Slippery Linda’s running for Pierce County Auditor

Linda Farmer, Democrat and Lakewood council member, has announced her candidacy for Pierce County Auditor.

But why would anyone want to vote for Slippery Linda, much less campaign for her?

In 2019, when Linda Farmer successfully stood for Position 6 on the Lakewood City Council, she was helped by a small army of Democrat doorbellers. However, one of these doorbellers offered me the opinion that she often left the hard work to others.

A year later, the Democrats were again on the campaign trail, trying to get Jani Hitchen elected to Pierce County Council, for District 6. Jason Whalen, Lakewood’s Republican Deputy Mayor, was her opponent.

So did Linda Farmer endorse Jani Hitchen, her fellow Democrat?

Slippery Linda back-stabbed her own doorbellers by endorsing Jason Whalen, as we discover from his 2020 campaign website:

This endorsement came despite the fact that Jason Whalen sent out a mailer accusing Jani Hitchen of having radical policies, and wanting to defund the police. Hitchen countered the accusation, by saying it was possible that the “division my opponent is causing is straight out of the Trump Republicans’ playbook”.

What Linda Farmer was thinking is anyone’s guess.

More slipperiness is what we see when surveying Linda Farmer’s performance on the Lakewood City Council. On one hand she talks up her progressive credentials – for example regarding the environment – on the other hand she almost invariably defers to mayor Jason Whalen and council member Donald Anderson.

I reported on this recently, when council member Michael Brandstetter proposed having the Garry oak as Lakewood’s official tree. Predictably Donald Anderson opposed the suggestion, and Linda Farmer followed his lead, saying

I would like a little bit more information about what it would mean to designate a city tree, to Council member Anderson’s point. What would happen if we needed to cut one down…?

Back in 2019, the Tacoma News Tribune endorsed Linda Farmer in her bid for Lakewood City Council:

In our estimation, Linda Farmer separates herself from the herd, in part because of her spot-on diagnosis of what ails the city: Lakewood, she told us, has “reputation issues.”

In 2019 Linda Farmer may have been the best of a bad bunch, but right now, in 2022, that endorsement rings hollow. Linda Farmer has not separated herself from the herd – indeed she has shown herself to be a pliant creature of the Anderson-dominated City Council.

If Linda Farmer had genuinely cared about Lakewood’s reputation, she would have posed some fundamental questions. For example, how was it that the City continued to employ three police officers who had been involved in the 2013 killing of Leonard Thomas? How could the City continue to employ officers who had had seven-figure sums awarded against them by a civil jury?

That’s the nature of collective responsibility. It doesn’t matter if Linda Farmer had only been a council member for four months when Said Joquin was shot dead by Michael Wiley, who was one of those three officers.

A grove of Garry oaks and a historic school were leveled to make way for parking lots and warehouses in Woodbrook on Linda Farmer’s watch, too. The annihilation of Lakewood’s Woodbrook neighborhood represents an indelible stain on Lakewood’s reputation.

Saying that the plans to destroy Woodbrook had already been decided, that there was nothing that could have been done, would be no excuse. As a self-proclaimed environmentalist, Linda Farmer should have moved heaven and earth to prevent this catastrophe from occurring.

Slippery Linda, through her behavior and track record, has shown herself to be unsuited for elected office.

Update: Lakewood mayor Jason Whalen is returning the favor and is endorsing Slippery Linda. Click here to read my comments on the matter.