Over the last week, Shift has brought to light the first contract former Gregoire administration chief of staff Jay Manning signed with private environmental groups to influence the Inslee administration and its environmental policies – and how Inslee’s own officials signed off on it.
After Manning, under his contract, shepherded public employees through the Skamania III conference and the Pacific Coast Collaborative climate agreement signing, he turned his attention to the most pressing concern – keeping the money spigot open and flowing his way.
To wit, Manning in his own words:
“We are excited about the possibility of continuing the work. In fact, we have continued to work on it after the 29th. We are willing to continue to work on it based on the encouraging signals we received at our meeting, especially from Keith and Katie. That said, we are, not surprisingly, interested in quickly securing funding for the next two months, and, if possible, receiving compensation for the considerable amount of time both firms spent on this project in October (approximately $45K). We are not expecting that — we went into October with our eyes wide open about the prospect that we would be working pro bona for the month. But, it is fair to say that neither firm expected to spend as much time as we did during the month.”
Considering all the work Manning does through government for his private funders, his $291,100 contract renewal was a downright bargain, even though it almost doubled his previous contract. And once again, the Inslee administration was given the opportunity to sign off on it. Keith Phillips of Inslee’s office didn’t reply by e-mail to Manning’s follow-up – maybe they thought it better to take their conversation offline to avoid disclosure.
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