After taking much of the month of August off, Jay Inslee has returned to work with a vengeance in September, putting in back-to-back weeks of, get this, double-digit hours of governing!
That’s right, after putting in almost 14 hours of official business in the first week of the month (after taking a four-day weekend over Labor Day), Inslee put in almost 17 hours the week of Sept. 12-18. If he keeps this up, he may put in a full 40-hour working month!
Of course, the schedule was not without its (laughable highlights), like the staff reminding Inslee one day “Attire purple tie for SEIU 775 event”.
Also laughable was Jay’s Monday schedule – he got himself up in time for an 8:45 ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle (as he doesn’t spend much time in the Governor’s home in Olympia when the legislature is not in session), made fundraising calls once he got in his car on his way to Snoqualmie, gave “opening remarks at the Governor’s Cup Gold Tournament”, then got back in his car (for fundraising calls) to go back to the ferry. Then he was at home for “personal time” from noon to 5 pm, before knocking off for the day.
So, technically, he did do some official “work” that day, but it seems like his staff didn’t work overtime scheduling that day.
He had his semi-traditional almost full-day of work on Tuesday, when he put in seven hours in a variety of meetings – actually in Olympia – including two hours with economic advisors. Presumably there is a lot of slow-talking explaining time during a session like that. But he was rewarded with a fundraising reception that night.
On both Wednesday and Thursday, Inslee fit in a lot of driving – and flying – to events that just happened to have the taxpayers pay for him to get close enough to where a fundraiser was being held. The fundraiser was in Spokane on Wednesday – where he also visited a school – and Thursday it was in Bellevue speech that got him off Bainbridge so he could do a Seattle fundraiser.
Combine work on those two days – 5 hours, 20 minutes.
On Friday he got to wear his purple tie to hang out with donors at the SEIU 775 dinner, and put in less than an hour of work during the day. He slipped three different short phone calls around a variety of campaign calls, editorial boards and other “personal time.”
The weekend actually featured two of work, with an event with teachers on Saturday and touring an agriculture museum on Sunday. But he also managed a fundraiser to take the edge off having to govern outside of weekday hours.
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