Placing two former police officers in charge of Snohomish County—Democrats Executive John Lovick and Deputy Executive Mark Ericks—has done little to curb its corruption problem. New reports reveal that County authorities have asked an outside police agency to launch an investigation into claims that Ericks “pressured staff to approve development permits.”
As Shift previously reported, Ericks originally came under scrutiny for making death threats to three county councilmembers. The initial inquiry focusing on the inappropriate comments made by Ericks included a recommendation to follow up on information from a “credible source” claiming the deputy executive had meddled in land-use decisions.
“It was instantly apparent to me that these new allegations, if true, were potentially criminal conduct that needed further investigation by a competent law enforcement agency,” Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe said in a prepared statement. “I immediately arranged for that to take place, and an investigation commenced at that time and is ongoing.”
The Everett Herald reports that Roe “declined to name the agency” and sad his office is “not guiding or advising investigators and will have nothing more to say.”
Ericks, on the other hand, has more to say on the matter. Denying he has any idea what the investigation is all about, Ericks told the Herald that he is “not involved in any land development or construction business and neither are his family members.” So, he “wouldn’t benefit from county land-use decisions.”
Lovick isn’t shying away from commenting on the investigation either. The county executive questioned the way the investigation has been handled. Lovick said, “It’s suspicious to me, very suspicious.”
However “suspicious” Lovick may believe the issue, the original investigation into Ericks’ comments prove he isn’t exactly an exemplary character. The Herald,
“Most of the 24-page report analyzed comments Ericks allegedly made during meetings this fall, including wishing he could kill Ryan “if it wasn’t for jail time,” and laughing at a joke about drawing up death certificates for Ryan and Somers.
Fitzpatrick determined that Ericks’ conduct had created a hostile work environment and that a reasonable person could consider his comments threatening. The report, however, identified no breach of law or county policies, partly because the comments were directed at public figures and most who heard them understood that Ericks wasn’t serious.
Under the county charter, Ericks’ position as an at-will employee also exempts him from county personnel rules. For most other county employees, the same behavior would have constituted misconduct, Fitzpatrick wrote.”
Given the report’s findings, it is perhaps more appropriate to label Ericks as suspicious. After all, the claim that Ericks used “using tactics that might be characterized as intimidating” isn’t exactly out-of-character. For the sake of the law and combating Democrat corruption in Snohomish County, it is only appropriate that an outside police agency launch an investigation into the allegation that Ericks bullied others for expedited treatment or favorable approval of development permits.
Democratic Corruption is standard doctrine of the liberal progressive.