Armen Yousoufian's Blog

After 30 years in business/investment real estate, I added "citizen activist" to my resume in 1997 when I requested sports stadium documents of King County Executive Ron Sims. After being "stonewalled", I sued, winning more at every stage, up to the state Supreme Court. Documents disgorged by Sims (after 4 years denying they existed!) revealed rigged studies. Sims misled the public on the stadiums. Other issues found me (e.g. Critical Areas Ordinance). Google “Armen Yousoufian” for more.

About Me

Name:
Location: Vashon, Washington, United States

I was born and raised in New York City. I took classical violin lessons for 10 years and studied astronomy. I built telescopes, grinding the mirrors from scratch. I was a nerd! I considered a career in classical violin but chose astrophysics. I majored in Physics at Rutgers University for 2 years, then switched and graduated in mechanical engineering. I moved to Seattle in 1969 to work on missiles for Boeing, got an MBA from Seattle University, and became a business and real estate entrepreneur for over 30 years. In 1997 I became involved in open government activism when I asked King County Executive Ron Sims for sports stadium documents. I was stonewalled. I sued under the Open Records, or Public Disclosure, Act. I won the case in King County Superior Court, but still didn’t get all the documents, nor recovered my legal fees, which the law said I was entitled to be reimbursed. I appealed and won more in the Court of Appeals and the court of public opinion. But I still didn’t get all the documents! I appealed again and won yet more in the Washington State Supreme Court. But I still don’t have all the documents! While that fight goes on I have become involved in new issues.

Friday, August 19, 2005

This morning, August 19, in court

Brief report on: This morning's court hearing re: my long running Public Disclosure Act litigation (see: www.ArmenYousoufian.com and earlier entries at this blog, e.g. http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2005/08/reminder-august-19-yousoufian-v-sims.html ).

Within three days of exactly 4 years after the initial trial in King County Superior Court (in August, 2001), we were back in the King County Courthouse this morning to revisit the issue of penalties, along with the amount of legal fees to be awarded for my two successful appeals. All of this was under an "order of remand" from my two successively improved outcomes at the Court of Appeals and the Washington State Supreme Court, versus the original trial judge's verdict.

The hearing lasted approximately two hours. The Judge asked lots of good questions, complimented all the lawyers, and announced he'd issue a verdict at a later time.

And to the twenty or so who attended this morning's hearing: THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRESENCE AND YOUR SUPPORT.

We must now wait for the judge to issue his ruling. Best educated guess is it will be a couple of weeks (in comparison, it took approximately a month in 2001 for the first trial judge to rule, approximately 2 months for the Court of Appeals to rule, and 7 months for the state Supreme Court).

Once released, I'll post the decision at this blog.

posted by Armen Yousoufian | 10:50 PM

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