Pork Celebrates Graft, Corruption
Word has it the Pork’s underwriter (Enduris) wants to distance itself from the cesspool it signed onto. That’s unsurprising given the lawsuits the company is likely going to settle involving abuse of public employees, bad legal advice the Pork purchases at taxpayer expense, and the transparently self serving whitewash the insurance company serves up for itself and client. Add the ongoing litany of political posturing with which these geriatric Commissioners hope to confuse the public via false allegations, overreaching attempts to exert ‘authority’ over their political rival and fellow Commissioner for having the temerity to protect/inform the public, and their eagerness to delegate authority they do not have or are too tired to retain wherein they erroneously conceive the notion Commissioner Miles can be effectively converted from an equal to an ’employee’…well, you get a witches’ brew no profit based insurance company can long tolerate if it wants to stay in business.
The odds are simply too long in this instance. i.e. It hardly matters if a hypothetical driver is never ‘at fault’ if he/she habitually continues to be involved in accidents. The underwriter is going to hedge their bets by dropping that driver from its list of clients.
The septuagenarians, knowing they will look like the greedy, grasping, corrupt, bumbling, tired, uninspired, clueless, incoherent incompetents they are fully intend to try to resort to their familiar refrain of blaming the one Commissioner who has warned of the liability risk the Pork has been keen to court all along.
When ill fated Adage was the Pork’s main squeeze so recently, Washington State Supreme Court decisions that spelled out the fact ‘permits’ served as no shield against lawsuits seeking damages due to environmental, health, and property damage were handed out to the public and entered into public comment, only to be ignored. Now, with Terra Dittmer and Teresa Rebo seeking damages, similar local lawsuits resulting in large settlements, monetary penalties imposed on the Pork by the U.S. EPA (in 2007) for environmental violations (PCB’s), its incredible arrogance and ineptitude has given the big money boys pause. Like Adage, they don’t want to hang around to clean up the Pork’s mess! Unlike the Pork Commissioners, the insurance company has bright lawyers and actuaries. They can smell a losing hand from a distance…that’s their business.
The Pork Commissioners, on the other hand, aren’t putting their own money/assets at risk. They’re putting the public’s money and assets at risk. That’s the risk voters assume when electing feeble old men to public office to do the public’s business when they should be put out to pasture raising tomatoes or in a rest home. The health of these officials is failing. They do not have the vigor, acuity, or stamina to do their jobs…which is why they hand those responsibilities off to the Executive Pork Director. And now they’re contributing heavily to the campaign of yet another septuagenarian in poor health, Dick Taylor.
Jay Hupp can barely contain himself (in more ways than 1!) at public meetings, Tom Wallitner is one french fry away from a heart attack (see comment #1), and Dick Taylor can’t stay awake through a candidates’ forum.
Knowing the sh*t is about to hit the fan when the public learns the Pork’s insurance company wants to abandon ship, the Pork attorney sent a letter which contains the following excerpt in an effort to shift the blame:
Commissioner Wallitner objected (at the 8-2-11 meeting) to the reference “another heart attack” (ibid) by challenging its accuracy given the argument his recent hospital stay requiring a leave of absence from official duties was due to a quadruple bypass surgery, NOT a heart attack. Hence, this community blog stands corrected. Some thought was given to upping the heart attack threshold to TWO french fries (Tom stated he’d been ‘fixed’ as a result of the heart surgery) but suspicion remains there’s a french fry out there with his name on it unless he loses some more weight.
Accuracy is important when reporting community events. Editorial policy here is not too proud to admit a mistake when sufficient evidence/argument exists to declare one. The blog wishes Tom all the best with respect to his personal health along with the hope he’ll bring some heirloom tomato varieties to our local farmer’s market.