Theres this guy I know in West Seattle who has been on a literal one-man crusade to expose the duplicitive double dealings and shady shenanigans of the blatantly illegal homeless encampment Nickelsville and SHARE/WHEEL the acitivist syndicate that runs it and that has any number of Seattle and King County politicos in its hip pocket. For some time, David Preston has been beating his head against bureaucratic stone walls that are either indifferent to public access to information that belongs to the public, or openly hostile to his efforts because they side with SHARE or hate public access to information or both. In his investigation, he has obtained two interesting sets of data: Campaign contributors to the re-election effort of Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, and a list of people, firms and entities that receive funds from the city through either contracts for goods or services and grants. The latter includes recipients of as little as a few dollars -- I saw one for less than $3 -- to millions of dollars. Using information from the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission and his own unrelenting effort to obtain public records through RCW 42.56, the Washington Public Records Act, hes got data to hold McGinn and his campaign accountable and expose anyone with whom hes playing mayoral footsie when it comes to city business. I cant think of a better example of good citizenship than this. And hes doing it all pro bono -- hes not getting paid a red cent for any of his efforts. This is the stuff of which bombshells are made. Hes posted the raw data at his Blog Quixotic, and hes promising analytical articles about the data as he mines it. I look forward to seeing them. As an aside, hes doing what The Seattle Times, KING 5, Publicola, Crosscut, SLOG or even The West Seattle Herald are not doing and thats shoe-leather investigative journalism. OK, so maybe hes not AP Stylebook-perfect, but the others are AP Stylebook-MIA, so bugger the complaints. But as a blogger in his spare bedroom -- figuratively speaking since I dont know if he works out of the spare bedroom -- powers that be like U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein look down upon him as not being a real journalist, hence not worthy of protection under any sort of journalist shield law. Can you say hypocritical? Rock on, David Preston!
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 12:04:38 +0000
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