Hitting any particular minions with financial penalties seems like a pointless gesture to me.
I think the more appropriate response is to enjoin the City of Olympia from sending any mailers or doing any “explainers” on ballot measures on the city website or other media without the participation and approval of the text and/or presentation from representatives of the group opposing the upcoming ballot measure (i.e., the group that writes the opposing position statement for the voters’ pamphlet). The city has already been found to have improperly used taxpayer funds to promote a biased position, and been penalized for it, but the behavior continues. The recent RFA flyer is so grossly biased that it appears that the response should be much more meaningful … instead of wrist-slap fines, just solve the problem: take away the City’s ability to repeat the offense again.
The only other meaningful alternative response to the flyer would be to delay the election and provide the opposition with the same amount of funds and the time to do their own mailing to rebut the city’s mailing. That doesn’t seem workable.
Please explain the inappropriate content below.
