Snohomish County Recordings Issues

[warights]

Word on the WAshington CRC is that Snohomish County has been deleting verbatim recordings in their Commissioners Courts.  Their local rule is to delete them after 6 months, while the State mandates courts of record should be held for 6 years.  I think there is a bit of a disconnect here.

Apparently, the Secretary of State is looking into this to see if rules are being broken.

I guess they had a bit of an issue as well in that they are not following the guidelines set out by the Washington Administration of the Courts that provide for a reliable means of recordings.  Thye have the features in their equipment, but no policy or practice is in place to use them.  It resulted in 5 months worth of bad recordings in one courtroom alone.  Good luck to anyone needs court recordings there!

It appears that these recordings are stored in the capable hands of the Administration of the Court as well, rather than with the clerk as mandated by Law.

If you need a copy of one of these recordings, go to the AOC in Snohomish rather than the Clerk.  Contrary to Statute, you pay CASH in their office rather than check in the Clerks.   CASH - seems like an under the table business if you ask me.  Cash only Cow I guess.

[warights]

Update on this issue.  I hear that an email has been sent to the Attorney Generals Special Ombudsman for Public Records, State Archivist, Director of the Office of Administration of the Courts, Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon and the Post Intelligencer.

It seems this issue is not getting itself cleaned up and the courts continue to run themselves contrary to laws and guidelines set out in Washington State.  This kind of reminds me of the records sealing issue in the Courts - where they did as they damned well pleased until they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.  Now they are saying it wasn't cookies in the jar, but just some crumbs.  As they have opened the files, I think they are finding there was cash in most of them, in the way of cash payment on lawsuits that they didn't want the public to know about.

Remember, when the government is covering its tracks, they are covering tracks that belong to the people.  YOU and everyone you know has a right to open government, not granted to you, but secured by you when you gave the government permission to run this State.

If you have a minute, write one of these individuals and ask that they fix the records issue within Snohomish County.

[warights]

It seems this saga is bening us now.  The Snohomish County Superior Courts have agreed to begin recording all family court hearings again.  And, they will now follow the law, rather than doing as they damned well please.  They will give the recordings to the clerks office, who will follow the State Archivists rules for storage.  Imagine, it only took one year to get these elected officials to do what they were elected to do - represent the people of Snohomish County.

It seems the conflict of interest between Commissioner Bedle and his wife Jan Bedle working in the same department exists.  Jan Bedle is the public disclosure officer for the Administration of the Courts, anything you request with regards to records from that department goes through her.  Nice filter for a Commissioner who has proven to be a bit twisted in his rulings.

[warights]

Well, It appears that the Snohomish county has not resolved their issues still.  I'm told that there was an issue in the clerks office again as employees are telling citizens that those recordings are not valid records and can't be used as evidence.

Additionally, the issue that caused the courts to destroy 5 1/2 months worth of recordings still exists - the Commissioners turn the microphone away from the, as do the Prosecutors so their voices CAN"T be HEARD!  Making the recordings mostly useless.

When, When will this presiding judge and his administrator get their collective acts together and start running this courthouse professionally.  Or, when will they retire............