These are the key assertions in the suit filed by Marcie L. Myers, 30, of Maple Valley, who worked at the district from 2007 until May 1 of last year. The District’s Executive Director Sara Hemphill disputes Myers’ account and says her termination was warranted, but would not discuss specifics of the decision to fire her.

Alleged disparaging of Jews, Chinese, non-citizens, women without make-up
However the lawsuit details allegations of an escalating series of workplace events Myers says forced her to seek changes which she asserts then led to her abrupt dismissal without just cause. According to the lawsuit, supervisors made derogatory remarks about Jews, Chinese, and non-citizens, talked sex at lunchtime to her discomfort, and criticized her clothes and lack of make-up. She says in the suit that she was initially afraid to take action because the district had previously fired other internal critics and/or made them sign silence vows.

Inappropriate touching alleged
Myers claims in the suit that Hemphill often touched her inappropriately, in the small of her back and by massaging her shoulders, and “made unwelcome comments about her lack of femininity,” the suit claims.

Not so, says boss
Hemphill said she never heard race-inflected comments in the workplace and that allegations of unwanted touching by her don’t “ring any bells….” Other insulting comments Myers claims were made also don’t ring true, asserted Hemphill. “People who work in this organization are softhearted, empathetic,” she said, and would not have made such mis-steps. Claims of comments about Myers’ lack of make-up and casual attire “don’t make any sense,” said Hemphill, because almost all the District’s workers go into the field frequently and dress informally out of necessity.

Plaintiff: things got worse after pregnancy
But according to Myers’ lawsuit, things got worse when she became pregnant. Hemphill allegedly told her a woman can’t be a good mother if she’s working full time, and another supervisor allegedly said that “she believed people should’t have children.” As well, supervisors “made derogatory comments about her weight, one saying to her that she “waddled when she walked.” Upon learning after Myers’ return from her November 2011 to February 2012 maternity leave that she planned to have a second child, that same superior advised Myers to “never have more than one child,” the suit asserts.

Myers also charges that Hemphill refused to give her a flexible work schedule although it was in the workplace policy to permit that. Hemphill concedes only that she probably indicated to Myers that being a working mother is “a very challenging task.”

Sandbagged for speaking up, Myers asserts
The crux of the civil action is that after Myers raised her concerns to District officials about alleged unfair treatment and also held an initial meeting with some colleagues to start exploring workplace unionization, she was essentially sandbagged and summarily dismissed, despite unvarying positive evaluations and no prior disciplinary notices.

Myers claims in the suit that she e-mailed her direct supervisor Jason Monoghan on April 27, 2012 to convey that she felt harassed by another superior (not Hemphill) and that three days later on April 30 she met with Monoghan and Hemphill to discuss the concerns. The next day May 1, she asserts in the suit, she was called into a meeting with Hemphill and notified the district had decided to discharge her for “rude, disrespectful and negative behavior” and a “general bad attitude in the workplace.”

Public Data Ferret’s King County+Ethics archive

She was informed, she claims, that there were four specific complaints against her from co-workers – but that specifics weren’t shared with her and that she had not previously gotten any reprimands. Her attorneys write in the civil suit that she sought and got a follow-up meeting May 7, 2012 to try to resolve matters but at the end of it was handed by Hemphill a memo dated May 9 that the district would involuntarily “separate,” or discharge her and potentially object to her attempts to seek unemployment compensation from the state unless she would agree to resign and sign away legal claims and rights to speak out against the district. She refused that, and also asserts in the civil suit that the district has previously taken tangible actions to fire and silence workplace critics.

Hemphill responded to Myers’ allegations of being unfairly forced out by saying that, “It doesn’t have any connection to any reality of which I am aware. We took every action with measure, redundancy, outside oversight, and with a great deal of research, consideration, deliberation and professional involvement.” Hemphill declined to discuss exactly why Myers was dismissed, but added the district would be represented in court by lawyers yet to be hired, through a legal services consulting firm serving the numerous regional conservation districts in Washington state.

Myers in the civil suit seeks economic damages “including but not limited to past and future wages, loss of retirement benefits, and other benefits” as proven at trial; plus compensatory or non-economic damages including emotional distress, plus attorney’s and related fees.

Barring any pre-trial out-of-court settlement, the case is likely to take a year or more to resolve. We will report on the ultimate outcome here. The mission of the King Conservation District, Hemphill says, is to “engage private landowners in good conservation stewardship.” It is one of many such public regional conservation entities around the state, created under Washington law.

UPDATE, 5/17/13, 2:20 p.m.: Myers declined a request to comment further but her attorney Mark Davis of the Seattle law firm Badgley Mullins Turner released the following statement: “Ms. Myers stands by the content of her complaint as filed with the King County Superior Court on May 14, 2013. We anticipate that discovery will corroborate the substance of Ms. Myers’ factual allegations and further establish the merit of her legal claims. We can confirm the defendant’s actions have had a significant and disabling impact upon all aspects of Ms. Myers’ life, including her family life, professional career, personal finances, and overall well-being. Accordingly, we are confident that a jury will return a substantial verdict in her favor.”

RELATED: King Conservation District Rates and Charges; staff; board; landowner incentive programs.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.

The May 2013 report from BJS also notes that firearm homicide rates by race continued to decline for all five groups measured. The rate for African-Americans dropped from 30.1 per 100,000 in 1993 to 14.6 in 2011, a new low over that stretch. Over the same span the rate for whites went from 3.7 to 1.9, for Hispanics from 12.4 to 3.8, for American Indian/Alaska Natives from 4.6 to 2.7, and for Asian/Pacific Islanders from 4.6 to 1.0.

By gender, the firearms homicide rate for men dropped from 12 per 100,000 in 1993 to 6.2 in 2010 and for females from 2.3 to 1.1 over the same time.

From Firearm Violence, 1993-2011, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May, 2013; * = 2011 preliminary data from National Vital Statistics System, U.S. Centers for Disease Control

By age, the firearm homicide rate was greatest for 18-24 year olds, at 10.7 per 100,000. That compared to 8.1 per 100,000 for 25-34s, 3.6 for 35-49s, 2.8 for 12-17s and 1.4 percent for those 50 and older. This was for 2010 – the most recent year for which data on that measure was available.

Firearms were far more likely than not to be involved in U.S. homicides but much less so in other crimes. Almost seven of 10 homicides in the U.S. in 2011 involved a firearm versus one-quarter of robberies and three of 10 aggravated assaults.

The data in the report on firearms-related homicides is drawn from the National Vital Statistics System of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control; while calculations on non-fatal firearms-related violence are derived from the National Crime Victimization Survey, a series of ongoing, rotating probes of a nationally representative sample of households.

From 2007 through 2011, respondents to the national crime surveys reported they responded to violent crime directed at them in a range of ways. Less than one percent of the time they used firearms. More than one of five times they threatened or attacked without a weapon. More than one-quarter of the time they used non-confrontational tactics; and more than four of ten times they offered no resistance at all.

The biggest cities were not where non-fatal firearm violence was most likely to occur. Its rate was higher in municipalities of half a million to a million, at 4.6 incidences per 1,000 population 12 or older, versus 3.9 per 1,000 in cities of one-quarter to one-half million and 3.2 in cities of a million or more. In only two years since 1993 have cities of a half million to one million not had the highest rate of non-fatal firearms related violence. From 2007-2011 such crimes were reported to the police six of 10 times versus slightly less than half the time for non-firearm violence.

Of all homicides of youth age five to 18 in the U.S., less than two percent each year occur at schools. The high from 1992-93 through 2008-09 was 1.8 percent in 1998-99. Data for the last three school years were not available.

The new report also includes some older data from the last two times – in 1997 and 2004 – that the BJS surveyed state and federal prison inmates about possession of firearms during commission of crimes for which they were currently serving a sentence. In both years, less than one in five in both categories of inmates reported having had a firearm at the time of their crime. State prison inmates surveyed in both 1997 and 2004 reported their firearms came from gun shows less than one percent of the time. In nearly four of five instances, their firearms came from either a family or friend, or a street or illegal source.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.

USER INSTRUCTIONS
1) Make your selections. Under “choose grade,” use the pull-down menu to select a type of school (elementary, K-8, middle, high). Using the “compare schools” tool select one school, or all schools within that category, or a custom combination of schools. Under “choose a test,” select either math or reading.

2) Explore the data. Here’s an example. By choosing all elementary schools and state reading test pass rates, you can: a) get a quick comparative overview via a mouse-over of any school’s dot on the map. You’ll see a pop-up box summary for each dot over which you hover, with a combined multi-year pass rate in the chosen subject, and relative ranking versus peer schools within the district; b) drill in to a school’s data by clicking on its map dot. Then you will have two more views of the data – above to the left (percent low-income and not, plus total number of tests taken); and below (yearly results by grade, subject and income group, versus district averages).

Additional technical notes:

RELATED: FAQs on state testing from Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction; additional information on who must take what when, and alternative tests.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.

The report emphasizes that what is being measured is based on where the energy is used, not where it is produced. But in the states whose economies are most tied to carbon emissions in the report, a lot of the consumption of that greenhouse gas actually occurs in order to produce fossil fuels.

The states using the most energy-related carbon dioxide per million dollars GDP were Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, West Virginia and Louisiana. The report notes, “All these are fossil-energy-producing states. The activity of producing energy is itself energy intensive.”

Another important metric in the report is per-capita, or per person, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions per state. There, Washington ranked eighth lowest among all 50 states in 2010, and between sixth and tenth lowest straight through from 2000 to 2009.

Looking at the percentage decrease in per capita energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from 2000 through 2010, only nine states outpaced Washington, which decreased by nearly one-fifth, in percentage terms.

The EIA also analyzed each state for 2010 energy-related carbon dioxide emissions by major sector of usage. In Washington, the commercial sector was responsible for 3.8 percent, electric power production for 13.1 percent of the usage, the residential sector for 5.1 percent, industrial 12.0 and transportation a relatively whopping 42.1 percent.

RELATED:

Study overview page with tables in .pdf and Excel.

Public Data Ferret’s Energy+Environment archive.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.

According to King County Court documents, police signaled him to stop because his taillights were covered with mud. He was very slow to respond and drove half on the shoulder for some distance.

Field sobriety and blood alcohol tests showed him to be clearly impaired.

Asked to place his right heel to his left toe, he kept falling.

When an officer who had taken him to the station noticed a particular smell he admitted he had urinated himself.

Compounded by a high “offender score” from his past record, Casady, 47, of Harrah, Wash. last Friday May 3 in King County Superior Court was sentenced to five years in prison for his felony DUI conviction based on the January arrest in Snoqualmie.

A charge also filed in connection with the January incident, for driving with a suspended or revoked license, a gross misdemeanor, was ultimately not prosecuted.

In the 1991 tragedy in Yakima County, Casady’s impaired driving resulted in the deaths of two and the “serious maiming” of a third person, court records state.

The related convictions for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault earned him a sentence in October 1991 of 89 months, or almost seven-and-a-half years.

Yet records in the recent case also reveal that by 1997 he was out of jail and convicted in that year for one of his nine DUIs, plus two more in 1998.

His most recent DUI conviction prior to Friday’s felony sentence was in 2005.

His extralegal endeavors also include felony convictions in Snohomish County in 2002 for theft and unlawful imprisonment. Overall, Dwight Lloyd Casady has been named as a defendant 57 times in municipal and superior courts in Washington since 1980, primarily in Yakima and Snohomish counties. In 1999, the Seattle Times reported he was attacked with an axe and underwent surgery as a result, after threatening to kill a man for spilling a beer in a Snohomish County bar.

In response to last week’s felony DUI conviction, Casady’s attorney, Seth D. Conant, immediately filed notice of intent to appeal.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.

Working for Kelley’s office, the public sector enterprise IT solution consultant Information Services Group looked at 140 representative financial management systems used by the state and 12 key agencies and contrasted their costs and benefits with “a modern, full-featured Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System.” The improvements calculated were used to develop a projection for enterprise-wide savings and efficiencies.

Public sector ERP systems usually cover at least 10 core areas in an integrated manner across the entire operation, according to the audit. Those areas are general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, grant and project management , cost accounting, management of assets and cash, procurement, developing of budgets, and federal transportation aid billing.

Time spent on finance management could be cut by one quarter and cost savings achieved in a range of ways, say the state consultants. Standardized commodity codes not widely available could be employed to make cheaper, multi-agency bulk purchases more often. Obstacles to sharing inventory data could be obliterated, cutting costs from purchasing and storing goods in excess of current needs. Duplication of data entry, manual handling of data, and excess time spent chasing down documents could all be reduced. Accounts receivable balances could be collected sooner and debt collection costs lowered.

Public Data Ferret’s Washington State+Management archive

The report adds, “Besides the inefficiencies previously discussed, the nearly 150 interfaces between centralized state systems and individual agency systems increase the risk of systemic failure…It is also increasingly difficult to hire IT staff capable of maintaining systems based on outmoded technology. In addition, the dated programming languages used by these systems make conforming to new security requirements more difficult.”

The recommended approach, of implementing a so-called ERP – or more holistic and integrated – approach to management of the state’s finances, has been implemented or project planning is underway in nearly two-thirds of U.S. states according to the audit. (See map below).

From Creating a 21st-century Financial Management System in Washington, Washington State Auditor's Office, May 8, 2013

While Washington is currently categorized as one of the laggard states, the audit notes that Gov. Jay Inslee’s 2013-15 budget request and the state House and Senate budget proposals for the biennium include $2.4 million to get the planning effort rolling.

The performance audit contains a 24-page summary including state agency responses, followed by a 204-page technical report.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.

Rosalind M. Hall, of Renton, 54, left lipstick prints and spider-web patterned impact marks on the windshield of Bakken’s 2003 Hyundai Sante Fe just before she was launched by the impact 30 feet away and down a ravine into blackberry bushes. Her body was recovered by a passer-by who notified police. Carrying no ID on a regular walk for exercise, she was later identified on TV by a relative.

12 surgeries and another one likely
Her first memory is waking up in intensive care six days after the accident. She spent weeks more in rehab recovering from two broken arms, two broken legs, and shattered wrists. At the outset she also had serious arterial bleeding near her spine. She says she has had 12 surgeries, and another one looming for a hip hernia stemming from the mishap. She has a dropped left foot and can’t walk without a special insert in her shoe. A mortgage underwriter for 20 years, most recently for EverBank, she says she has not worked since and is not sure if she will again because sitting and writing for hours at a time is too painful for her now.

Aftermath “totally devastating”
Of the sentence given to Bakken she says that six months of work release “is a little better” than no time served at all, but “not a whole lot better.” She added, “At least there is some kind of penance.” It may be rational that sentences for first-time felony DUIs tend to be considerably less than for repeat offenders, says Hall, but nonetheless the accident’s aftermath for her – including the 12 surgeries, the pain, and the loss of work – has been ‘”totally devastating. I was a normal, healthy person, and one morning I get up to go for my normal walk as I’d done for 10 years, and my whole life was changed.” Hall’s personal injury attorney Susan Cohodes of the Seattle firm Dean Standish Perkins and Associates confirmed a civil action was being filed against Bakken today.

At the time of the accident the morning of July 7 Bakken was returning to his Renton apartment from a friend’s residence where he had been drinking, according to police and an interview with him by Public Data Ferret. He initially fled the scene but returned within five minutes, according to court documents. An open, half empty bottle of Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch Whiskey tumbled out of the car when police opened the passenger-side door.

Police noted Bakken was ‘”fumbling, confused, uncoordinated, had an odor of alcohol and slurred speech.” He told police he must have fallen asleep, according to court records, and added, “Last thing I would have expected is to hit someone.” Records also note a “legal blood draw” was done and state crime lab results showed a blood alcohol level of .18, almost two-and-half times the legal limit.

“Standard range” vehicular assault sentence for first-time felon
Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for King County prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, said Bakken’s vehicular assault sentence was well within the standard range for a first-time felony offender, of three to nine months, and by working he will be able to earn court-ordered restitution. Court documents show that amount currently totals $1,600 including $1,000 for emergency services response – but could grow after a yet-to-be-scheduled restitution hearing. Vehicular assault in Washington is a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in jail and a fine of up to $20,000, or both. According to court records Bakken’s only prior conviction has been a misdemeanor speeding violation for going 16 to 20 miles per hour over the limit, in Pierce County in 2008.

Additional conditions
As part of his sentence, along with six months of work release incarceration minus credit for three days already served in jail, Bakken will have to avoid moving violations and alcohol, use an ignition interlock device, and avoid establishments where alcohol is the primary commodity for sale. He has already undergone a court-ordered alcohol substance abuse evaluation and attended a DUI Victims Impact Panel.

Remorseful offender trying to make amends
In an interview Bakken expressed remorse. He said, “there are no real words to explain the shame and guilt I’m experiencing on a daily basis. Not only have I caused her great bodily harm, I have taken away her independence” and “she may have physical complications for the rest of her life.” Asked if he thought his sentence was a just one he said, “I deserved a lot worse,” but added he is working hard to try to make amends by leading an Alcoholics Anonymous group, plus attending four or five AA meetings a week, participating in a faith-based addiction recovery group weekly and sharing his story with newcomers at another regional alcohol recovery program, Lakeside Milam.

Public Data Ferret’s King County+Courts+Crime archive

Bakken says he is also undergoing a six-month alcohol addiction outpatient treatment program. Asked, he says that since the accident he has not consumed “a drop” of alcohol, and that he hopes to continue that. He admits to partying all night immediately prior to the accident but says he was not aware of having had anything to drink after 1:30 a.m., about seven hours prior – although he concedes it was obvious from his blood alcohol level that he had.

Police reports describe his car veering off the road, then back on and off again, before striking a guard rail, knocking over a street sign and then hitting Hall. Bakken says, “It’s obvious I fell asleep or passed out,” and adds that by the time he came to, he was not aware he had hit Hall. This is why he drove away, he claims, and he soon came back to see what had happened.

Bakken says he grew up in Renton, graduated from Hazen High School and Renton Technical College, and works as a computer network administrator, mainly for a small IT firm in Puyallup.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.

Along with all 50 states, the report also included the District of Columbia. D.C. had the highest rate of births outside of marriage in 2011, 50.8. It was followed at the top end by Louisiana (48.7 percent), Mississippi (48.1), New Mexico (47.6), and Rhode Island (44.3).

Generally the less the amount of formal education completed by the mother, the smaller the household income, and for the most part the younger the mother’s age, the greater the percent of births that were outside of marriage, according to the report titled “Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried with a Recent Birth: 2011.” It examined characteristics of women age 15 to 50 who in 2011 were unmarried and had given birth within the last year.

There were also sharp distinctions by race, according to the report. Only 11.3 percent of births to Asian women in the U.S. in 2011 were outside of marriage, versus 29.2 percent for whites, 43 percent for Hispanics, 44.6 percent for mixed race women, 64 percent for American Indian or Alaska Native, and 67.8 percent for African American women.

A Census Bureau Excel spreadsheet lists 2011 non-marital birth rates by U.S. metropolitan regions. In Washington state, Longview’s rate was a whopping 58.4 percent and Yakima’s almost as high at 55.4. They were followed by Wenatchee-East Wenatchee, where in 2011 38.2 percent of 2011 births were non-marital, then by Spokane (32.5), Olympia (27.5), Bellingham (26.9), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (23.8), Bremerton-Silverdale (12.5) and Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, or Tri-Cities (12.2).

The following map from the report provides an at-a-glance comparison of state rates.

From U.S. Census Bureau, Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth: 2011, May, 2013

The overall U.S. non-marital birth rate grew 80 percent between 1980 and 2007, according to the Census Bureau report, possibly reflecting “changing norms regarding sexual behavior and family formation” including “a decrease in marriage rates overall” and a shift to cohabitation among some sectors of the populace, the report states.

Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.