"Darth Vader" to Chair Sunshine Committee--Update I

In case you missed it, Governor Gregoire announced on Friday her appointment of Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr--the most polarizing anti-disclosure figure in the state, in our opinion--to chair the "Sunshine" Committee. The Sunshine Committee is looking at the increasing number of exemptions to disclosure under the Public Records Act. The original og-blog posting describing Tom Carr's horrible record on open government is below. But first, here is the fallout on this jaw-dropping appointment by the Governor:

• Almost every daily newspaper in the state carried the AP story on Saturday. In this story note House Majority Leader (and Sunshine Committee member) Lynn Kessler's comment: Whether an exemption stays or goes is "not going to be up to the Seattle city attorney" and "It might be a good time for us to ask a lot of questions about why Seattle is so protective" about not disclosing public records. Ouch. As House Majority Leader, Lynn Kessler is a very high-ranking Democrat, so you know her reaction to the Democratic Governor's appointment is not partisan.
  
• Soundpolitics had this initial posting and then this follow-up piece.
  
• Postman ran this hard-hitting piece on Friday.
  
• Olympia Business Watch wrote this.
  
• Daniel Lathrop of the P-I ran this on Friday. We highly recommend reading the letter in this link. It is from Mayor Greg Nickels to Governor Gregoire asking her to appoint Tom Carr and whining about how the Public Records Act gets in the way of benevolent government doing wonderful things (our paraphrase).

We are looking forward to some hard-hitting editorials this week on the Tom Carr fiasco.