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All the questions about newly elected County Commissioner Josh Brown's qualifications to hold office may become moot if a lawsuit filed by Central Kitsap resident Robert Ross is successful. In the suit, Ross claims Brown lied about his official residency and doesn't live in the district he was elected from, nor has he ever lived in the apartment he gave as his residence.
When asked why he filed the suit, Ross simply answered, “If he'll commit fraud to get elected, there's no telling what he'll do once he's in there.” Ross then referred any additional questions to his attorney.
The suit was filed in Kitsap County minutes before the official close of business for 2006. According to Ross's attorney Michele Rodosevich of the Seattle law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, only Brown was named in the suit, and not the county. Normally, county officeholders are defended by lawyers from the prosecutor's office. But since the suit was filed before Brown officially took office and didn't name the county, it also means the taxpayers won't pay to defend him, and Brown will need to engage and pay his own defense attorney.
“The lawsuit doesn't contend the county did anything wrong,” stated Radosevich. “What's wrong is that Josh Brown gave the wrong information on his Declaration of Candidacy. You have to give the address where you actually reside and you have to live in the district from which you run. There's been some investigating done, and it appears he actually lives with his parents in Poulsbo, which is in Commissioner District One.”
That information was verified by Larry Walsh of Bayside Professional Investigations. Brown claims to live in an apartment in an 18-unit complex on Perry Avenue in Bremerton. But according to Walsh, although Brown's name appears on the building's roster, he believes the apartment is vacant and has not been lived in. Walsh claims to have visited the apartment on at least 15 different occasions, at various times of the day and night, and that he never witnessed any activity at the unit, and that no one ever answered the door. “I suspect he rented it, or someone else rented it for him,” Walsh said. “All the blinds are drawn and there's no lights on.”
The building has six units on the second floor where the apartment is situated. Walsh said he interviewed four of the five other tenants directly adjacent to the unit, including the man across the hall and the woman next door, showing them 8 x 10 color photos of Brown. All of them claimed never to have seen Brown, or his vehicle, at the complex. They also claimed not to have seen or heard anyone in the apartment in question for several months, with most of the neighbors believing it was still empty. “The last any of them knew, it was still vacant, and one neighbor said the last tenant she recalled living there was a Mexican family,” said Walsh.
“I'm fairly sure he's still living with his parents.” When asked why he believed that, the investigator answered, “I found him at his parent's house on more than one occasion and know for a fact he spent the night there.” When questioned how he could be so certain, Walsh answered, “Because I would see him leave the next morning.”
Brown's honesty and ethics were also an issue during the campaign. There were questions about his college degree, plus well-documented evidence of him taking opposing positions on the NASCAR issue. When speaking in front of environmentalists, Brown claimed to be opposed the project, while favoring it in front of business leaders, stating he believed the county could cut a better deal than the one being offered.
The case will have to wind its way through the legal system, so it may be some time before it's resolved. In the event Brown is found to have misrepresented his residence, he will have to step down as commissioner and could possibly face criminal charges as well. “It appears he lied to the elections people as well as the Department of Licensing about his true residence,” said Walsh. “Those are crimes.”
What happens if Brown steps down? The remaining county commissioners, Jan Angel and Chris Endresen, will appoint someone to fill the position until the next general election in either 2007 or 2008. If it's 2008, that raises the possibility of all three commissioners being up for re-election at the same time, as both Endresen and Angel face the voters then. However, there is an election in 2007, but it's unclear if it meets the standard for a “general election” for the purposes of electing a county commissioner.
According to Radosevich, there is also no law governing the political considerations of the appointment. Usually, the political party of the person vacating a public office nominates three people for consideration and the commissioners pick from those. However, after researching the statues at the request of the Business Journal, Radosevich could find no specific county or state statue dictating the political party of a commissioner had any standing, and in fact, it appears they are specifically exempt from the statue governing other political appointments.
“The commissioners will have to find someone they both agree on,” she said, “regardless of political party. It appears the political parties have no standing in this matter.” She added that the law states that in the event the commissioners couldn't agree on a replacement, the governor would select the successor.
Due to the timing of the filing of this lawsuit - minutes before the start of a major holiday weekend - neither Commissioners Chris Endresen or Jan Angel could be reached for comment, nor did Brown respond to several attempts to contact him before presstime.
(For more information about the lawsuit mentioned in this article, you can download this PDF to see the actual paperwork.). |
