Snohomish County Planning Director's Timecard 'Discrepancy'

[ellsworth]

Is it just really clear now to everyone about the reality of Snohomish county governmental culture?

I'm no expert, but it appears to be a festering petri dish of arrogant entitlement, drunken binges, conflicts of interest & taxpayer abuses.

Or maybe I'm just being cynical?

Poem to follow in another post...





While it shows Craig Ladiser worked 5.5 hours, county officials say he wasn't on the clock

By Noah Haglund
Herald Writer
EVERETT — Former Snohomish County planning director Craig Ladiser's time sheet shows him on the clock the day witnesses reported him exposing himself to a woman during a golf tournament.

The document says he spent most of the work day — 5.5 hours — in "stakeholder relations."

County officials maintain that the time sheet doesn't accurately report how Ladiser spent the day. In reality, they say, Ladiser took time off to attend the June 24 event in Redmond hosted by the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. An e-mail the director sent to staff supports that account.

"It's clear from Craig's e-mail to his management team and to myself that he was out of the office that day," Executive Director Brian Parry said. "We've gone back and reviewed his calendar that week."

Because he was a manager exempt from claiming overtime pay, Ladiser got paid for 40 hours even though he logged 42 hours on county business that week, Parry said.

The confusion stems in part from the planning department's time-keeping system, Parry said. It tracks whether an employee has worked at least 40 hours a in week. The department does it that way to track how much time planning department employees spend on different issues.

"It's not a system used in any other county department," Parry said.

Months before the golf tournament, county payroll staff had been planning to review how managers keep track of their time. They still expect to perform the review this year.

The county executive's office fired Ladiser, 59, last month after an independent investigation supported a woman's claim that while drunk, he deliberately exposed himself to her. Ladiser has said that he is an alcoholic and can't remember what happened. He has since sought treatment.

Nothing in county policy would have kept Ladiser from golfing with Master Builders employees. County officials said Ladiser followed policy by telling a supervisor where he was going.

Still, an independent government researcher and at least one county councilman have said Ladiser might have created a perception of bias, even if none existed. Ladiser attended the tournament, which has been described as a social mixer, as a guest and didn't have to pay a $130 entry fee.

Ladiser was a management employee who earned a salary and was ineligible for overtime. His time cards, however, were filled out as though he worked eight hours per day. They added up to 40 hours per week, though he usually worked more than that. Leftover time was credited to another day later in the week, or simply not recorded.

Ladiser's assistant, Heather Coleman, usually filled out the time card. The 5.5 hours with stakeholders on the day of the tournament was part of 10 hours Ladiser spent earlier in the week working on regional government planning and being interviewed by television news, she said.

"It does not reflect activities of that day," she wrote in a Sept. 2 memo.

[BillE]

I'd say it's shocking, but it's not. Snohomish County government has been in bed with the developers for a long time. They can try to explain it away, but come on. But maybe his time card was inaccurate because he was drunk so often.

[ellsworth]

A Poem for Craig Ladiser


the clock, the clock
my governmental timeclock
sweet and benevolent mistress that she is
never questioning my chronological characterizations
never doubting my baldfaced and outrageous assertions
of where i've been and where i'm going
on on that sucker taxpayer's thin dime

"I'm headed out to stake-holder relations" I tell her
without even winking
Why bother? Winks waste energy
and god knows I must preserve that right now.
a hard days drinking lies ahead - drinking and exposing myself
it's hard work - don't let just any fool tell you so
let me tell you
(let me show you)

A past master of semantics, nuance and cow-county politicking in full
now reduced to daylight hiding
Apartment-bound and facebook-page-deleting damage kontrol
Oops, I forgot about archive.org!

just a five foot four
harley leather poser dude-ranch-dude
making the local news
barely newsworthy

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