’s billsto establish Shea’s theocratic “State of Liberty” by splitting the State of Washington in two along the crest of the Cascade Mountains. Now that Shea is gone from the legislature, McCaslin Junior, with just three other state representatives, carries on the tradition of annual sponsorship of Shea’s State of Liberty Bill. 

McCaslin Junior’s devotion to Shea is in defiance of McCaslin’s well-respected and long-serving father. When then Washington State Senator from LD4, Bob McCaslin Senior, resigned in 2011 for reasons of deteriorating health, he wrote a terse message to the Spokane County Commissioners tasked with appointing his replacement: “I wish to state that under no circumstances would I support Matthew Shea for any public office.” At the time Matt Shea was only in his second year as the State Representative to the legislature from LD4 (Spokane valley to Mt. Spokane). It took McCaslin Jr.’s father only those two years serving together with Shea in Olympia to recognize the danger that his son’s later seat mate (starting in 2014) presented. Yet McCaslin Jr has evidently become Shea’s legislative lapdog. 

The Civics of the Office of County Auditor:

Mr. McCaslin is applying to the voters for election to an office with a broad range of administrative responsibility. In the State of Washington County Auditors are tasked by state law (RCW 36.22.010) with a multitude of detail-oriented duties summarized here from the Spokane County website (the bold is mine):

The Spokane County Auditor’s Office is responsible for the administration of the Recording, Financial Services, Motor Vehicle Licensing and Elections Divisions. 

The primary functions of these diverse divisions are the recording and preservation of all public records which are required by law to be recorded, the integrated financial management of all activities of Spokane County, conduct all Elections for the county in accordance with state law and the issuance of vehicle and vessel licenses for the County.

Is McCaslin even able to discuss these duties?

Evidently not.

The Spokane League of Women Voter website page on their candidate forums notes:

Other races [forums] that had been planned that could not be held due to League’s “empty chair” policy since only the first named candidate committed to attend: 

Spokane County Auditor – Vicky Dalton & Bob McCaslin (cancelled after confirming)

This is becoming a pattern that suggests that McCaslin is afraid his ignorance might be exposed.

In April Al Merkel of Spokane Valley Speaks podcasts offered interviews to both the incumbent Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton and candidate Bob McCaslin. Ms. Dalton demonstrated her deep understanding of the duties of a county auditor in a series of two interviews, each roughly an hour long. You can listen to them by clicking Part 1 and Part 2. McCaslin’s response to the offer of an interview with Mr. Merkel speaks volumes about McCaslin’s lack of understanding of the job for which he is applying to county voters: The Spokane Valley Speaks website states, “Candidate Bob McCaslin, also running for Auditor, was invited to interview as well. He initially agreed but withdrew after receiving the questions which were the same as those used for this interview.” 

Listen in to others of Mr. Merkel’s podcasts. His interviews are generally even-handed and open-ended. He offers a platform, not a grilling. Why didn’t McCaslin consent to an interview? Was it for fear of exposing his ignorance of the duties of the job of Spokane County Auditor, his association with the extremist Matt Shea wing of the local Republican Party, or his active promotion of the bogus Lindell/Trump election fraud narrative—or all of the above? 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. That the SpokaneGOP chooses to actually endorse McCaslin Junior for Spokane County Auditor, combined with its general support for the election fraud narrative, is a testament to the Republican sellout to extremism. I would understand and respect not endorsing either candidate—the Republican Party is, after all, the Republican Party. Endorsing McCaslin reminds me of variation of the theme of the old saying, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to endorse and remove all doubt.”

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We Need to Broaden Our Thinking and Understanding

To build or not to build—a new Spokane County Jail—that is the question that keeps popping up in our community—as though it were the best way to address crime. Outgoing Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich’s cites not getting a new Jail built as his biggest regret. That is far too narrow a focus.

The trouble is that most of us, including me, have had only a rudimentary understanding of how Spokane County Detention Services fits into the complex system of prosecutors, judges, courts, and state and federal prisons that we collectively refer to as our criminal justice system. In my youth I watched too many westerns in which justice consisted of apprehending the inevitably rotten-to-the-core bad guy and throwing him in jail. Real life is seldom so simple. 

Spokane County Detention Services is comprised of both the downtown Spokane County Jail pictured above and the Geiger Corrections Center. It is tempting to think of the two facilities as a warehouse in which guilty criminals are simply incarcerated. If that were true (which it is not, as we shall see), then simply building a bigger County Jail to put all the criminals in would be a logical conclusion. In reality, however, Spokane County Detention Services is best thought of as a sort of holding area in the workings of a complex criminal justice system. 

The number of folks on the “inmate roster” of Detention Services’ holding tank (including both facilities) is variable, determined by several inputs and outputs. The number of people booked into the system by law enforcement (with the aid of the prosecutor’s office) for alleged violations of law is the major input. The speed and accuracy with which lawyers, courts, and judges process the cases against these people determines the output: either to other institutions (e.g. the state penitentiary), treatment facilities, or to freedom. 

Broadly speaking, the workings of the lawyers, courts, and judges do as much to determine the size of the inmate population (and pressure to build a new Jail) as the arrests and delivery of accused persons to Detention Services by law enforcement. To make the whole system work better, to get better control of crime, and to reduce the population of inmates and the pressure to build a new jail we might (among other things) invest in improvements to the court system. 

The Spokane County Superior Court currently has County funding for twelve judgeships. The Superior Court manages many of the cases of the inmates held in the two Detention Services facilities, and the Superior courts are chronically backlogged. This has been a problem for decades. In 1997 the Washington State legislature authorized Spokane County (via its County Commission) to fund a thirteenth Spokane County Superior Court Judgeship. That judgeship might have relieved some of the jail crowding by improving the output side of the jail population equation. But…for the last 25 years…the Spokane County Commissioners, dominated by Republicans consistently in favor of spending money for a new jail, have utterly failed to move forward on this improvement.

Maggie Yates is running against incumbent Commissioner Al French for the District 5 seat (SW Spokane County) on the new five member Spokane County Commission. Last Friday (September 30) she took on Mr. French in a debate hosted by the Rotary of Spokane. (You can watch it here.) The very first question (starting at 8:05 in the video) was: Would you commit to provide funding for the 13th judgeship? Mr. French’s answer was twofold: First he blamed the Covid pandemic dislocation for the backlog, even though the 13th judgeship was approved 25 years ago at a time when there was already a backlog. Next, he informed the audience that it would be prohibitively expensive: not just a judges salary, but support staff and a whole new courtroom (at, he said, $1M dollar capital cost). Of course, he neglected to discuss how those expenses would compare to the cost of the new downtown County Jail he favors. (The current Jail was built in 1986 at a cost of $22M.) Ms. Yates’ response (at 10:00 in the video) was to cite 25 years of inaction on this judgeship as a glaring failure of planning on the part of the County Commissioners. Mr. French has had twelve years on the (currently) three person Spokane County Commission during which he might have addressed this issue. 

Do we need a new jail? The current Spokane County Jail opened in July 1986 as a state-of-the-art facility designed to hold 460 inmates, each with their own cell. As had happened several times in previous decades, it quickly filled. By 1995 it held 555 inmates, by 2004 there were 690. Calculating the number of inmates currently in the County Jail is slightly complicated since, for a number of years, some inmates under Spokane County Detention Services are held at Geiger Corrections Center (situated just south of Geiger Field (GEG) between Geiger Blvd and the airport runways). According to the very useful monthly Spokane County Jail Population Snapshot (a bit of a misnomer, since the data covers both facilities, not just the Jail) Detention Services held a total of 844 inmates as of August 31, 2022. Extracting data from the Snapshot suggests that 515 inmates subject to the local Spokane court systems were then held at the downtown Spokane County Jail—along with nearly all of 143 inmates from “Other Jurisdictions”, including the federal government (U.S. Marshalls), for a total of 658. That is almost 200 bodies (43%) over the design capacity of 460 of the existing Jail. Another 179 inmates were held at Geiger Correctional (although they, too, could be stuffed into the downtown Jail in the next couple weeks on account of staffing issues). 

Naively, I thought that most of the inmate population housed by Spokane County Detention Services (both facilities) consisted of people already sentenced to serve time there. That is almost completely wrong. According to the August 31, 2022, Snapshot, 543 inmates were categorized as “Pre-Trial – No Hold”, meaning that these are “individuals with pending charges who do not have a detainer order and could be immediately released on bond.” If you’re curious, scroll through the Inmate Roster and check out the details of those who are “bondable”. Furthermore, the term “Pre-Trial” is itself a bit of a misnomer, since only a small fraction of inmates ever have a trial of the sort most of us think of. Much more common is a “plea deal”. The defendant, threatened with the severest charges the Spokane County Prosecutor’s office under County Prosecutor Larry Haskell can apply to the alleged crime, agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge rather than face losing a jury trial and being sentenced under the higher charge. Again, on August 31, 543inmates of the 844 total held by Detentions Services were “innocent until proven guilty” pending action by the justice system. 

Sixty-nine more inmates were “Pre-Trial – Hold”, meaning they are not bondable and would not be released even if bond were posted, i.e. a judge has decided these folks should not be let out on the street.

Only 81 of the 844 inmates were post sentencing. Detention Services only keeps inmates who have been sentenced to serve less than a year, almost always for some form of misdemeanor. All those with longer sentences are eventually sent off to the prison system of the Washington State Department of Corrections.

Bottom line: The majority of inmates occupying space at Spokane County Detention Services (the County Jail and Geiger Corrections, collectively) are held there pending judgement by the criminal justice system—and many of those waiting inmates could be free (and not a threat to society) while awaiting judgement—if they could “make bail” or if other means were available to be sure they re-appear for their court date. Providing the funding for a thirteenth Superior Court Judge would certainly help by speeding up the process that now expensively detains hundreds of inmates in legal limbo in crowded circumstances bordering on inhumane. Building a new Spokane County “downtown” Jail without funding a thirteenth Superior Court Judgeship would be getting the cart before the horse. 

It is time to understand, invest in, and adjust the entire criminal justice system in Spokane County—from law enforcement, Detention Services, bail reform, and support and diversion options to expanding and speeding up the judicial process. If that includes funding and building a new state-of-the-art County Jail, then so be it—but let’s not pretend that a new Jail is the only solution. As a community we will pay either way: either with the economic and social cost of a frustrating level of crime or with the cost to make the necessary investments to improve the system. 

That Commissioner French can advocate for a new Jail while pretending that funding a 13th Superior Court Judgeship is too expensive is a sign of the current Spokane County Board of Commissioners sclerotic thinking. It is time to stretch our understanding and involvement. This November vote for Maggie Yates, the candidate in District 5 with detailed knowledge of the local criminal justice landscape; Chris Jordan in District 1; Amber Waldref in District 2; and Mary Kuney in District 4. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Is he demonizing the homeless for future electoral advantage?

For an outgoing Spokane County Sheriff, Ozzie Knezovich has been acting the part of a political attack dog. He’s been strutting and puffing and making local, regional, and national news with his threat to “clear” Camp Hope. He even had a spot on “Fox and Friends” where Ozzie, sporting his uniform, paints a picture of a whole neighborhood cowering in fear around Camp Hope. Without evidence he accuses “Democrat activists” of lining their pockets with money coming from the state. Welcome to Republican attack dog tactics: lie, stoke fear, point fingers, and shift blame. Collaboration? Not publicly; collaboration doesn’t stir the base. Confrontation? You bet. 

Ozzie refuses an invitation to visit Camp Hope, the camp he threatens to forcibly dismantle, but he makes news taking a walk in a non-existent homeless camp along the Spokane River in Spokane Valley to make a political point against the candidate challenging Ozzie’s anointed successor as sheriff.

I am so far unable to verify it, but, according to a post on Nextdoor, Ozzie plans to make more political hay by speaking at (outside?) City Hall at 4PM today (Monday, October 3) in advance of the 6PM City Council meeting. If he appears, you can bet he will have alerted the media to cover it—and the some local media will step right up and report his drama, bluster, and unsubstantiated accusations with eye-catching headlines. 

Sheriff Knezovich announced in 2019 that he would not run for another term. Instead, KXLY reported “Sheriff Knezovich says plans to go back to school for his master’s and eventually pursue a career teaching college students”. Ozzie is only 59. He had a small heart attack and a stent placed early in 2022, but he says he’s not planning to retire, he’s just “shifting gears”. More recently, he said he would be moving to Wyoming to be near family, including children and grandchildren (he grew up Rock Springs and Superior, Wyoming). 

It was no surprise in early July 2022 there were multiple media reports that “the Republican candidate for Sheriff [Dwane Pacheco] of Sweetwater County in Wyoming [the county that includes Rock Springs] announced Knezovich would serve as his Undersheriff if he wins.” (The italics are mine.) In the Wyoming Primary Election held August 16, two Republicans, Ozzie’s friend, Mr. Pacheco, and Mr. Grossnickle ran. Mr. Pacheco lost badly with 2456 to Grossnickle’s 6905 votes. Since no Democrat ran in that race, I presume (but find it is devilishly difficult to nail this down), that only Mr. Grossnickle will appear on the General Election ballot on November 8—and Ozzie’s friend, Mr. Pacheco, is out of the running. 

One wonders if Ozzie Knezovich’s plans for 2023 were unsettled by Pacheco’s electoral loss. Is Knezovich using his remaining three months in office as Spokane County Sheriff as an issue platform from which to stake out a position (tough guy, law-and-order, Democrats are evil grifters) on which to run for a local office in the 2023 municipal elections? Knezovich is a politician. Arguably, part of what has kept him in office in the past has been a willingness to engage Democrats with some respect—but, now, like other local Republicans, Ozzie is in low-fact political attack mode—and I, for one, have lost most of the respect for him that I once harbored. May he go quietly into the Wyoming sunset—but don’t bet on it.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. I do have to give Knezovich credit for this: he personally endorsed Vicky Dalton (D) to continue as Spokane County Auditor over Bob McCaslin Jr. (R). Even as he fumes about “progressives”, Democrats, and “antifa” he also has taken a stand against the Matt Shea contingent of the local Republican Party—which includes Dalton’s election denying challenger. Knezovich’s presentation,“The Threats We Face”, in October 2019 still stands as a rare example of a local Republican standing up to the militant right wing of the Republican Party.

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Training for Voter Intimidation?

Matt Shea’s On Fire Ministries at 115 E Pacific is holding “Drop Box Training” this evening at 6:30PM, training in Matt Shea’s words to “make sure that, I don’t know, they [drop boxes] don’t get stuffed with anything that’s not ‘of God’”, a line he delivers with a knowing smirk. You can see the isolated clip here in a much watched Twitter post. You can also see it in context by clicking the youtube video below. (“Pastor” Shea’s Drop Box training advertisement starts at 19:22 amid other announcements in the beginning of a nearly three hour long Sunday service.) 

Matt Shea is the former Washington State representative from LD4 (Spokane valley north to Mt. Spokane). He resigned from the state legislature at the end of 2020 after becoming infamous thanks to his “Biblical Basis for War” manifesto. He has not gone “quietly into the night” after what in normal times would be widely seen as a disgrace. First, he took the reins as “pastor”of the Covenant Church at 3506 W Princeton Avenue from Ken Peters as well as the leadership of the “Church at Planned Parenthood” (TCAPP) . Soon fired by Peters under circumstances not made public, Shea his latest congregation, On Fire Ministries & Kingdom Christian Academy, in May of 2021, apparently taking along a share Covenant’s parishioners. Peters has since rebranded Covenant as the “Patriot Church”, perhaps better reflecting its political aims. (For more of Shea’s disturbing history read here.)

Matt Shea’s antics with his congregation and his announcement of “drop box training” at On Fire Ministries are part of a larger well-funded false political narrative of election fraud that no one still a member of, or candidate in, the Republican Party dares to plainly repudiate. When Matt Shea resigned his seat in the Washington State legislature in 2020 he left his seat mate and fellow traveler, Bob McCaslin Jr. (now running against Vicky Dalton for Spokane County Auditor). Shea was replaced as LD4 state representative by Rob Chase, a more affable man than Shea, but one who shares similar far right politics. It is an open question whether Shea would have been re-elected state representative from LD4 had he run in spite of “The Biblical Basis for War” controversy. Arguably he may be capable of producing more damage from outside the legislature than he could accomplish on the inside, especially with two fellow travelers holding the LD4 seats. 

“Drop Box Training” and 2000 Mules

Each major political party is authorized by Washington State law to send representatives to undergo training to be come “election observers” of the procedures of handling and counting ballots in each county. This year, several observers representing the Spokane Democrats chatted with their Republican counterparts. They learned that at least some of the Republican observers were not only highly skeptical of every detail of the ballot handling process and had been motivated to sign up for election observer training by Dinesh D’Souza’s movie, 2000 Mules:

2000 Mules is a 2022 American political film by political commentator Dinesh D’Souza that falsely claims unnamed nonprofit organizations paid “mules” associated with the Democratic Party to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin during the 2020 presidential election. D’Souza has a history of creating and spreading conspiracy theories.

Someone or some organization, mailing from a fake Spokane address so as to be untraceable, sent out DVDs of 2000 Mules to an unknown number of recipients in eastern Washington. The targeting was broad, inaccurate, and likely quite expensive, judging by the number of people I know who received a copy. I watched it. It is a slick piece of Republican propaganda posing as a legitimate scholarly documentary. As I watched I was reminded of the ironic comment, “Of course it’s true. I read it in the newspaper”, but applied to the present day. The supposedly analytical commentators dressed in suits, along with D’Souza himself, pretend to be convinced during the movie by the data presented. It takes but a minute to learn they are all far right wing political operatives. All hail from the Christian conservative Salem Radio Network: Dennis Prager, Sebastian Gorka, Larry Elder, Eric Metaxas, and Charlie Kirk. Only the most gullible would believe this was a panel capable of balanced analysis of the presented data.

2000 Mules is the slick propaganda that underpins Shea’s “drop box training” this evening. Combining the movie and the probable contour of the training it is not a great leap to imagine the sincere believers of this garbage staking out drop boxes in certain locations in Spokane, particularly areas that lean Democratic. These sincere observers would be on the lookout—and ready to video or perhaps even directly challenge—anyone who, to their skeptical eye, looks or acts “suspicious”. The beauty of this whole scheme is that these folks staking out drop boxes will no doubt be thinking of themselves as justified by Christian fervor and a desire to protect election integrity, when, in fact, their primary effect more likely be to intimidate voters. 

This is a Republican propaganda play to keep alive and use to electoral advantage Trump’s years-long accusations of stolen elections. Where are the local, regional, and national Republicans (except Liz Cheney) who will call out this deception for what it is?

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. For more information read RANGE Media’s Luke Baumgarten’s “Matt Shea is training ballot box watchers in Spokane”. So far, the Spokesman, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, has neglected both the implied threat of Matt Shea’s “drop box training” and the Michael Flynn “ReAwaken America” gathering of election fraud crazies in Post Falls on September 16-17. 

P.P.S. For more of a flavor of what Matt Shea has been up to since he resigned from the legislature check out these two posts put together by StrongerTogetherSpokane:

Redoubter Daily “Intelligence” Posting

The antics of On Fire Ministries

If you wonder about the Shea’s daily Redoubt posting, visit https://redoubtnews.com/ and view look the top of the page. This code must mean something to some of the Redoubt News readers—and Shea takes himself seriously. Is he still, as he was accused before he left the legislature, plotting insurrection? Is he still training “Team Rugged”?

P.P.P.S. Earlier local Republican efforts to demonstrate alleged election fraud made national news. Check out:

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Sheriff Knezovich threatens while Prosecutor Haskell seeks to justify

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich continues to garner local and national attention for his threats to “clear” Camp Hope by October 14. His bluster gets him noticed. A sub-headline of an article posted to KREM2 reads:

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said he will declare the property a nuisance property and cite campers for unlawful assembly if they refuse to leave.

The KREM article is full of Ozzie’s unsubstantiated allegations, and opinions that will resonate with some listeners and repel others. I hear echoes of “I and I alone can fix it” in his statements—but Ozzie will not act alone. He needs legal justification.

The original RANGE Media article drops a hint:

“I do know that the county prosecutor provides legal counsel to the sheriff’s department,” Aho said, “so you might want to check with them.”

Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell’s office was one of several agencies and organizations that have yet to respond to our requests for comment.

Another clue is found buried in subsequent Spokesman coverage tellingly entitled “Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich says homeless encampment an ‘ongoing protest,’ seeks warrant to clear it in October”:

Knezovich said the basis for clearing the camp would be provided by a warrant of abatement being drafted by the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office. That process, outlined in state law, is different than the chronic nuisance property procedure written into city law. Knezovich said it would take 20 days to draft that warrant.

Whoa! “20 days” to draft a warrant? Think of that. First, not only does Ozzie have to seek legal justification for his strong-arm “clearance” of Camp Hope, but the legal process required to justify his actions through Spokane Prosecutor Larry Haskell’s office is going to take “20 days”. If the law around this issue is so crystal clear why could it possibly require “20 days” to produce a valid warrant?

Here’s where the “rule of law” to which we in this country pay justifiable homage gets a bit murky. Prosecutor Haskell, like every county prosecutor (see P.S. below) exercises “prosecutorial discretion” we would do well to understand. Yes, the law is the law, but how the law is interpreted and applied is, at least initially (before involving a judge) subject to the interpretation governed by the mindset of the County Prosecutor. Prosecutors in the office under the direction of the County Prosecutor (in this case Larry Haskell) attempt to frame an issue that might eventually have to be presented to a judge. 

The statute linked in the Spokesman article, RCW 7.48.260, states [the bold is mine]: 

When, upon indictment or information, complaint or action, any person is adjudged guilty of a nuisance…order that such nuisance be abated, or removed at the expense of the defendant, and after inquiry into and estimating, as nearly as may be, the sum necessary to defray the expenses of such abatement, the court may issue a warrant... 

First, how is a “nuisance” defined as applied to this Chapter 7.48 RCW (the Chapter entitled “NUISANCES”)? We find that in the subchapter RCW 7.48.010 “Actionable Nuisances Defined”:

The obstruction of any highway or the closing of the channel of any stream used for boating or rafting logs, lumber or timber, or whatever is injurious to health or indecent or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to essentially interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of the life and property, is a nuisance and the subject of an action for damages and other and further relief.

Reading that definition of “nuisances” one begins to understand why it might take Mr. Haskell “20 days” to construct a justification for Sheriff Knezovich to march his deputies in and “clear” Camp Hope. Does the process also require that a Spokane County District Court Judge become involved? After all, RCW 7.48.260 says “when any person is adjudged”. I’m no lawyer, but doesn’t “adjudged” imply a ruling by a judge on the strength of the argument, in this case an argument produced by the prosecutor? Or is this the wrong statute?

None of the media coverage of the controversy stirred up by Ozzie’s declaration demonstrates any clear understanding of the justification Haskell will use to give Knezovich the legal green light. In the last paragraph I followed a link offered by Kip Hill in his Spokesman article. A lawyer with whom I discussed this situation suggested that Haskell might try RCW 9A.84.010, the “criminal mischief” statutes under Washington State’s  Title 9A, the state criminal code, specifically Chapter 9A.84 RCW, the section on “Public Disturbance”. 

A KXLY article says that Ozzie will “will cite people for “unlawful assembly” and arrest them if they do not leave. I’m not a lawyer, but I am a careful reader, and cannot find an “unlawful assembly” statute in the Revised Code of Washington. When two reporters, Knezovich himself, and another lawyer aren’t more clear about what is going to be used to justify Knezovich’s threatened action, it suggests that Knezovich, with his posturing, might have gotten out ahead of the law . (If you have the time check out those RCW links to demonstrate for yourself the vagaries of legal interpretation and how it depends on the mindset of the Prosecutor.)

For Ozzie to send his deputies to Camp Hope to disperse (not solve, but disperse) the “homeless problem” requires Prosecutor Haskell to use his prosecutorial discretion to first pick a statute from among those bandied about and then construct a legal justification around it. Perhaps this will take 20 days. If Ozzie gets to “clear” Camp Hope, once he is dusting off his hands in a gesture of finality, once all the work being done at Camp Hope is brought to a halt (or at least made much harder) by his clearance, all he will have demonstrated is three things:

1. It is much, much easier to tear down than it is to build trust and goodwill
2. The issue of homelessness won’t go away, it will reappear, but more dispersed, and, once again, more challenging to manage 
3. When the law is twisted by those in power to justify kicking the downtrodden no one benefits

Keep in mind that Prosecutor Haskell has both an agenda and, by virtue of his position, a great deal of discretion in applying that agenda to his interpretation of the law. On the November 8 General Election ballot independent Deb Conklin offers a great alternative to Haskell who would be less likely to serve as the Sheriff’s always-willing justifier. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. For a short, accurate, and entertaining primer on prosecutorial discretion watch John Oliver’s “Prosecutors” on youtube. It was posted four years ago—and remains painfully relevant.

P.P.S. Finally, none of this has to really play out in court: the damage is done once Ozzie sends in his deputies to “clear” the camp. Some might argue that the damage is done just by leveling the threat. The legal maneuvering based on the details of the warrant will soon drop out of the news. The legal wrangling—and the taxpayer dollars it will cost—will go on long after Sheriff Knezovich has stepped down.

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Along with Bingle and Cathcart

Note: The title of this post is shamelessly borrowed from an article by Shawn Vestal that appeared in the Spokesman on Saturday, September 24th. (See P.S.)

Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, City of Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward, City of Spokane Councilmen Jonathan Bingle and Michael Cathcart, and Sheriff-Candidate John Nowels want Camp Hope to evaporate. The existence of Camp Hope is a thorn in the side of their Republican “let’s use a stick” narrative that homeless people are homeless by choice, that homelessness is a badge of moral failure, that the way to “help” such lazy people is to punish and disperse them rather than offer a hand. 

Woodward’s mindset was best expressed by her earlier statement:

I think we need to get to the point where we’re working to make homelessness less comfortable and get people connected to services.

In other words, in Woodward’s mind, coercion, force, and threats are the best way to deal with the Camp Hope people. Beat ‘em while they’re down. Make their lot worse so they will come to accept what we grudgingly offer (but which we haven’t organized the resources to provide). 

Early last week Julie Garcia of Jewels Helping Hands, Maurice Smith of My Road Leads Home, Empire Health Services, Revive Counseling Spokane, and Compassionate Addiction Treatment, among others, people and groups actually working with the roughly six hundred people living at Camp Hope, seemed to be getting at least a little reduction in bluster from Woodward and her administration. One could have imagined that Woodward, having argued and cajoled her way to an anti-camping ordinance passed by the City of Spokane City Council, would cease her threats so that the people, groups, and agencies actually working at Camp Hope could peacefully carry out their efforts to provide housing and appropriate services. 

But, no. Counterproductively, the Woodward administration issued another threat last Wednesday, covered by RANGE Media:

That letter said that the large tent [erected in the summer of 2022 as a cooling tent], which was converted to a supply tent and host site for outreach services as the threat of extreme heat lessened, must be brought down by September 22 or face daily fines of $536.

Then, on Thursday, RANGE Media broke the news that outgoing Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich announced that he step in and resolve the issue. “Sheriff threatens to sweep Camp Hope as state and city start working together”. His breathtakingly blind solution: 

My plan is to provide bus tickets to the location of each residents’ choice, allowing them to reunite with family and to assist them in recovery. I will also engage the faith community to help with drug, alcohol, and mental health treatment.

…Consider this letter notice to WSDOT that I plan to clear this camp by mid-October, 2022. 

Just what “faith community” does Ozzie propose to engage that isn’t already on the ground in Camp Hope? Maurice Smith, who is on the ground at Camp Hope every day, is a sterling example of the Christian faith community at work. What imagined magic does Ozzie think he can make happen by calling in his idea of a faith community? 

Under Woodward’s “leadership” around the time of the Convention Center debacle the Mayor’s office let this slip a comment that has rattled in my head ever since:

“I have been calling facilities for months, quite bummed and disappointed that we weren’t able to connect more with our faith-based organizations in our community,” Sarah Nuss, the city’s director of emergency management, told the council today. “It wasn’t because work isn’t going on. It’s because we’re not able to find anyone to work with us.”

This “it’s not the government’s job” to address community issues is a Republican article of faith baldly expressed in WeBelieveWeVote’s Survey Question 12 on the Poor and Needy, a survey nearly every local Republican candidate has filled out and a statement with which most indicate full agreement:

Providing a safety net for the poor and needy is the responsibility of individuals, families, churches, and local communities. It is not the responsibility of the government, which primarily exists to protect citizens from foreign and domestic threats. 

After Knezovich’s “I will fix it” letter, RANGE Media was excluded from the Sheriff’s press conference in what can only be seen as an act of retribution for RANGE’s coverage of Ozzie’s letter. Read “The importance of a free press” and then sign up with RANGE and contribute to their efforts by buying a subscription. They deserve our support.

Neither Knezovich nor Woodward have actually visited Camp Hope and talked with any of its residents the way Gavin Cooley (short youtube video), Dan Simonson (A View of Hope From Camp Hope), and others have done. Spokane City Councilman Michael Cathcart (currently running against Amber Waldref for a position on the new Spokane County Commission), based on an ephemeral Facebook post of his from a few years ago, is so paranoid he likely wouldn’t approach the place without a loaded sidearm—and certainly couldn’t possibly approach the Camp with an open mind.

Knezovich, Woodward, Cathcart and Bingle are doing (or backing) everything they can to make all of Camp Hope’s homeless residents uncomfortable, frightened and uneasy—to set up roadblocks on the road to resolution—even as others work in good faith to help devolve Camp Hope in a humane manner before winter. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. I started writing this post with an overwhelming amount of material—and the intent to feature Shawn Vestal’s Saturday Spokesman article about Ozzie’s threats: “If dumb, angry responses to homelessness worked, we’d have solved it already.” Mr. Vestal’s writing alone is enough to justify a Spokesman subscription, but, just in case you can’t access this article which is available only in electrons I have copied it below. 

Shawn Vestal, September 24th, 2022:

The community is desperate for effective, unified leadership on homelessness.

Instead, we’re being treated to “The Ozzie and Nadine Show” – a hacky farce of grandiose proportions, in which local officials who could make a real difference instead lash out, politicize, undermine, threaten and obstruct progress in bringing an end to Camp Hope.

If they get their way, the camp’s residents will not be housed, and they won’t magically disappear. They’ll move around to other places in town, and the problem will continue to worsen, no matter how many misdemeanor citations the police department rains down on them.

This is the chief accomplishment of Nadine Woodward’s administration on homelessness, after all – a steep rise in the ineffective shuffling-about of homeless people. As feverishly as she tries to spread the blame, there is no single official in our community who bears more responsibility for what’s gone wrong.

As the state-funded effort to clear the encampment proceeds, the community desperately needs to see it work. We desperately need leaders pulling together behind real efforts to achieve real results, at Camp Hope and with the many other corners of this emergency as well.

Instead, we’re getting an unproductive game of chicken that raises a ton of questions.

Whose authority prevails in these conflicts? Might the city actually sue the agencies that are spending $24 million to address homelessness? Could there be a standoff at the camp between sheriff’s deputies and state patrolmen? How far will the rash, impetuous sheriff go to prove that the state is not the boss of him?

Dumb questions, political posturing, failures of leadership.

It’s “The Ozzie and Nadine Show.”

The state, which owns the land inside the city limits on which Camp Hope sits, is spending millions to find housing for the camp’s residents. You might think local officials who have failed to make a dent in this problem would have a very simple response: Thank you!

Right now, Empire Health Foundation is spearheading an outreach effort to connect each camp resident to a place to live. The foundation is doing this because our local governments are not.

This is not a project based on fantasies or wishful thinking, but on the reality that each person there will have different needs and that finding everyone a place to go – in a city that does not have enough places for them to go – will take more than a couple of weeks.

It is based not on a simplistic desire to judge those people’s level of deserving, but to recognize that whatever their circumstances, it is better for them and better for everyone else if they are living indoors – ideally with access to the services that would help them improve their lives.

Does everyone wish all of this could happen instantly? Of course. But what will happen if the campers are just disbursed and driven off – if the cops are sent in swinging their billy clubs, which is so clearly the dream of some? How does that story end?

Those who dream this dream think it ends with homeless people moving … away. Not into other neighborhoods. Not onto riverbanks or under train tracks or in parks.

Just … away.

Away, away! Shown the stern hand of a no-nonsense sheriff and pro-accountability mayor, the hundreds and hundreds of homeless people throughout our community will just vanish.

Such wishful thinking animates “The Ozzie and Nadine Show,” with the lead actors blaming the state for the problem entirely, attempting to establish a wildly unrealistic deadline for the camp’s removal, and threatening actions that may satisfy the pro-cruelty crowd in the short term, but which would be disastrous.

Woodward has done this by attempting to fine the state under the city’s nuisance laws, demanding reimbursement of the city’s costs associated with the encampment and removal of a cooling/warming tent, as well as setting a mid-October deadline to have the camp cleared.

The heads of the three state agencies responded earlier this week with an utter broadside – sharply rebuking the city, making it clear they would not honor the “completely unrealistic” deadline, refusing the attempt to extort nuisance payments, and accurately noting that the problem of homelessness in Spokane has been exacerbated by the failures of the mayor herself.

In a particularly apt poke, the letter – signed by Commerce Secretary Lisa Brown, state patrol Chief John Batiste, and Transportation Secretary Roger Millar – calls out the mayor for being “more preoccupied with optics than action.”

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich followed with more optics, firing off a scabrous letter Thursday to the Department of Transportation that displays all the hallmarks of lame-duck Knezovichism: personal smears, authoritarian bluster, ignorance about the problem, political cheap shots, boundless arrogance.

Knezovich claims he will personally clear the camp in a few weeks. The great leader will fix things and it will be quick, thank you very much. He claims he will buy bus tickets for the camp residents, partner with churches to provide drug and mental health treatment – because everyone knows how ample the drug treatment resources in this community are – and voila!

Away, away!

More darkly, the sheriff hints at malfeasance and criminal allegations involving supporters of camp, calling for audits and investigations of everyone in sight. This line of thought – that those helping homeless people are actually crafty profiteers and fraudsters – is common slander among the fans of “The Ozzie and Nadine Show,” but slinging vague allegations of fraud like some Facebook troll is scummy behavior for a public official.

It is all beyond absurd. A sheriff on a white horse with a handful of bus tickets, riding to the mayor’s rescue! Huzzah!

Unfortunately, we can’t solve this problem with the dumb ideas and misdirected anger of “The Ozzie and Nadine Show.”

If we could, it would already be solved.

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Not Just “Christian” Nationalism

Last Friday and Saturday, September 16 and 17, the “ReAwaken America Tour” attracted an audience of devoted MAGA Republicans to the State Line Speedway in Post Falls. These are the people upon whose votes local Republican politicians depend, the people to whom local Republicans vying for elective offices must nod and wink as they dodge and weave around straightforward questions like “Do you acknowledge that President Biden is the legitimately and fairly elected President?” Worse, many local Republicans, including, for example, Bob McCaslin, Jr., the Republican candidate running as a challenger to Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton; Rob Chase, current Washington State Representative from LD4 (Spokane valley north to Mt. Spokane); and former State Representative Matt Shea, actively promote the narrative of election fraud that is deeply intertwined with Flynn’s “ReAwaken America Tour”. 

The media coverage of “ReAwaken America” in Post Falls was sparse. KXLY ran a 3 minute segment on September 16. It is relatively balanced and worth watching. It focuses on “Christian nationalism” as if what Flynn is peddling were just another revivalist brand of Christianity. Instead, Flynn’s show, aggressively and shamelessly marketed by Clay Clark, is packed with conspiracy theories and misinformation interlaced with enough revivalist-style Evangelicalism to cloak the whole thing in a patina of Christianity. The Christian revivalist star of my youth, Rev. Billy Graham, would be turning over in his grave were he faced with what Flynn and Clark are selling. 

The ReAwaken America poster hints that any one or several of roughly sixty right wing personalities might speak at Flynn’s tour, including Mike Lindell, Senator Josh Hawley, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Roger Stone. Regardless, the KXLY coverage noted only three: Clay Clark, the shameless promoter of the Tour; the Trump-pardoned, QAnon-endorsing felon, Michael Flynn; and “Dr.” Stella Immanuel. Dr. Stella blends promotion of her Bethel Revival Ranch in Texas, fringe ideas about treating a variety of illnesses, her career as the pastor and founder of Fire Power Ministries, and lectures on Deliverance From Spirit Husbands and Spirit Wives (Incubus and Succubus)with her preaching to the Flynn Faithful on these ReAwaken Tours. Evidently, holding an M.D. from the University of Calabar, Nigeria, offers no guarantee that the holder understands or respects the science of medicine. 

It is impossible to overstate the fear-mongering and division, the Us (the “Christian” forces of good) v. them (everyone else) narrative Flynn and Clark are peddling. Billy Graham preached unity and Christian charity. Flynn and Clark and company base their show in an imaginary struggle between what they peddle as the “The Great Awakening” and “The Great Reset,” “The Great Awakening” obviously harkins to the Christian “revivals” of the last several centuries. “The Great Reset” is easy to breeze by without understanding the fantasy it masks. “The Great Reset” is a conspiracy narrative integral to Flynn’s and Clark’s message. Its content shines light on the reason Flynn’s Tour attracts so many of a certain “Evangelical” type the like of Matt Shea, Rob Chase, and Bob McCaslin. The Great Reset conspiracy theory bounces off of genuine plan discussed at the World Economic Forum for economic recovery following the pandemic. The conspiracy version claims this group of world leaders orchestrated the Covid-19 pandemic to take control of the global economy. “The Great Reset” is a direct descendant of “The New World Order” conspiracy pushed from Evangelical pulpits based on the book written by Pat Robertson, the Southern Baptist preacher and one time Presidential candidate, that was published in 1991. Robertson claimed “that the rise of this one-world conspiracy is being guided by Satan to fulfill the predictions of premillennial Christian eschatology, viewing it [the supposed existence of the New World Order] as a sign that the end times are nearing.” All this is just a short distance from narratives like the Rothschild Conspiracy, the late 19th and early 20th century idea that the Jewish Rothschild family controls our lives through the world’s banking system, an idea that, in part, animated the Holocaust. It should be no surprise that Clay Clark’s “Great ReAwakening” poster associates photos of George Soros (a man of Jewish descent) and Yuval Noah Harari (an Israeli intellectual) with the “Great Reset” conspiracy. 

Being sucked into Flynn’s and Clark’s quagmire of conspiracy requires only the time and gullibility to passively listen to internet videos presenting talking heads who hold forth as the trustworthy experts who must know far more of the details than you, the viewer. (After all, they’re presented with glamorous backdrops, just like Fox News.) Each video links to the next in a chain leading down the rabbit hole, reading not required, ignorance rewarded, critical thinking and inquiry actively discouraged. 

One of my readers shared an email they received in response to a texted inquiry about tickets for the Post Falls show. I copied and pasted it below. I urge you to peruse the linked offerings and briefly check out one or a few of the linked videos to get a flavor of the offered fare. Flynn, Clark, and company are making money by aggressively marketing and selling mind rot conspiracy theories cloaked in the rhetoric of a “Christianity” I do not recognize. 

That these are the people that local Republicans approve of and (at the very least) dare not offend ought to make to make every voter examine carefully the allegiances of every Republican on the ballot this fall. There is mind rot on display here that ought not be dismissed. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

September 14 Email Response from the ReAwaken American boiler-room in response to a texted inquiry about tickets for the Post Falls Flynn “Tour”:

Hey Boss,

Thank you for requesting a ticket to General Flynn’s ReAwaken America Tour!

11 URGENT Updates:

1. Watch the ReAwaken America Tour Documentary featuring General Flynn, Mike Lindell, Mel K, etc. for FREE at https://timetofreeamerica.com/watch-the-reawakening-documentary/
2. We are in a battle between The Great ReAwakening and The Great Reset. The Great Reset is being led by Yuval Noah Harari and Klaus Schwab. To learn more about this EPIC battle between good and evil, you can download Clay Clark’s most recent book for free by clicking here or buy the book by clicking here.
3. Ticket requests are flying in!!! A member of our teaming will be calling you ASAP, however you can text 918-851-0102 for FASTER service.
4. Find the ReAwaken America Documentary, ReAwaken America T-Shirts, hoodies, books and more at: https://store.thrivetimeshow.com/
5. Are you looking for a COVID-19 vaccine religious exemption? Request COVID-19 vaccine religious exemptions: www.JacksonLahmeyer.comwww.newlifeharvestchurch.org/
6. Are you looking to join the Airline Injunction Action against the COVID-19 vaccine mandate?: https://rumble.com/vnldb5-attention-airline-employees-dont-want-to-take-the-covid-19-vaccines-must-wa.html
7. Are you looking for 100% Affordable & Effective COVID-19 Treatments? Go to: https://timetofreeamerica.com/proven-treatments/#scroll-content
   1. www.VladimirZelenkoMD.com/ – 7,000 COVID-19 Patients (3 Deaths)
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8. Want to learn how to effectively homeschool your kids? https://www.thrivetimeshow.com/how-to-successfully-homeschool-and-defund-the-swamp-while-refunding-the-kingdom-conference/
9. Looking for jobs that don’t require the COVID-19 vaccine? Hiring employees that don’t want to take the vaccine? https://timetofreeamerica.com/no-jab-jobs/
10. ReAwaken America Tour Speaker Include / Have Included: General Flynn, Mike Lindell, Texas Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton, Charlie Kirk, Chad Prather, Pastor Phil Hotsenpiller, Robert Kennedy Jr., Ian Smith, Roger Stone, Melissa Tate, Dave Scarlett, Senator Wendy Rogers, Doctor Richard Bartlett, Gene Ho, Patrick Byrne, Scott McCay, Anna Khait, Sam Sorbo, Doctor Mark Sherwood, Attorney Thomas Renz, Doctor Stella Emmanuel, Attorney Leigh Dundas, Doctor Jim Meehan, Sheriff Vic Regalado, Joey Gilbert, Doctor Sherri Tenpenny, Doctor Rob Marsh, Leila Centner, Lori Gregory, Charleen Bollinger, Del Bigtree, Kevin Jenkins, Doctor Carrie Madej, Doctor Judy Mikovits, Steve Maxwell, Doctor Eric Nepute, Alfie Oakes, Sidney Powell, Doctor Alan Keyes, Pastor Artur Pawlowski, Mike Provenzano, Doctor Shannon Kroner, Doctor Andy Wakefeld, Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, Amanda Grace, Doctor Cordie Williams, Pastor Mark Burns,etc.
11. Download a Free Copy of Clay Clark’s Newest Book – The Great Reset vs the Great Awakening