I had to chuckle when I read the final line of Assistant Editor Natalie Johnson’s report on former Centralia city councilor John Elmore’s attempt to slap an anti-harassment order on a citizen group that has long been critical of his every move.
“On Tuesday, (David) Reynoldson expanded his assertions to accuse Elmore of violating the requirements for having collector license plates on a vehicle,” the story concluded.
I can just imagine Reynoldson, a former police officer, standing in the driveway of Elmore’s Centralia home and doing his very best Harrison Ford impression from the opening scenes of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
“It belongs in a museum,” he’d shout, waving his fist in the direction of Elmore’s classic means of conveyance.
For Elmore, though, I imagine it’s not a laughing matter.
Citizens for Honest Government, as they call themselves, is a loosely-knit group of Centralians who appear to have just one ax to grind. They don’t like Elmore and they don’t want him running for public office.
They expanded their goals recently to include disdain for Elmore’s membership in the … Rotary Club.
I’m all for an engaged and active citizenry, and these editorial pages are no stranger to constituents taking a public official to task. Citizens for Honest Government, though, has taken it to laughable extents.
Late last year, before Elmore lost to Rebecca Staebler in the general election, the group wanted to place a scathing advertisement in The Chronicle. Our attorney advised us against accepting the payment, concerned we would be liable for the questionable contents and claims in the attached letter.
The group was of course welcome to publish their screed on social media, the everyman’s printing press, but few of the members, if you can call them that, seemed willing to attach their actual names to anything. When they did, as was the case in a series of letters to the editor, the submissions were way over the word limit and loaded with unverifiable claims.
As a result of all the fog and mirrors, I didn’t feel like there was really a story to report. “Anonymous People Hate Public Official, Have No Proof of Wrongdoing” isn’t a headline you’ll read in this newspaper.
Then, the group took their message to the streets.
We knew that because one individual showed up on the doorstep of then-reporter Natalie Johnson, sharing a variation of the very same dossier that the group had attempted to publish in the newspaper.
If these claims were being used by doorbellers, then The Chronicle should determine their veracity and provide readers with context, we thought.
What did we find? A whole lot of nothing.
Here’s a good summary of the claims from Johnson’s Thursday report: “They accused Elmore of doing construction on his property without permits, then amended their accusation to say he did the work without timely application for permits after they were discovered. The group also accuses Elmore of lying about income and property ownership to the Public Disclosure Commission and to the IRS. They cited Elmore’s public PDC disclosures but did not provide proof the disclosures were not accurate. They also accused him of operating a tractor service without a business license, while Elmore asserted it was a hobby that didn’t make enough money to claim.”
I wouldn’t even call this a tempest in a teapot. More of a duck fart in a drainage ditch.
Of course, our report on the group’s claims — including those that were proven false — made The Chronicle the new object of the group’s dissatisfaction. They exercised those feelings in a few different ways. One was to proclaim “we didn’t say that,” in the case of Reynoldson. That was amusing because Reynoldson had secretly recorded his interview with Johnson, proudly removing the device at the end of the questioning like a toddler who had successfully hidden his vegetables long enough to receive and consume dessert, yet he had no proof of his erroneous claims of inaccuracies.
The other way they acted out was to begin sending us the same kinds of letters they were sending Elmore.
They threatened to sue, and they warned of their intentions to create (gasp!) a Facebook page to expose us for… something.
I chose to ignore the attempts to coerce us into action. They eventually went away, at least in terms of their communication with us, which I am thankful for.
For Elmore, unfortunately, the beat goes on. A judge ruled this week that a letter sent to Elmore insisting, among other things, he end his dastardly membership in the Rotary Club was not enough to constitute harassment. He encouraged Elmore to present more evidence if it surfaces, and I predict there will be more letters arriving in his mailbox in the future.
Our arms remain open to any citizen who would like for The Chronicle newsroom to investigate legitimate claims against public officials.
You can call us Citizens for an Honest Ax to Grind.
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Eric Schwartz is the editor of The Chronicle.
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Eric Schwartz is the editor of The Chronicle.
