'WHY IS THIS NOT FRONT-PAGE NEWS?'

This post is a propos of comments I've made over the years of how the major Seattle papers have never told the story I feel the documents I obtained reveal: namely, that then (and still) King County Executive Ron Sims was involved in ordering what I feel were rigged studies to support misrepresentations to the public to influence the public vote at the June 17, 1997 special election on public financing of the football stadium. Those misrepresentations included statements Sims made on Steve Scher's morning program (called "Weekday") on KUOW, 94.9 FM, in the 10 AM hour on June 11, 1997. Sims referred to a study I didn't know existed, and didn't see until 4 years later, though it was covered by my May 30, 1997 public disclosure act request (see materials at www.ArmenYousoufian.com ). I was not to learn for another 4 years that the study he referred to was, in my opinion, slanted to support his statements on that June 11, 1997 radio program, in which it was obvious he was asking listeners and voters to vote for the issue. What I also didn't learn until 2001 was that at that time in 1997, I was in the process of being stonewalled in my pursuit of documents that - had they been produced by June 5, 1997, as the first trial judge ruled in 2001 should have been the case - would likely have changed the outcome of the election.

The link below will take you to a just recently released article about yours truly that relates to this ongoing concern about why the major papers have never told this story. I thank Doug Collins, along with Rick Anderson of the Seattle Weekly for his many earlier articles (links to those avaiable at www.ArmenYousoufian.com), for their efforts to expose the truth of what has gone on. I feel the Seattle Times and P-I have let down the public and failed in their duty to expose what has gone on.

http://www.WAfreepress.org/82/whyNotFrontPage.shtml


The reporter - Doug Collins - is a long time writer, journalist, reporter sort of a person in Seattle, though obviously not with either of the big papers. Activists I know to whom I'd mentioned the story of how we met have told me he is well known and has a good reputation as a journalist. As he alludes to in the opening, we met by one of those sheer chance episides in life. I was riding a bus one morning into downtown Seattle, and was then nearly done reading the book "On the Take", about the pay-off and tolerance system in Seattle during the 50's and 60's that the major papers knew about but didn't report. This guy with a little toddler gets on the bus and sits a few seats away. I was seated at the first possible seat on the bus on the left/passenger side as you get on, with my back to the windows. Doug sat at the first normal cross-ways positioned bench on the same side, facing me. It was this past winter, it was chilly out, and I was wearing a cowboy type hat that I had bought years ago in Grand Teton national park in Wyoming. The toddler started pointing at my hat and was apparently taken by it. We exchanged smiles and "man with hat" two year old level comments and I went back to my reading. Doug was positioned where he was looking right at the cover of my book and commented on it. I was astonished that someone would know this long out of print book and we started talking about it. He told me he'd read it twice himself. I asked what other kind of reading he did and what did he think of public financing of sports stadiums and had he read Rick Anderson's articles in the Seattle Weekly about a guy who had sued to get documents. He said yeah, it was some Armenian guy whose name he couldn't recall and then he asked if I was that person? How did you guess, I asked? Well, he said he recalled seeing the person's picture in the papers and realized I looked like that person, etc. So we exchanged names and email addresses and talked the rest of the way until we got to where we were going, and I've met with him to be interviewed several times since. The last interview lasted several hours and he taped it. An earlier article about me, on the voting issue, is at:

http://www.WAfreepress.org/81/voter

It's funny how things happen in life...