Kent mayoral candidate Jim Berrios this week filed a complaint with the state Public Disclosure Commission alleging that Mayor Suzette Cooke is monitoring the PDC Web site to see which city employees are donating to the Berrios campaign.
PDC Spokesperson Lori Anderson said Tuesday afternoon her office had received Berrios’ request and that the commission would decide in the near future whether or not to investigate the claim. Anderson said the PDC receives approximately 10 complaints per day and said she did not expect any decision would be made before the Nov. 3 election.
Anderson also said she did not think simply going to the PDC site was a violation, though should the Commission decide to pursue an investigation, interviews with staff and a further review of documents would be in order.
“There would be some more questions to be asked,” she said.
Berrios said his complaint is based on what he had heard from several city employees.
“I’ve had employees tell me that they have been warned to be careful because the mayor’s office is checking the PDC files to see who is donating to Jim Berrios’ campaign,” the candidate said, adding that three different employees told him they were “warned.”
Berrios would not divulge the names of the employees.
Cooke denied the allegations.
“I think my opponent is feeling desperate,” Cooke said. “I can guarantee I have not asked any employees to monitor his Web site.”
Cooke also said she did not believe visiting the PDC Web site was against any rules and said as mayor, she was too focused on the city budget and preparations for a potential flood to worry about Berrios’ complaints.
“I don’t have time to deal with his issues,” she said.
A key part of Berrios’ complaint involves data he received after making a records request from the city tracking city staff activity on the PDC Web site. Berrios is claiming one set of numbers, while Cooke, in response to his allegations, has outlined a different set.
In his complaint, Berrios included the results of a public-records request which show more than 12,000 instances of activity between May and September of employees in the mayor’s office on the PDC Web site.
Berrios is alleging this is a violation of state laws that prohibit the use of public resources for campaign purposes.
“My concern was for these employees,” he said.
Berrios said his concern was about what business city employees have checking the PDC site during business hours. His comments focused especially on the mayor’s executive assistant, Patrick Briggs, who Berrios’ records show registering more than 9,800 hits on the PDC site, though many of the hits counted appear within the same minute and sometimes the same second, according to the report.
Cooke on Thursday provided a second list of numbers, showing what she said is a total of 170 visits to the site, far less than the 12,000 instances of activity on Berrios’ report.
“In all fairness, I think any newspaper article should report the amount of time, and give definition to the term ‘hits,’” Cooke wrote in an e-mail Thursday to the Kent Reporter.
“There were a total of 165 visits to the PDC site for a total of 11 hours 43 minutes 38 seconds,” Cooke claimed in her e-mail, from data that she said was compiled by a volunteer. “The average visit was for 4 minutes, 9 seconds. This compares to the log data that gave the impression of 12,694 visits. Viewing the log data makes it clear that the log-in program is recording something different then logging onto a site.”
The discrepancy between the two reports appears to be a matter of what each is reporting on.
According to city Information Technology Director Mike Carrington, the report the city provided to Berrios per his public records request is “literally a raw data dump” and that the reason there are multiple hits within the same minute and second actually is a function of how the PDC site operates.
Carrington said the PDC site, which queries a database to gather information, refreshes itself multiple times to gather the information requested, each of which would appear as a different “hit” within the same “visit” to the site.
“You’ll get a lot of hits that place in a short period of time,” Carrington said of a site that refreshes itself, adding that in a few minutes such a site can register “tens, if not hundreds, of hits.”
It appears that is the difference between the “hits” and “visits” that creates the discrepancy in the Berrios and Cooke reports.
That doesn’t change the fact Berrios has lodged a complaint.
“If it is 170 times for a total of 11 hours, either way this is during taxpayer money on taxpayer equipment,” Berrios said.
The number of visits, while far less than those listed in the public records request, does not change Berrios’ basic allegation of workers in the mayor’s office checking the PDC Web site.
“I don’t know what they were looking at,” Cooke said, adding that the site also has information on the ballot measures, such as annexation, as well as other issues.
“There are many parts to the PDC site that deal with rules, procedures, filing requirements, important dates and other items of importance beyond the reports that committees or candidates submit,” she stated in her e-mail.
The PDC site also lists contributors to statewide campaigns like the Tim Eyman anti-tax measure, I-1033, which has been a hot-button topic for city governments and other municipalities across the state.
Briggs on Thursday said he was looking at the site for his own curiosity and was “absolutely not” told by the mayor to look for any city employees making donations.
“That wasn’t why I was looking at it,” Briggs said, adding that he did look at the races in Kent as well as the county executive race, those involving I-1033 and a Federal Way judge race.
Cooke also said that in the last election campaign, many employees, including the city’s unions, supported her opponent and there was no political retribution against anyone.
“When the campaign is over, the campaign is over. Move on,” she said.
In am e-mail response to Berrios’ records request, city attorney Tom Brubaker stated “I have reviewed the statute you referenced, and my legal opinion is that merely accessing an open, publicly available web site would not likely constitute ‘assisting a campaign for election of any person to any office’ under state law.”
Brubaker goes on to state that it is his opinion there would be no violation of campaign laws, but that the proper forum would be the PDC.
Berrios said now that the complaint has been filed, it is up to the Commission to decide what to do next.
“Now it is up to the PDC to decide to take whatever action they will take with this,” he said.
Reporter Brian Beckley contributed to this story.
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