Federal Way Parks

joeroket wrote:

I am in the process of trying to get the AG to tell me who has the authority to bring action to a municipality that is not following state law and force compliance if it is not the AG's office.

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Sounds good. Let us know if you get a response. Do you need others to talk to their representatives as well about an answer to this question?

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In short, the Office of the Attorney General is the legal advisor and representative of state agencies and designated elected or appointed officials. The Office has no authority to render legal advice to Washington’s other governmental agencies, such as political subdivisions, municipalities, ports, school districts (except county prosecutors). Nor can we direct those entities to comply with state laws, nor undertake enforcement actions against such entities for failure to comply with state laws.

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heresolong wrote:

joeroket wrote:

I am in the process of trying to get the AG to tell me who has the authority to bring action to a municipality that is not following state law and force compliance if it is not the AG's office.

Click to expand...

Sounds good. Let us know if you get a response. Do you need others to talk to their representatives as well about an answer to this question?

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So here is the AG's legal responsibility as told by an assistant attorney general. It seems to me that it would take the legislature, city or county councils, or a lawsuit to bring them all into compliance.

In short, the Office of the Attorney General is the legal advisor and representative of state agencies and designated elected or appointed officials. The Office has no authority to render legal advice to Washington’s other governmental agencies, such as political subdivisions, municipalities, ports, school districts (except county prosecutors). Nor can we direct those entities to comply with state laws, nor undertake enforcement actions against such entities for failure to comply with state laws.

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Was your second letter to FW ever responded back too from the Attorney? Was it set into FW city counsel agenda?

Was either of these sent to the AG ?

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Triple Tap wrote on Tue Sep 30th, 2008:

Was your second letter to FW ever responded back too from the Attorney? Was it set into FW city counsel agenda?

Was either of these sent to the AG ?

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TT, sorry- I wasn't keeping track of this thread and I should have.

The second letter (from Mark Knapp) along with his phone calls received no reply - not even acknowledgment of receipt. I sent a similar email to each city council member and not one of them acknowledged or answered it. This took a much more conciliatory tone, offering to work with them to come up with appropriate language. I'm sure they got a laugh out of that. I am sure that this letter did make its way to the city council. We did not send it directly. I did a public record request that yielded no good information. What was interesting was the list of withheld documents. There was a flurry of emails and other documents on and after June 8, 2008. Of note, June 9, 2008 - PI and Times publish stories about Nickels executive order that cited the same cases and logic almost verbatim.

AG - no, nothing on that front. See the comments from the Port thread. It covers this issue pretty well.

I see the future of this problem in legislation. Taking on each of these agencies one by one is time consuming and potentially costly. Again, page three of the port thread. For reference, I have a spreadsheet on NWCDL of all muni/county violations of 290 that have online access to their code. That's a lot of work.

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