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Interesting. The question is whether Ms. Isserlis will distinguish herself from her predecessors and staff of the City Attorney’s Office. See the challenged issued by Larry Shook that I posted below.
A welcome new challenge for city attorney
Ron_the_Cop on March 08 at 5:54 a.m.
WOW I’m impressed!
Perhaps the City Attorney’s Office now has a leader, one with high moral and ethical standards, that has been sorely lacking in this office for a long time. The Guild should take note. They won’t have a Treppiedi that comes running to cover-up their mistakes in the interest of minimizing civil liabilities that in some cases is not in the best interests of the City.
And most of all one that won’t tolerate special favors to the legacy wealth holders in this City with taxpayer dollars.
*****
A challenge from Larry Shook of www.larryshook.com:
Thank you, Det. Wright.
Please copy me on all requests you make of new City of Spokane attorney Nancy Isserlis to redress aspects of the RPS fraud– e.g. the fraudulent settlement by the city’s legal department of the RPS securities fraud case, evidence that implicates the City of Spokane in what Sheriff Bamonte alleges is the first-degree manslaughter death of Jo Ellen Savage in the RPS parking garage, and ample evidence of deeply entrenched systemic public corruption and racketeering in Spokane. There’s no better example of the extent to which this corruption threatens public safety than the continuing hazard represented by the RPS parking garage.
I sincerely hope that Ms. Isserlis turns out to be a public servant with the “high moral and ethical standards” you refer to. What concerns me, of course, is that this flattering article about her in the Cowles-owned Spokesman Review is exactly the kind of carrot that the Cowles family has used for more than a century to install corrupt public officials willing to tolerate and cover up Cowles activities. This long-standing pattern of practice, as you and Sheriff Bamonte have pointed out, satisfies both state and federal statutory definitions of organized crime. No less a federal authority than the IRS seemingly concluded this in its June 2004 Adverse Determination against the RPS bonds. The Cowles family and various City of Spokane and other public officials sold those bonds in order to fraudulently finance the Cowles family’s downtown Spokane shopping center. “It is clear from the facts of this case, the developer [the Cowles family] had and continues to have, a particular relationship with the City of Spokane … such that it was in a position to control or influence its activities,” wrote the IRS on p.17 of the Adverse Determination linked above.
“Control” is the operative word in that IRS sentence and is the reason that the civil RICO litigation recommended by you, Sheriff Bamonte and others has merit, I believe. How the Cowles family used its media to control the City of Spokane in the RPS fraud is partially documented in “All in the Family.” How that control has operated historically in Spokane is documented in a 1977 Harvard economics thesis. This is a portrait of the reign of terror the Cowles family has visited on Spokane for more than a century. How that terror produced the RPS scandal and its continuing aftermath was the subject of a national prize-winning investigative reporting series called “How the Spokesman-Review Subverted Democracy in Spokane, Washington.”
As Sheriff Bamonte has also documented, the Cowles family/City of Spokane pattern of racketeering has corrupted American government all the way to the White House. In other words, Ms. Isserlis assumes her important public office, inheriting the public trust that goes with it, in the presence of a rogue elephant of public corruption that even President Obama and his attorney general have been afraid to confront. It’s unfortunate for the public that you and Sheriff Bamonte are no longer wearing the badges that you wore with demonstrated honor and courage throughout your careers.
As with other correspondence of this nature from me, you and all other recipients are free to circulate it as you choose. Think of it as a kind of trip-wire wildlife camera on the rogue elephant in our midst.
Sincerely,
Larry Shook
UPDATE I:
The following comment was scrubbed by S-R Allison Boggs:
Ron_the_Cop on March 08 at 11:20 a.m.
Ms. Boggs,
I concur with the other posters after she gets her feet on the ground – Mr. Treppiedi needs to go for all his well known sins. Further it wouldn’t surprise me if Mr. Treppiedi is indicted for obstruction of justice in the Zehm cover-up case.
Seer, Shelala, Brian and Albert –
DITTO! Time will tell. Seer she does have a nose for following the money. In this town if she is of moral and ethical character this skill will serve her well to restore the faith of the citizens in Spokane government.
Ms. Boggs,
Larry Shook who you know is a very credible investigative journalist of www.larryshook.com has this challenge to Ms. Isserlis. Sorry if we’re a little gun shy re glowing recommendations from the S-R. Things as reported by the S-R sometimes may not be as rosy as they seem esp., when stories filed by reporters are edited by those in the Tower.
Capice?
From an excerpt on my blog:
I sincerely hope that Ms. Isserlis turns out to be a public servant with the “high moral and ethical standards” you refer to. What concerns me, of course, is that this flattering article about her in the Cowles-owned Spokesman Review is exactly the kind of carrot that the Cowles family has used for more than a century to install corrupt public officials willing to tolerate and cover up Cowles activities. This long-standing pattern of practice, as you and Sheriff Bamonte have pointed out, satisfies both state and federal statutory definitions of organized crime. No less a federal authority than the IRS seemingly concluded this in its June 2004 Adverse Determination against the RPS bonds. The Cowles family and various City of Spokane and other public officials sold those bonds in order to fraudulently finance the Cowles family’s downtown Spokane shopping center. “It is clear from the facts of this case, the developer [the Cowles family] had and continues to have, a particular relationship with the City of Spokane … such that it was in a position to control or influence its activities,” wrote the IRS on p.17 of the Adverse Determination linked above.