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Paul George takes his first swing as he launches council campaign
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Former mayor Paul George kicked off his campaign for the Yakima City Council today and came out swinging.
“I just want to say that I am not endorsed by Bruce Smith,” he said, referring to the publisher and editor of the Yakima Valley Business Times who has emerged in recent weeks as a behind-the-scenes player in City Hall politics.
During a news conference at the Howard Johnson Plaza hotel, George accused Smith and several council members he’s worked with of trying to “subvert” the city’s council-manager form of government.
If elected, he promised to ask “citizens to reaffirm our council-manager form of government and move on.”“
George, who was mayor from 2004-05, filed late Friday against newly appointed Councilwoman Maureen Adkison. He was ousted by Bill Lover in 2005 after serving one term.
He and Adkison are vying for Yakima’s District 1 seat, which covers much of West Valley. But George had little to say about his opponent, except that “she’s a nice person.” When questioned by a reporter on issues, George said he found her recent vote on the Yakima Fire Department’s request to permit paramedic training “incomprehensible.”
Although she’s a major player in local Republican politics and George is active in the local Democratic party, he noted that City Council races are nonpartisan and that he intended to.
“What’s so partisan about a pothole?” he asked.
George’s dig at Smith was reference to recent controvery over an April 14 City Council vote to change the way the council develops its budget. City documents released to the public weeks later showed that the newspaper publisher had worked with Council members Rick Ensey and Kathy Coffey to line up support for the council vote before council members met in public.
Last week the city settled a lawsuit by a local attorney who claimed council members had violated the state Open Public Meetings Act, which sets guidelines for city councils, county commissions and other governing bodies in Washington state.
- Chris Bristol
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5 comments so far.
Swing and a miss.
Apparently this has-been's only strategy is to bash Bruce Smith. He's going to need to do more than that.
The staff at Pravda couldn't write a better headline to prop up their candidate while making irrelevant and mis-leading accusations in the article. M. Adkison had nothing to do with the emails with Bruce Smith and the violation of the open meetings act was never substantiated. It's to bad the YHR reporters aren't held to journalistic standards much less the standards imposed on this comment section.
Report ViolationI'm not endorsed by Bruce Smith either. Does that qualify me to run for something? Mr. George doesn't want to say anything about M. Adkison because he's hoping the uninformed will recognize his name on the ballot as an opponent of the big bad Bruce Smith (a character built by Mr. Smith's business competition the Y-HR) and not for his quality as a candidate. He wants to go back to a form of government that takes decision-making power away from the voting public and keeps it in the hands of non-elected city employees. I wonder why. I take M. Adkison with a quick knockout in the second round.
Report ViolationI wonder how many elections people like Paul George and Ron Bonlender need to lose before they realize that the majority of Yakima simply does not agree with their left-of-center politics.
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Way to go George! Let's bring INTEGRITY back to the council & put someone in office who has OUR best interest in mind-not Bruce Smith's.
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