Seattle Crime Reports : Seattle Crime Blog : Seattle, Washington

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It's hard to say what happened to Richard McIver. Just a few months ago, he seemed to be a respectable member of the City Council. Then there was the incident with the wife, then the fines for awarding no-bid contracts, and now the latest situation which tops them all.

It appears that McIver has used city funds to pay the $1000 in fines he was levied for awarding the no-bid contract. McIver apparently he thought it would be ok to pay those fines using money from the city's legal department. But, listening to McIver, you wouldn't think he had any idea that doing so was a problem.

"It is regrettable that I am now caught in the middle of a disagreement over the interpretation of the law," McIver said in the statement.

Seriously Mr. McIver? Even if the law was in question, did you really think it was a good idea, given the hot water you're in, to pay this fine with the city's money?

McIver's decision is a perfect example of the ineptitude of politicians in this city. He was fined for something that he did wrong, then thought it was no big deal to have the city pay for his mistakes. You were fined by the city!

The worst part about this situation is that probably nothing will happen to McIver. Those of us in Seattle seem to care more about staging mass cycling protests that accomplish nothing than paying attention to what those we elect to power are doing with that power.

McIver crossed one line by unethically awarding a contract that the city was going to be paying for. He lept over that line and off a cliff when he tried to use the city's money to pay the fine for his actions.

Wayne Barnett, Director of the Ethics and Elections Committee, summed up the situation in one of those no B.S. ways I like best.

"It is absurd," Barnett said. "It violates the public trust to pay the fine with public money.

Couldn't agree more. McIver, for his part, doesn't seem to think it was any big deal. And until the people he represents let him know what a big deal it was, there's nothing to stop him, or any other local politician from doing the same thing.

Now excuse me, I have to go buy my girlfriend a birthday present using her credit card.
 

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While I may not necessarily agree with the Seattle Crime Blogger's take on legalizing prostitution, we are in agreement that the SPD's insistent focus on staking out Rick's Cabaret is beyond ridiculous.

This 2006 article from the P-I details one of the biggest raids ever conducted in Seattle, when three paddy wagons (does anybody still use that term anymore?) showed up to arrest 14 dancers at the Lake City club. Three paddy wagons? For years, police have claimed that they don't have the resources to effectively clean up the city's many open-air drug markets, but they seem to be willing to do whatever it takes to stop lonely old men from getting some extra love in a poorly lit back room.

Outside of that, many have forgotten what happened after the infamous "Strippergate" story started to develop. A 2007 report, also from the P-I, details some of the bizarre reports filed by undercover officers involved in the sting:

"One Seattle cop reported that he grabbed an exotic dancer's breasts several times as she gyrated in his lap."

Why that officer did this, and why he would ever write this in his own report, remain an unexplained mystery.

Another cop details having spent $100 on consecutive lap dances with the hopes that the stripper would eventually offer sex for money. Don't get me started on the entrapment problems here...but $100? Something tells me that wasn't the only time such a situation arose.

One detective reported that he had purchased 300 lap dances while working undercover.  With a dance running $20 to $40, we're talking $6,000 to $12,000 of taxpayer money being spent to bust a dancer for a misdemeanor crime.

According to the P-I, I'm not alone in my assessment:

[Some defense attorneys and legal experts] question the department's priorities: why undercover cops need to be so aggressive in cases that rarely rise above a misdemeanor, and that are frequently dismissed as the result of a court diversion program.

And after all the money, time, and resources spent, we end with a grand conclusion of Frank Colacurcio Jr, whose father has long been linked to local corruption, agreeing to pay $10,000 in fines and spend a year on probation.  All said, the city came out with a $55,000 settlement.  I'm guessing more than that was spent on the "investigation."

Greg Nickels and members of the City Council have these types of cases a priority, because a headline including the phrase "Strippergate" is sure to illicit more attention than almost anything else.  But listen to the radio sometime: Rick's is still advertising, and guessing by the packed parking lots I see when i drive home every day, business is doing just fine.

We don't have to make prostitution legal. Just stop wasting the taxpayer money and the Seattle Police Department's resources on silly cases that aren't helping to stop serious crime.