We expect and encourage hard-hitting exposure of political figures, and I rarely spend any time defending incumbent politicians. However, at what point does political opposition to a politician leave the sphere of normal rough and tumble politics and turn into a fetish-like obsession detached from objective reality? When does it become political warfare instead of political opposition? The answer to these questions may depend on your perspective. However, in Clark County, Washington State, a jihad of political attacks targeting one local county councilman presents a good case study of surreal, aggressive political warfare detached from reality and disproportionate to the actual political disputes.
Clark County Councilman David Madore has been the recipient of an impressive amount of hate, attacks, and coordinated political assaults over the past year. He might choose to ignore these attacks. However, the scale, variety, and obsession of these attacks directed at him deserve wider recognition and scrutiny. Let’s start by looking at Councilman David Madore and the context of the political scene in which he exists.
Who is David Madore?
David Madore is the founder and owner of US Digital, a high-tech manufacturing company located near Vancouver, Washington. This company currently employs about 125 people in true living wage, value-added jobs. By all accounts this has been a successful and growing business in Clark County. Most politicians give lip service towards attracting businesses like this to their communities. In fact, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party claim they want to encourage successful local business owners to be involved in politics because their experience is beneficial in government. At least, this is what the political class will typically say. (In 2015, I produced a video about this here)
Additionally, David Madore is a very generous supporter of many local charities in his community. This is one of Madore’s more impressive contributions to the community. He doesn’t just claim to support charity, but he puts his assets and money to work actively supporting many charities. His US Digital Outreach program is one of the more innovative and efficient ways of supporting local charities that anyone has ever developed in Washington State. At this time, there are over 40 local charities who exist wholly or in part because David Madore donates the free office space, logistical support, and other services to ensure they can spend their time and money on providing their services to the most needy rather than spend their money on overhead and additional fundraising. Anyone who understands the non-profit world knows how critical and practical this type of generous support is for small and start-up charities. (In 2015, I produced a video about this here)
Finally, despite being a successful businessman and a strong
supporter of local charity, Madore decided to engage in local civic issues that mattered to him. Specifically, he led the opposition to proposed tolls on local bridges and the epic boondoggle of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) mega-project and its unworkable light rail tax scheme. It was his opposition to these projects that created the environment where I first met David Madore in 2011. It seemed a quixotic and herculean effort to oppose the $3.5 billion mega-project called the CRC. Forget about the David vs. Goliath story. This was more like the David ant versus the CRC bulldozer.
Despite the entrenched special interests, a compromised local paper, and the massive sums of public money used to support the CRC project ($220 million wasted), Madore was willing to expose the problems, stand up to the special interests, and fight the power. In cooperation with a growing opposition including local state legislators and local volunteers, David led the charge to help defeat this mega-project. He was not alone in this effort, but few claim his involvement didn’t make a huge difference in the final outcome. Shortly after this, he decided to run for a seat on the Clark County Commission and defeated incumbent Marc Boldt in the election of 2012.
In early 2015, I produced a three video series to tell David’s story. In addition to the videos referenced above, this one was produced to tell the story of David’s civic engagement. The purpose of these
three videos was to encourage other business leaders and
engaged activists that they could make a difference. It really was possible to change the course of local politics, even if the special
interests seemed overwhelming and corrupted. I had been training citizens to run for local office and become more engaged civically since 2010, so David’s story was inspiring to me.
David Madore made political enemies in this process
Politics isn’t a frisbee game, and it would be naive to expect it to be a non-contact sport. However, even in the world of nasty local political conflict, the epic rabidness of Madore’s opposition is impressive. We should expect and encourage hard-hitting exposure of political figures. I believe incumbent politicians and bureaucrats are not scrutinized enough by the tame media. If you can get elected, you should be able to defend yourself and your record. I have written many hard hitting articles (here about Thurston County, here about Douglas County, here about a political candidate for commissioner, here about the City of SeaTac, etc). I wish the media would do this more often, and it is a sad commentary on the collapse of modern journalism that the tame media tends to ignore or give a pass to politicians and bureaucrats for a wide range of corruption and incompetence.
In Clark County, the scale and proportionality of the Hate-Madore crowd is strangely off the charts. Opposition is awesome, but foaming at the mouth craziness is not rational. This is particularly true considering the nature of the problems that the opposition claims to have with David Madore. I can’t find a comparable level of absurdity anywhere else in Washington State, so this is a unique story worth studying.
David isn’t perfect. Nobody who holds political office ever can be perfect. He has made mistakes in office just like every other elected official. Everyone is flawed and everyone is a sinner. That being said, it is helpful to have proportionality in evaluating the flaws of elected officials. Let’s compare David’s flaws to other local newspaper-endorsed politicians around the state. Did he personally cost the taxpayers of Clark County $200 million like Democrat Commissioner (and former legislator) Sandra Romero? No. Did he try to invent a new $42,000 pocket gopher tax on new property owners in Clark County like the Thurston County Commissioners? Nope. Did he fail to follow the law, commit gross misdemeanors for five years, and hide capital assets like the Republican commissioners in Douglas County? No. Did he try to steal property from local citizens, and use straw buyers to threaten property owners to sell to the county, in the process costing the county an $18.3 million jury verdict like the City of SeaTac? Doesn’t look like it. Did he try to force a local income tax on the local citizens like the City of Oympia? No. The tame media largely gave a pass to these stories identified above. What the heck did David do to inspire this hate?
According to the complaint filed against him by the public sector union, he committed three crimes against bureaucracy for which crucifixion may be the only proportionate punishment:
- He asked too many questions.
- He tried to understand how they did their jobs
- He tried to schedule meetings with staff to better understand the work they do.
From a bureaucrat’s point of view, these might be capital crimes worthy of the death penalty. Bureaucracy thrives on making the simple complex and by reducing transparency so that oversight is difficult if not impossible. However, these were not the only crimes he committed. Here are even more grievous crimes committed by Councilman David Madore:
- He challenged the math models used the Central Planners to determine their comp plan methodology. Alone, among elected officials, he actually tried to look behind the curtain to see how these mystery models were formulated. How Dare he look?
- He presented alternative options to the Central Planner schemes cooked up in the back rooms on the 3rd floor of the Clark County staff offices.
- He eliminated taxes, reduced fees, streamlined some regulations, and attempted to reduce the costs of local government.
Truly, these are crimes of the worst sort against the bureaucracy of Clark County. Now I understand the depth and angst of the Hate Madore Crowd. In the end, it comes down to money, and the future of government grants is all lubricated by cash. See this theme video for government. Not their own cash, but the money they can extract from taxpayers and the residents of the county.
A crazy cast of characters, recalls, lawsuits, and games
Leading the charge against David Madore is a local newspaper/blog site called The Columbian. This declining circulation traditional paper has been steadily laying off staff while writing more obsessively negative attack articles and blogs attacking David Madore than I have ever seen any traditional paper/blog site write in Washington State. Looking back over the past year, there are hundreds of negatively slanted articles, fetish-focused attack editorials, blog posts, and many Madore-obsessed hate tweets. This dwarfs all other topics or individual subjects. It has been an endless mudslide.
Additionally, according to sources inside the Columbian, the editor – Lou Brancaccio – has been spending much of his time in Florida or Chicago. The Columbian appears to have shifted its funding model into a unique approach selling Chinese made coffee mug trinkets online, and Mr. Brancaccio has been taking a hands on approach to selling these trinkets personally when he is not in Florida. The declining circulations and recent staff layoffs indicate the trinket selling may not be adequately closing the funding gaps, but the negative obsession with David appears to define the primary output of writing at the Columbian between increasingly rare random acts of journalism
In addition to Mr. Brancaccio’s fetish-like obsession with Madore and trinket sales, the bureaucrats in Clark County are willing to pull out every stop to attack Madore. Phony and discredited attacks of racism have been used by the Clark County Central Planning Director Oliver
Orjiako who did not want his math model questioned. Orjiako has worked in the planning department for over 20 years and was part of the planning staff who were called to task in a 1996 lawsuit for using wildly inaccurate math models to support their planning ideology which directly harmed rural residents. Orjiako appears to have taken this historic defeat personally, and he was strongly motivated to keep his secret sauce methods “super secret.” He and his fellow Central Planners used these secret math models to obscure the data which underpins the Comprehensive Plan for Clark County. When questioned by David Madore about these math model problems, Orjiako filed a discredited and silly charge of “racism” against Madore.
This led to another character, a mercenary Attorney Rebecca Dean, paid to write a $54,000 “investigative” report pre-targeted at David Madore. This 40 page report cost $1300 per page and was written to discredit Madore’s questioning of staff and contained Orwellian language like:
“Orjiako made correct statements based upon his misunderstanding of Madore’s contentions.” (p. 23)
And:
“In a related allegation, Madore has stated specifically that the DSEIS has inflated the number of buildable lots on forestlands by a “factor of 10,” a factor of “1000 percent,” or in later public statements, by “500 percent.” Madore’s statement is false … Pool (staff) states that GIS had been running alternative scenarios and turned the forest exclusion “off” in the code – and then forgot about it. So, as best as Pool can determine, when GIS gave the software and data to Madore, the forest exclusion was still turned off…GIS staff did not realize the error had been made until they tried (with limited success) to reproduce Madore’s methods” (p.15)
There are plenty of other examples, but as these two quotes illustrate, when Madore tried to understand the math model used by Central Planning staff that damaged the financial lives and dreams of thousands of people in the community – the staff gave him a screwed up math formula. David produces flawed data and points out the problems. Staff admits they screwed up the data, so this $1300 per page investigator decided to say Madore lied. Then, when Orjiako decided to make wild accusations against Madore, disproved by the facts, he is “correct.” The heavily slanted and very expensive “report” is really just a political hit piece funded by taxpayers instead of a political action committee.
Finally, there are the three other Council members. Council Chair Marc Boldt has an ax to grind because he was an arrogant, incumbent politician booted from office by David Madore in 2012. Mr. Boldt came roaring back in 2015 and became the new Clark County Council Chair, which probably felt like vindication. However, he is determined to payback Madore out of personal animus. Councilor Julie Olson is a former Ridgefield School Board Director and lost a close race for state legislature in the 17th district in 2012 (I supported her race at the time). Olson seems as obsessed with Madore as Boldt, so between them they try to compete for who can be the most rude. Councilor Jeanne Stewart is a bit more nuanced. I admired her when she sat on the Vancouver City Council and I supported her when she was elected to the Commission originally (with a lot of help from David Madore). It seems that she is determined to prove that she can be bitter at Madore as well, but at least she seems capable of thinking for herself. Either way, all three of these folk are targets of a recall petition (a video about it can be found here). They are all on the anti-Madore jihadwagon.
Bottom Line
At the end of the day, despite all the political drama, litigation, and posturing – this story is really very simple. The solution, regardless of how you feel about the people involved in this situation is even simpler.
This is a story about a successful person who chose to become a politician trying to fix the problems he had seen in government after attempting to fix these problems from the outside. He gets into government and holy crap, he actually meant what he said. More shocking than this, he made the thankless effort to understand the Byzantine world of Central Planning. He steps on a lot of toes. The toes kick back.
David Madore has pissed off some powerful special interests. He helped kill a $3.5 billion (some say as high as $6 billion) boondoggle that promised to re-distribute a lot of money to a select group of special interests in Clark County and in Oregon. They are not happy. They hate David. All the dramas, bitterness, lawsuits, and silliness is just the complicated chaos that obscures this simple situation and helps the Columbian’s editor peddle his Chinese-made trinkets.
Now, the people of Clark County get to decide:
Do they want someone like David Madore, who is not perfect, but willing to question the establishment, dig into the details, and appears fearless opposing special interests?
Or, do the people of Clark County prefer the typical bobble-head politician who rubber stamps staff and cares what a Florida-based editor of a shrinking local newspaper writes while sipping drinks poolside?
Dean Report – $54,000 for a 40 page politicized political report attacking David Madore
___________________________________________________________________________
Our Constitution begins with the phrase “we the people.” It was the founder’s intent that government be created by the people, to serve the people. It wasn’t their intention for the people to serve the government. It was always intended that government which failed to serve the people should be “altered or abolished.” Until we return to the founder’s intent, we remain We the Governed…
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The Columbian creates a news void in Clark County
The Clark County Council desperately needs some adult supervision
City of Vancouver Mayor and Council forced to abandon 117% pay raise
The Clark County Charter – a quest for utopia or inevitable fiasco?
Despite charter vote, Clark County trends more conservative in 2014
A discussion by the Freedom Foundation about the Clark County Charter Proposal
The CRC Zombie Died: winners, losers, what comes next
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Wow! This blog looks exactly like my old one! It’s on a completely different subject but it has pretty much the same page layout and design. Great choice of colors!
Glen –
Thank you for all of the pertinent and “truthful” information about David Madore, who happens to be one of the most genuinely honest, generous and thoughtful men I have ever met or campaigned for. He is an inspiration in business (should anyone care to read how US Digital actually came to be), his faith (in both God and his fellow man) and his willingness to step up to the plate when called upon. What has he gotten for all of his efforts? Certainly NOT gratitude from many who have benefitted from his hard work and determination to do the right thing. David replaced the likes of Marc Boldt as he proved to be nothing more than someone who claimed to be there for the people, but in reality was only in it for himself…..and he was re-elected under very false claims such as having the support of the “majority of Clark County Republicans”. Julie Olson was also voted in while misrepresenting herself to the public. I don’t understand what has happened to Jeanne Stewart because, like you, I truly admired her work at City Council as she battled against the Mayor “I was against the tolls before I was for them” and the rest of his henchmen. I thought perhaps she had had a stroke or other mental impairment, but the Jeanne Stewart I met years ago would have stepped down in that particular case. Unfortunately, I think she no longer wishes to “rock the boat” and have the voting public (the ones who didn’t even vote for her) dislike her. And she has turned on the very man who helped get her elected to her present position. Sad, very sad. David Madore is a stand-up guy who will do just that even though the left-leaning loons are trying to break his legs. The people who HATE David Madore, do not know him at all. Again, I appreciate the time and effort you took to tell about this very humble and hardworking man – keep up the “much needed” great work!
Linda, you sound just like me, Pauline Warren. I have had two long letters to editor in recent Reflector. I’d appreciate getting to see you and communicate. Would you be interested?
My home phone number is 695-8156.
Check out this investigation being conducted by the WSP Criminal Investigations Division.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3yjLELGHgkDenZ6U3VPWnMwZ05wLVhmajB0QmhlenVVZHM0
As a resident of Clark County who has listened to every Board hearing, Board Time, Regional Transportation Committee meeting, C-Tran meeting and Planning Commission meeting, I implore you to listen to the public record and you will find a lot of answers to the questions you are posing here.
This issues I am most concerned about include:
1) His repetition of non-facts to shape perception until they become facts in his mind;
2) The repeated and regular attacks on the credibility of staff, attorneys, fellow councilor and even the people he hired himself (like Thorpe & Associates);
3) The process-related delay tactics that he uses, in the name of transparency, to block progress when he is running against the stream and the “speed it up” when he had the votes to go his own way (see the many December resolutions that he got passed because he had the votes with Councilor Mielke);
4) The mismanagement of his Facebook page which has resulted in the silencing of many people whole advertising the page’s use in open council meetings (I was banned simply for saying I lived in his district and would be voting for the charter when he was making the claim that only city of Vancouver was supporting the charter)
5) The complete waste of money on outside attorneys, investigations, hirings that didn’t go through established processes and litigation as a result of his direct actions and false comments.
I could keep listing concerns but if you listen to the public record of David’s activities as a councilor, the truths become prett self-evident.
Cheryl,
Thank you, but keep listing the concerns. Don’t hold back. I’m truly fascinated.
The Facebook thing comes up a lot, which is interesting. I’ve never heard of any other politician in the state generating opposition because of how they managed their facebook page, so this might be the first.
I’ve also wondered at some of the posts that have been deleted, and there may be some fair criticism over that. But here’s the other side of the story.
After the Benton hire, a “Recall David Madore” effort was started by Madore’s detractors. While they may have been incensed over the Benton thing, they didn’t have a legal case and that effort didn’t last long. That failed effort soon morphed into the “Clark County Citizens for Good Governance” Facebook page. While they claim to be about “Good Governance”, their idea of good governance is mostly about showing Madore the door, and generally electing Democrats, which to them, most of them anyway, is what good governance is all about. The C3G2 membership, is a who’s who roster of local Democrats, with a small number of the sort of Republican who could just as easily be a Democrat. Others who are anti-collectivist in their political thinking, and attempt to comment there, soon encounter the wrath of — what I see as — a pack of wolves, and generally don’t last long. There’s a relative few number of members who actively post.
Here’s what happened. Soon after the C3 group formed, they began to comment on Madore’s FB page. There were essentially a stream of insults, calling Madore “stupid”, “moron” and the like, and some vulgar language of the four letter variety. Madore would delete these type comments, but they just kept coming. Madore announced on his FB page that he was “blanket” banning all members of that group. Somewhere in here, the term “hate group” began to appear, referring to the C3 group. I don’t know if Madore originated that, or someone else. That’s been over two years ago. Meanwhile, back at the C3G2 page, those insults just kept coming. There were some, and still are some, that seem to pop in there, only to throw out an insult, and nothing else.
I’ll add, that over the last one year plus, while condescending posts on their FB page are the norm, the more blatant insults have tapered off, and the administrators delete the posts with the more offensive language. So in that respect, things have become a little more civil. One will also note, that there are members of that group, who’s posts do remain up now on Madore’s FB page, and to whom Madore responds, while others are deleted. As I’ve said, maybe there’s some fair criticism over that.
With great gusto, David Madore and Lou Brancaccio have participated in a pissing contest. The outcome is inevitable: both are yellow, wet and smelly.
“When questioned by David Madore about these math model problems, Orjiako filed a discredited and silly charge of “racism” against Madore.”
Sounds like a secret goverment employee handbook exists to use tactics agains people asking too many questions. Create a phony claim, hire a outsider to write a biased expensive report with false facts that cannot be proved and then push the person out the door asking too many questions.
Sounds like the same story that occured in SeaTac a few months ago wit the interim city manager. He asked too many questions also.
Yep, that is how it works. The sad thing is that in Clark County, many good people think this is something new. This is a templated response used by bureaucrats to take out politicians they don’t like. The City of SeaTac process this spring was just another example as well.
I live in Clark County. I have jumped onto YT 20 times in the last 2 days. Every single time there has been the same anti-Madore ad before the video. I googled him out of curiosity and found your article. The ad starts out by blatantly calling him “corrupt.” It would be nice to see exactly why he is so hated, indeed. More research beckons…Thanks for the article. Thorough and specific.
Glen,
You ask “…why is he so fervently hated by this group?” While I only speak for myself, here are just a few things that Councilor Madore has done, or does, that keeps me actively fighting for his removal from public service- so he can get back to US Digital- not every successful businessman (which David appears to be) makes a good public official.
In November 2011, just after being elected, Madore states on his ‘public Facebook page’: “I shall not seek to censor anyone from speaking their mind on any issue. Any attempt to do so would be a form of oppression and tyranny that I strongly oppose.” Yet there are many (hundred) Clark County citizens, myself included, that he has banned, and scrubbed from his page when we ask dissenting questions, or press him on ideas or decisions he’s made that affect us- but we may oppose. Very, very few people have been banned for abusive language, personal attacks, off topic posts, or other things that would be understandable (but it’s interesting to note that those who closely support and defend David- they are rarely, if ever, banned or even have their posts scrubbed for personal attacks and foul language). I consider him hypocritical, he considers myself, and others that he’s banned part of a “hate group” (pretty strong language, given the very real hate that exists in the world today).
Madore claims to be a conservative, fiscally and socially. Yet because of him, myself and other taxpayers in CC are on the hook for $100’s of thousands- if not millions of dollars: the Don Benton hire ($275K lawsuit), the Thorpe Report ($45K?), the Fee Waiver ($10 million or more), the Dean Report ($55K), $10’s of thousands for outside council when Madore made it impossible to use the attorneys we already pay for- just to name a few.
Even when presented with fact- if those facts are contrary to how Madore views his positions, he clings to his position.
He very publicly micro-manages and/or refuses to work with hired staff who are experts in their fields (Planning, legal council, judges, Dr. Melnik from the County Health Department etc. etc.).
I could go on, but I won’t. I truly have no doubt that Mr. Madore, the successful businessman, family man, and active Conservative Christian ran for office with the best intentions- that if he could act as CEO and Moral Leader of Clark County, it would be a better place to live. Unfortunately for him, and the rest of us, he lost sight of the forest for the trees. Life is a lesson, and here’s hoping that after he’s defeated in November (if not before), goes home and has time to reflect, he will realize how much better this could have gone had he taken off the blinders and worked at compromise. THAT is how our system of government works. No one group “owns” America, or Clark County for that matter.
PS: it’s come to my attention Mr. Morgan, that you’re scrubbing comments too. Let’s see if you have the moxie to leave this up. (I’ll screenshot it anyway).
Don,
See my comment to Stuart below so that you can understand how comments work on WordPress websites. It is different than Facebook.
Thank you for getting more specific. I am spending a lot of time working on stories and whistleblower projects in other parts of the state, but over the last year the Clark County situation has been odd, and I believe you are the first person who has actually provided one specific reason why David deserves the attacks he is getting. Correct me if I am wrong, but in summary:
David deletes comments from his Facebook site and banned you from his Facebook group.
I understand this, and anyone who does that should certainly be consumed in a great ball of fire, and consigned to the lowest level of Dante’s hell.
The weakest argument you presented against David is that he isn’t working with the “hired staff” who are “experts” in their field. My experience around the state with a lot more interaction with staff and whistleblowers from many local government agencies filled with “experts” is that their expertise is often a facade for dishonesty and incompetence. Not all of them. Probably not even most of them. However, a sizeable number of bureaucrats, particularly in the Central Planning departments and increasingly in the legal departments are in the service of agendas that in no way reflect what they are “hired” to do. I want to elect people willing to question them. In most cases, particularly in Home Rule Charter Counties (for structural reasons, not because of a grand conspiracy – http://www.freedomfoundation.com/blogs/liberty-live/the-clark-county-charter%E2%80%94a-quest-for-utopia-or-inevitable-fiasco), the staff run the show and the elected officials are really just rubber stampers expected to ask no questions, keep quiet, and go with the flow. This is not healthy in a free society. It is easier, and it is the lazy way, but it is not better for the people who live there.
I would like to do more research on the cost concerns. I know very well how much money politicians can waste in their communities. Here is one who has directly cost the taxpayers $200 million – https://www.wethegoverned.com/sandra-romero-the-200-million-commissioner/
If you don’t like the Fee Waiver program, then that is a valid reason to oppose Madore if you care about nothing else. I believed it was a novel program as it was initially proposed, but I would like to see the actual data on it since it appears there is more than one side to this story. I am naturally skeptical of the Central Planners who make these claims, so it is work checking out in more detail.
The other lawsuits you mention – the Dean report was just a political scam and you as the taxpayer got screwed on that one. The Dean Report follows a common pattern I have seen in other jurisdictions. The hiring entity tells the attorney the outcome they want, the “investigating” attorney produces the “report” with the required outcome and shocking – the costly report produces the desired result. I laughed at that one because it might seem novel in Clark County, but this is a cookie cutter approach to what is done by bureaucrats everywhere. The Benton lawsuit was another wasteful case, which should have been avoided.
Please go on, don’t hold back. I really do want to know your side of this issue.
But Madore was the one who asked for an investigation, so the county hired Rebecca Dean, who has been hired previously by the county and whose work has been sufficient thus far. Madore just didn’t like the results. Same thing happened with the Thorpe Report. Once they disagreed with him, all of the sudden they weren’t qualified enough or didn’t use the correct information so their report was junk. This is a pattern with David Madore.
Brittany, I believe pretty strongly that Madore has been a bit naive about just how corrupted government bureaucracy can be. Clark County is nothing new, and the bureaucrats who work there are no different than elsewhere. Some are good and honest. Some are self-serving and dishonest (sorry to pop people’s bubble about this). “Independant investigations” are just smokescreens used to come to predetermined outcomes. I have watched all this happen repeatedly in different jurisdictions around the state. This is how the game works. Wash, rinse, repeat – and people fall for it, because while it happens a lot, you would only notice this if you had been looking at a variety of other places around the state for a few years. I was closely watching one that happened just a few months ago in SeaTac.
I am not as familiar with the Thorpe report, but if you could send me an original file, I would appreciate it. My email is listed on this site under whistleblower resources.
Glen- OK, website consulting tips done over on C3G2, allow me to retort to a couple of your replies:
You say: “David deletes comments from his Facebook site and banned you from his Facebook group.
I understand this, and anyone who does that should certainly be consumed in a great ball of fire, and consigned to the lowest level of Dante’s hell.” Umm, no, the latter is not what I think, nor what I implied. If an elected official such as Madore launches a FB page, announces that this is how his constituents can hear his views about County issues, and specifically states “I shall not seek to censor anyone from speaking their mind on any issue.”, THEN bans people for challenging his position, or tries to engage in ‘spirited debate’ (such as we’re doing here), that person should be called out for it. No one disagrees with banning people and scrubbing posts for things like: personal attacks, foul language, off topic posts (though that shouldn’t ban a person, just scrub the post), hate speech (which can be subjective, but shouldn’t include banning someone just because they belong to a group with opposing viewpoints) and the like. However, banning people for ‘speaking their mind’ with an opposing viewpoint, yet leaving posts that contain personal attacks, foul language etc. from people that have blindly supported you is pretty much the definition of hypocrisy. There’s a chance that I’d cut David some slack if this was happening on his “Personal” FB page, but you and I both know that’s not the case.
Next you say: “The weakest argument you presented against David is that he isn’t working with the “hired staff” who are “experts” in their field.”, and go on to say talk about “…their expertise is often a facade for dishonesty and incompetence.”, and you want our elected officials to question the public sector employees who are providing the information for projects and other funding that our Council votes to spend our tax dollars on. Well, so do I- and so do most of the people who vote and are paying attention to what goes on in our local government. A problem arises when (I’ll use Alt 4 as an example) a historically trustworthy Planning Department tells Madore that the plan he drew up using GIS software and invalid planning assumptions won’t meet GMA guidelines. Thinking he’s right, and the Planning Department is wrong, Madore makes a call for an independent review from a outside expert, Thorpe. Some $45K later, Thorpe comes to the same conclusion as the Planning Department, and Madore piles on falsely accusing 2 Deputy PA’s and Dr. Orjiko- our Community Planning Director. I’d like to think I don’t have to spell out all of the complaints that a lot of the community and County Employees have with Madore- that’s been covered at length. But coming back to your point about questioning the “experts”- I think I can say we both agree that that is an important function of our elected officials, however let me set up a scenario for you: let’s say you were hired (elected) to be the CEO of OHSU, a world class teaching hospital. Your credentials are a MBA and you’ve owned several successful businesses. You were hired to contain costs for construction of a 10 story Children’s Hospital: Oncology, Emergency, Surgery (including robotic heart surgery), patient rooms, and all the ancillary support that goes into this project. One day the Oncology Department MD’s come in and tell you they’re not satisfied with the size of their proposed department. There are 3 potential architectural proposals due to be voted on soon, and these plans all conform to guidelines set forth by the Department of Health, as well as make the best use of the footprint you have to work with. You’ve already met with other department heads, the civil engineers, the BOD, finance, etc, and they all tell you the same thing “sorry, it won’t work for a lot of reasons, not the least of which, the DOH will tell us “no” and set back groundbreaking past the deadline, potentially costing millions. At this point in the scenario, even though you’re friends with Oncology, would you go to Facilities and have them draw up new plans, then hire outside consulting when the engineers, architects and BOD tell you Facilities plan won’t work? You see where I’m gong with this?
I’ll respond to more of your post tonight. Time to head into the coal mine.
What happened to Tracy Wilson’s post from July 24, at 6:09am? Were the questions too hard for you to answer? If you are all about transparency, why not address Wilson’s questions, instead of just deleting the comment?
Practice what you preach. Be transparent. Act like an adult. Stop deleting the difficult questions, and just simply respond to them in an intelligent, rational manner – if that’s possible.
Stuart,
Thank you for your kind words, as always. Sorry I wasn’t up at 6:09am. If you had a website, and allowed comments, you would know that there are a sizeable number of comments that are spam from overseas and robots trying to sell random items. In order to have a comment section to be relevant, it is best to not have the spam comments go up.
Unless you are trying to sell coffee cups, Nigerian lost treasure, upgraded SEO packages, beekeeping supplies, or subscriptions to the Columbian I let it go through. So far, I’ve never had to reject a comment due to over the top profanity, but I imagine there will always be a first time.
Stuart, I am proud of you – I think this is the kindest comment you have left so far, and I can only hope that I am having some influence on your writing.
Glen, for the sake of transparency, didn’t David go to you about a year and a half ago and seek help at rehabilitating his image for the upcoming County Chair race? Isn’t the video trilogy promoting David a result of that effort? Didn’t you get paid for that production for David, by David? What is your current/recent financial relationship with David, if any? These are things your readers might want to know, in order to gage your objectivity.
I’m not a “Madore hater”. I’m just a local Republican businessman, who like most other local Republican businessman (and a significant number of other Republicans) have come to see David in a much different light than he appeared in 2012. There are many things David has done for self-serving political reasons over the past few years that many of us have been witness to, and the motivations behind them, that the general public hasn’t fully pieced together. I’d be happy to meet with you and share the truth about what’s really going on.
Tracy,
No, David never approached me. As you know, I wanted to do a video about David in 2014 while I worked at the Freedom Foundation, mainly because I had found his story pretty inspiring to encourage others to run for public office. I never got around to doing it then. However, once I was no longer at the Freedom Foundation, I was able to do so on my own for We the Governed. I used these videos to show activists and inspire them that getting involved could make a real difference. I don’t think David ever saw the videos until this year. They had less to do with David than they had to do with inspiring others to run for office.
I had originally planned to do a variety of videos about different elected officials around the state who I felt could be inspiring to encourage others to run for office as well. Lynda was one I was looking at as well because of her transition from activist to politician. However, it takes a lot of time and energy and I just haven’t had the time to do as many as I would like. The whistleblower effort has been more time consuming than people would probably imagine.
I’d be happy to meet with you next time I am in Clark County. I am seeking different perspectives and finding Clark County to have some odd divisions that sometimes just don’t make any sense.
The [U.S.] Constitution begins with “We the People” and ends with “or to the People.”
The People are supposed to surround the government, not the other way ’round.
Clark County is fortunate to have a willing and involved David Madore, instead of a leaving David Madore dusting off his shoes as he exits.
This is a pathetic, disgusting , a**-kissing article that doesn’t tell any of the bad things DM has done to Clark County.
Well, “Don” why don’t you tell us all the “bad things” he has done to Clark County. Eager to get some specifics.
The previous ‘Don Benton’ post is not to be confused with Senator Don Benton. In case anyone was wondering.
Senator Don Benton completely understands what has gone down in Clark County and he recently lost his job from the nasty games of the establishment bureaucrats.
Yes Don pray tell us!
Your thoughts on on Cowlitz County?
I’ ve heard the County Jail is a mess.
Crime in Longview/Kelso is high.
Problems getting new industry in at Kalama and Longview/Kelso.
Etc.
Gary,
I haven’t written anything about Cowlitz. I’ve heard the same thing about the jail. Point me to some sources…
Great Article Glen! Personally I like David Madore and will be casting my vote for him.
Theresa, thank you for your kind words. I have been asking detractors and those who hate Madore to tell me specifically what he did that made them hate him, but, interestingly enough nobody can really give me any specifics. It is an odd situation. While you might be voting for David, do you have any ideas on why he is so fervently hated by this group?
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