Originally published in The Seattle Times, June 9, 1974
By Paul Andrews
Suburban Writer
BLACK DIAMOND—Irene Shay says that politics in Black Diamond makes Watergate look like a church picnic, and she has her own set of tapes to prove it.
Mrs. Shay, who with her husband Frank operates a printing business here, is a well-known watchdog of local politics. She tapes nearly every town council meeting on a portable cassette recorder.
“You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve got on tape,” she says.
Citing excerpts from about a dozen tapes, Mrs. Shay wrote to the state attorney general’s office and Prosecutor Christopher T. Bayley charging Councilman Louis J. Zumek with a conflict of interest.
The charge, based on Zumek’s public-disclosure form, is that he was paid for doing survey work for Kramer, Chin & Mayo, Seattle consultants hired by the town to do a water-improvement study.
Mrs. Shay says she feels it was wrong for Zumek to be paid by a town-hired firm while serving on the town council. “He accepted this money at the same time he was on the council and passing ordinances for this job,” she said.
Mrs. Shay said she once asked the attorney general’s office that “if I were to win an election, would I be allowed do any printing for the town? No way, they said. So it doesn’t make sense that Mr. Zumek can do this.”
Zumek, who retired last month after 35 years with the Army Corps of Engineers, denied any conflict of interest. “I was told by City Attorney Dan Farr that I was allowed to make up to a certain amount—$200 a month, or not more than $3,600 a year.”
The figures don’t quite jibe. “I know,” Zumek said. “I can’t figure it out, unless they got a new calendar with 18 months or something.”
Farr suggested that a statute containing exemptions from the conflict-of-interest law for officials of fourth-class towns was behind the confusion. The statute mentions the amounts in connection with the exemptions.
Farr said he filed a brief with the council on the matter. “We concluded that Councilman Zumek fell into the list of eligible exceptions,” he said.
Farr said that small towns often face the problem of one citizen wearing several hats. “Mr. Zumek has worked for practically nothing to help the city out once in a while,” he said.
Zumek said he was paid $740 by the firm between February and July last year for survey and layout work involving the town’s new water system. “I figure I’ve saved the city quite a bit of money,” he said.
An upcoming state audit of the town’s finances may clear up the matter. The attorney general’s office turned over Mrs. Shay’s complaint to the auditor’s office for investigation.
In a letter to Mrs. Shay, Don Foss, Jr., assistant attorney general, noted that there are “numerous exceptions” to the conflict-of-interest law. “Whether Mr. Zumek is entitled to any of these exceptions, I won’t be able to say until the auditor’s office completes its examination,” Foss stated.
Mrs. Shay said she is not too happy with the way her complaint has been handled. She said she was referred by the Public Disclosure Commission to the prosecutor, by the prosecutor’s office to the attorney general’s office, and by the attorney general’s office to the auditor.
“I’ve spent seven months on this thing,” she said. “If you ask me, all I’ve gotten is a royal runaround.”
She said she will continue to take her tape recorder to council meetings, where she is well aware of her reputation as an agitator and troublemaker.
“I expect that,” she said. “But sometimes it takes the agitators and the troublemakers to keep everything on the right track.”
It fits in with her general philosophy of life, she said. “I know I’m a character. But I’d rather go through life ruffling a few feathers than live a humdrum existence.”
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