Free Republic

City may get West's legal bills Mike Prager / Staff writer May 18, 2005 © The Spokesman-Review 2005 Spokane Mayor Jim West's private legal bills stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct in office may be left for city taxpayers to pick up. City Attorney Mike Connelly said the city generally pays individual legal costs incurred by its elected officials. State law and city code may allow for the reimbursements, but the City Council would have to approve payment. West has assembled a team of Spokane lawyers, including attorneys Bill Etter and Michael McMahon, to defend him in a recall petition,...

SPOKANE, Wash. - Prosecutors have rejected an effort to recall Mayor James West, who has been accused of offering city jobs to men he met in gay online chat rooms, officials said Monday. The petition request, filed by resident Shannon Sullivan, was ruled incomplete because it didn't include a complete sworn statement from Sullivan, the Spokane County prosecutor's office said in a statement. Sullivan has the option of completing the statement and submitting it again, said Paul Brandt, Spokane County elections manager. A successful petition would also require more than 12,000 signatures before it could be placed on the municipal...

THE screen's first official gay bar," as it was labeled by the film historian Vito Russo, appeared in the 1962 political potboiler "Advise and Consent." Its most prominent visitor was a conservative United States senator. As sheer coincidence would have it, Otto Preminger's adaptation of Allen Drury's best seller about a brutal confirmation fight was released on a sparkling new DVD last week just as the John Bolton nomination was coming to its committee vote. Like Hollywood's other riveting political movie of 1962, "The Manchurian Candidate," "Advise and Consent" is fallout from the McCarthy era: the controversial nominee for secretary...

THE screen's first official gay bar," as it was labeled by the film historian Vito Russo, appeared in the 1962 political potboiler "Advise and Consent." Its most prominent visitor was a conservative United States senator. As sheer coincidence would have it, Otto Preminger's adaptation of Allen Drury's best seller about a brutal confirmation fight was released on a sparkling new DVD last week just as the John Bolton nomination was coming to its committee vote. Like Hollywood's other riveting political movie of 1962, "The Manchurian Candidate," "Advise and Consent" is fallout from the McCarthy era: the controversial nominee for secretary...

West faces allegations of molestation, misuse of office. SPOKANE, Wash. - Mayor James West, the subject of an FBI probe into accusations he offered municipal jobs to men he met in gay online chat rooms, is complaining he is the victim of a “brutal outing.” In an e-mail sent to nearly 140 people affiliated with a race relations task force, West wrote that the group is responsible for making Spokane a community where “harassment, intimidation, discrimination” are unacceptable.

<p>The following is a letter Rob Galliher wrote in January 2004 and sent to Mic Hunter, a St. Paul, Minn., psychologist and author of "Abused Boys," a book on sex abuse. Galliher said he was looking for help from Hunter when he wrote the letter, which accuses Jim West of sexual abuse. Excerpts from a Spokesman-Review interview with Robert Galliher are published here.</p>

Spokane mayor takes leave amid sex probe The Associated Press Updated: 10:58 p.m. ET May 9, 2005SPOKANE, Wash. - /snip An hour after West’s announcement, the paper posted a new story on its Web site alleging West offered city jobs to two young men he met through a gay Internet chat room — and that one of them briefly accepted a city appointment. Ryan Oelrich, an openly gay 24-year-old, told the paper he accepted West’s appointment to the city’s Human Rights Commission in April 2004 after meeting West online at Gay.com. Oelrich said he resigned from the commission in January...

That's Newton's Barney Frank playing with the ass of Mike Evans, a young gay man who wants to succeed former St Louis Representative Richard Gephardt. They were palling around at a gay rights celebration in Philadelphia. I have no problem with Frank's sexual orientation at all. But name another Congressman who could be photographed fondling an aspiring politico's backside at a public event and not have it published in his hometown newspaper. This story ran in today's New York Post, but it was first reported in the gay media. It has not been published in the Boston Globe, the Boston...

Spokane Mayor Jim West confided to a city councilwoman Thursday that he masturbated in his City Hall office during an online chat on a gay Web site. "He wanted to kind of bare his soul...He wanted to give me a heads-up," City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers said Saturday in describing a conversation she had with West. West's admission led Rodgers on Saturday to renew her call for West to resign as mayor, an independent elected position he has held since January 2004. A recall election would require 12,567 signatures of registered voters. http://www.spokesmanreview.com/jimwest/story.asp?ID=050805_west_main

The controversy swirling around Spokane Mayor Jim West grew substantially Friday when two men, now living in Seattle, came forward with new allegations about his conduct in 1980 and as recently as 2001. West faces allegations of sexual abuse of children dating to the 1970s and more recent allegations of abuse of public power. Brad Crelia said he was a 15-year-old Lewis and Clark High School student in 2001 when West, then Senate minority leader, asked him out. http://www.spokesmanreview.com

Spokane Mayor Jim West gave no indication Thursday he is ready to relinquish the power of his office even as allegations of his sexual misconduct gripped City Hall. "I have 1,150 days left in my term of office and each and every one of those days will be dedicated to serving the city and making sure we prosper..." the mayor said in a one-minute statement to the news media just before lunch time. http://www.spokesmanreview.com

<p>For a quarter century, the man who is now Spokane's mayor has used positions of public trust – as a sheriff's deputy, Boy Scout leader and powerful politician – to develop sexual relationships with boys and young men.</p> <p>In addition, an investigation by The Spokesman-Review has revealed that 17 months after leaving the state Legislature, West has used the trappings of the mayor's office to entice and influence young men he met on a gay Web site.</p>

For a quarter century, the man who is now Spokane's mayor has used positions of public trust – as a sheriff's deputy, Boy Scout leader and powerful politician – to develop sexual relationships with boys and young men. One man, Robert J. Galliher, claims in a court deposition that Jim West molested him in the mid-1970s when he was a boy and West was a Spokane County sheriff's deputy and Boy Scout leader. A second man, Michael G. Grant Jr., also accuses West of sexual abuse during the same era, including an incident at Camp Cowles, a Boy Scout camp...

For a quarter century, the man who is now Spokane's mayor has used positions of public trust--as a sheriff's deputy, Boy Scout leader and powerful politician--to develop sexual relationships with boys and young men. http://www.spokesmanreview.com/jimwest/story.asp?ID=050505_westmain