In all of the materials produced by the County pursuant to a public disclosure request on jail mailers, there is no evidence of Mailer #1.  County documents clearly discuss two mailers and at least one citizen reports county voters may have received a distinctly separate ‘newsletter’.  Mailer #1 was supposed to have been mailed out on September 18 according to an online action schedule the County shared with their consultant.  The County produced no documents indicating Mailer #1 had been scrapped.

Mailer #2 was the large format, glossy mailer sent out on October 9 with the ballots, and has been the subject of complaints to the Public Disclosure Commission. 

Counties are allowed only one jurisdiction-wide fact sheet per ballot issue.  Evidence is clear that Mailer #2 was delivered to a targeted voter list, not property addresses.  The County has yet to disclose any evidence of Mailer #1 despite records that it was discussed and scheduled.  Did the County mail two non-jurisdiction-wide mailers?  Documents clearly indicate two distinct mailers were discussed.

Regardless of what was mailed, the evidence is irrefutable that public officials used public resources to actively and strategically run a "campaign" to win the jail tax.  They themselves used those very words.

Nevertheless, the Public Disclosure Commission staff has recommended the Commission take no action on complaints against Whatcom County and further forward the same advice to the State Attorney General.

The County already seems to be setting a new standard in transparency, here and here.  So it goes - on and on.

No documents, no action, I guess.  Someone is supposedly getting paid to do this, and it isn’t us.