Initiative-517 campaign takes aim at Wenatchee officials' ‘arrogance’

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Initiative-517 campaign takes aim at Wenatchee officials' ‘arrogance’

If initiative passes, red-light cameras could again be targeted

By Dee Riggs
World staff writer

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Tim Eyman says the campaign for Initiative 517 will make Wenatchee its poster child, accusing city officials of arrogance, obstinance and “disrespect of the people you claim to represent.”

I-517 aims to allow the public to vote on local initiatives without court interference, like the effort to force the removal of Wenatchee’s red-light cameras. The city of Wenatchee successfully sued to stop the local challenge, which would have required a public vote on whether to keep the cameras.

“I-517 allows us to put the brightest spotlight on your arrogance, your obstinance and your disrespect of the people you claim to represent,” Eyman wrote in an email to the mayor and City Council on Monday.

The comment does not sit well with Mayor Frank Kuntz.

“He called me arrogant, obstinate and disrespectful, and I’ve never met the man,” Kuntz said Monday. “I guess I question his judgment.”

On Jan. 3, Eyman turned in 345,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office. He said he expects the filing will place I-517 on the November 2013 ballot.

It would set penalties for harassment of signature gatherers and signers and would allot a year, instead of the current six months, for signatures to be collected.

But the main focus, according to Eyman, is to create a new state law that would allow a vote on any initiative that qualifies for the ballot, even if a lawsuit has been filed against the measure.

Eyman takes aim at a Washington Supreme Court decision that upheld that the state Legislature specifically gave the power to regulate red-light camera use to city councils, and that such council action is not subject to direct voter approval. A similar ruling by a Chelan County Superior Court judge quashed an anti-red-light camera campaign that was waged locally.

Red-light cameras are operating at three Wenatchee intersections: at Kittitas and Mission streets, at Fifth Street and Chelan Avenue, and at Orondo and Chelan avenues.

Police Chief Tom Robbins said in January that he would like to see two more red-light cameras. They would monitor traffic heading south on North Wenatchee Avenue at the Maiden Lane intersection, and traffic heading north off of Miller Street onto Wenatchee Avenue.

He said he would also like the council to consider installing cameras to ticket speeders at some local school crossing zones. The number of schools would be determined by feasibility studies and school officials.

In an email to the mayor and City Council on Monday, Eyman called Wenatchee the poster child for his initiative 517 campaign. In a phone interview Monday afternoon, he said the initiative would create a new state law “that makes it 100 percent clear that the discretion about putting a measure on or not to a vote is up to the citizens.”

Dee Riggs: 664-7147

deeriggs@wenatcheeworld.com

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lonedog3 4 months ago

“He called me arrogant, obstinate and disrespectful, and I’ve never met the man,” Perhaps this attitude is how other people see him. We can go back through the photo files here in this paper and see these traits in your pictures without even going on to your words. I for one would agree with Mr. Eyman in regard to the subject matter at hand.

lilrain509 4 months ago

I completely agree the very notion of sueing to block a public vote of the same public that you were elected to represent spells pure corruption and hypocracy. you were elected to do the will of those who elected you and not block them and do whatever fits your desires this is not a monarchy WE ARE FOR THE PEOPLE. Mayor Kuntz, Chief Robbins, and any public official who opposes this clearly should not be in office and should potentially face criminal charges for treason. This is Not America!! Wenatchee Stand up!!! Why do we keep electing these corrupt elitist good ol boys??

oldgoat 4 months ago

This is easy DON"T RUN RED LIGHTS and you will not have a problem with them being there. Talk about not respecting the law.

barleywine 4 months ago

I hate to say it, but I agree with Eyman on this. It may very well be that the citizens of Wenatchee agree with the use of red-light cameras (I don't, since I believe they actually cause more accidents than they prevent,) but they should have had a say in the matter. What's next. the city council deciding to approve random DUI checks, too?

H 4 months ago

What's next. the city council deciding to approve random DUI checks, too?

Please don't give them any ideas!! They're likely to take you up on it.

Dave 4 months ago

I wonder if the public will ever wake up and see that Tim Eyman has done more to hurt this state than good? Yes, we had high (8%), (fair) excise tax on license plate tabs. But at the same time we had the best highways in the United States, and won several awards for having them. But with Tim Eyman it was more important for the guy that owns a $250.000.00 motor home to pay $30.00 for his license tabs. This somehow makes it "fair" with the guy that only paid the minimum, (8%) amount of around $20.00 at the time. Take a look around with what we have now for highways, and give Tim Eyman the credit. It is not rocket science, like your budget at home, take away the income, will need to be replaced somehow, it works the same way for the state.

Now, Tim seems to think it is more important to trash the mayor, police, and city hall to divert attention from the real issue of using cameras to stop accidents and save lives. I hope Tim will not do the same thing for our safety like he did for our highways.

Meowzzz 4 months ago

Very well put Dave, and I agree with you.

cbuick 4 months ago

We also don't have an income tax in this state (a rarity among the fifty states.)

JaayGeee 4 months ago

Dave--your comments mirror some of what I was thinking as I read the article. I think Eyman has done as much as any single individual to hurt the state of Washington. He is a self-serving demagogue who makes a good living from gullible citizens in the state.

lonedog3 4 months ago

and the state of the roads has nothing to do with road funds going to the general fund for the evil dark queen to dispose of as she saw fit? how do other states have good roads without this insane year after tax on a tax?

joanne 4 months ago

It appears to me that running a red light is a crime, as it is against the law. Does this mean that the public gets to decide on which law enforcement measures the police can use? Does this mean that we should vote on whether or not police should use radar to catch speeders or other devices used to prevent crime or catch those who commit crimes? It must have taken a lot of money to get all those signatures (not that anyone was paid to sign..just the work behind getting them) Who is behind all this, and why? Money, or profit, is usually behind almost everything. And to judge a person solely by his pictures? How inane can you get?

seslar 4 months ago

Really? We need an initiative to make it easier to put initiatives on the ballot? Do we really want and/or need there to be more "citizens'" initiatives, many of them written, biased, and bankrolled by the monied interests that those initiatives will benefit? And don't forget that Eyman's for-profit business model is initiative writing. Of course, he wants to make it easier.

cbuick 4 months ago

Perhaps we should have an initiative to ban paying initiative signature gatherers for each signature gathered. I've talked to these people who make a living, going from state to state, making a living gathering signatures without even caring about the issue.

Dudleydoright 4 months ago

I could live with the cameras IF the city first lengthened the yellow to red, and then the red to green. Doing this would allow easier stops and less panic stops. Then those who continue to run the red can have a ticket. BTW, since we are going to have a number of these let's reduce the police force a like amount since they will not have to spend as much time policing traffic, a win/win for the city coffers.

kyook 4 months ago

Wouldn't work, Dudley. The red light runners would simply get used to the longer delays and run the red lights anyway.

I have seen where some other countries remove the yellow light and replace it with one that is a countdown timer. If the city did something like this then the red light runners would see a 5-4-3-2-1 countdown before they ran the red lights. Changing the way the lights work won't solve the problem.

1LooseCannon 4 months ago

Your snide comment about the Eyman family dinner planning is an example of why I don’t/won’t subscribe to the paper version of the paper. It would behoove families to spend a lot more time sitting at a dinner table discussing just that issue and maybe occasionally taking a vote about it as well hundreds of other issues that it seems most families today in this country are too busy to discuss.

Individuals being disconnected, starting with basic disconnection from Family Members, then Neighborhoods, Church & Towns and on up the socio ladder to and including national politics severely limits learning critical thinking in this country.

Over half the voters of this country are low information voters who don’t talk to their family about anything let alone dinner and what to have, who’s going to fix it tonight and whose turn it is to clean up after. It would seem the Wenatchee World is more concerned with pandering to the anti Eyman “let’s put in more camera’s because maybe we can get a revenue from the things up to a $ Million from the current $500,000” crowd I just heard bandied about on the radio instead of understanding that if Tim Eyman didn’t have popular support among the citizens of the state if not the politicos, his resources and enthusiasm would have withered years ago. But here he is, still fighting the good fight and you jeer his efforts. Shame on your publication.

coolers53 4 months ago

I stand for Tim Eyman, his initiative for the 30 dollar car tab fee has probably saved me several thousand dollars. And just think what the legislature would have done to us if he had not gotten the 2/3 vote initiative passed several times, our taxs would be way more out of whack. I do not think the roads are in any worse condition now than they were when we were paying the huge car tab fees. I vote for him to keep up the good work and so what if he gets paid for it!! someone else would do the same and get paid for the work.

jpkat 4 months ago

"I-517 aims to allow the public to vote on local initiatives without court interference...." Tim Eyman usually falls into the putz category but he hit it on this one. The city council for the City of Wenatchee unanimously used money belonging to us, the citizens of Wenatchee, to sue us, the citizens of Wenatchee, over the Red Light Initiative. The subject of the initiative is immaterial. The council apparently prefers to operate without citizen input. It apparently fails to realize that we citizens not only have the right but also the obligation to look over the councils' shoulder to see what they are doing in our name and with our money. That, Mr. Mayor, qualifies as "arrogant, obstinate and disrespectful." And I even voted for you. I won't make that mistake again.

wonderstar 4 months ago

The City sued because the initiative violated state law

jpkat 4 months ago

The city had the choice of suing or not. The council chose to put themselves above the citizens. The state constitution gives the right of initiative. The city ordinances give the right of initiative. The national Constitution gives the right of redress of grievances.

wonderstar 4 months ago

Which state laws should the city defend? Just the ones we agree with?

jpkat 4 months ago

While the state supreme court ruled that the legislature gave "exclusive power" to local city and county councils to decide whether to use the cameras, you will notice that I did not state an opinion one way or the other on them. No, my complaint centers on the fact that we tax payers are required to pay to be sued as well as pay to defend ourselves at the whim of the council (or any other governmental entity). We get it coming and going. The council did not have to sue us. It could easily used the initiative's result as an advisory vote to get the pulse of the people. Yes, the council has the authority, apparently, to place the cameras. They also have the arrogance, apparently, to sue us to keep our opinions out of the city's business.

wonderstar 4 months ago

Coolers53, I can't believe you feel the roads are the same as before the car tab reduction. Have you driven the state roads lately? I drive all over the state and see the conditions getting worse daily. And what about all the bridges that are falling apart? The road on South Hill Puyallup has deteriorated to the point that many folks bypass it and take residential roads. And 112th street between Puyallup and Spanaway is terrible. I could go on and on but I doubt I will change your mind. Go drive the roads for yourself.

coolers53 4 months ago

No doubt we have some bad roads and bridges, we also have some of the highest gas tax in the nation to go into the general fund for road repairs, so where is that money spent? I lived and worked in Seattle for 10 years and the roads were always in repair , some very bad and some good, I honestly do not see that much of a difference now, agreed they need repairs, in certain places more than others, but not at the expense of reinstating the huge car tab fees we used to pay.

Dave 4 months ago

Were you driving 10 or so years ago when we had good roads? There is a world of difference between then and now.

TerryFinn 4 months ago

I don't really see much difference between the roads now vs 20 years ago - though I do drive about 30 mph slower than before- just to be safe.

douglas 4 months ago

Wonderstar makes a good point and brings up a problem with the initiative process. Of the 20 initiatives presented by Mr. Eyman, 8 have passed, but 4 of those have been declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court, immediately followed by wailings that "the court is disregarding the will of the people". Tough. The "will of the people" does not override the rule of law.

It is unfortunate that there is no way to get a legal opinion of an initiative before we vote on it. In general, Mr. Eyman's initiatives have been poorly written, leaving them open to legal challenge.

Don 4 months ago

Based on overall taxation (a combination of all taxes paid by the population) the most taxes state is New York at 12.8% The lowest rate is Alaska at 7.0%

The article did not have WA specifically, just the top and bottom ten states. We fall somewhere in the middle, somewhere between 8.4% and 10.2% I don't know where in that range as we could be ranked 11th or 40th.

What this does show, is that right now we are in the middle of the pack. We are not taxed higher or lower than other states. That also means the initiatives that have cut our tax burden have not choked the state government of needed resources. If things aren't getting done, it isn't due to lack of revenue.

abigail 4 months ago

I may be wrong, but isn't our "arrogant obstinate" mayor the same person who got the people he represents out from under the Town Toyota debt fiasco. Eyman missed by one term the real arrogant, obstinate and disrespectful mayor. Eyman is an idiot

Don 4 months ago

If you mean the arrogant and obstinate mayor who threatened an entire region and scared a population into bailing his city out of its fiscal mess by saddling them with a 30 plus year tax increase, then yes, that would be the guy. Admittedly, if you are a Wenatchee resident that does make him a bit of a hero. If you are not a city resident then your perception of him may vary somewhat.