Earmarks help South Sound in surprising ways

More local governments are hiring lobbyists in Washington, D.C., in their efforts to fish more dollars from the river of money Congress provides through its special budget provisos called earmarks.

Lacey joined the rush last year, hiring a D.C. expert for $40,000. Intercity Transit, the three-city public transportation organization based in Olympia, reports it has a contract with a lobbyist for $72,000 this year.

The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, based in Lacey, said it has a $16,500 lobbyist contract, and its leader, Don Pierce, said he travels to the U.S. Capitol a few times a year to check on legislation and funding.

The lobbyist connections turned up in an Olympian review of budget earmarks provided by the 2007 Congress — which funneled $1.38 billion in special budget awards to Washington state, including more than $45 million in special appropriations to Thurston and Mason counties and adjacent areas such as Puget Sound.

Lacey City Manager Greg Cuoio and Mayor Graeme Sackrison say there was no other way their city of nearly 36,000 people could afford a more than $1 million transportation corridor study along Interstate 5 after two major state gasoline-tax packages failed to provide them enough money for it.

Through work of a lobbyist and help from U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., Lacey landed a $490,000 earmark that will let the study be completed this year — in time for the city to make its case for a bigger interchange at Marvin Road and new requests in the 2009 budget for perhaps $10 million or more in federal aid.

"We wouldn't have the $490,000 today if we didn't do this," Cuoio said. "If you look at Seattle, Vancouver, Spokane, Portland — those larger cities have for years had standard operating procedures to have a lobbying arm … back in Washington D.C., and locally to seek funding for infrastructure projects.

"That's the way you need to operate today if you want to get support for these projects. There are just so many people and communities with legitimate needs."

While Lacey's foray into big-government lobbying is new, several local tribes have been using lobbyists for years. The Nisqually tribe near Yelm and Skokomish tribe near Shelton had lobbyists help them secure earmarks last year.

Pork or apple pie

Earmarks, which are specific allocations to a project, group or business, are controversial nationally. They sometimes are favors for political friends, pork-barrel spending or questionable but lucrative paybacks for political contributions. Last year's earmarks for Thurston County appear to smell less like pork and more like apple pie.

One earmark sends $195,000 to Project Access, a creation of the Thurston-Mason Medical Society that helps poor people get free surgeries and other costly specialty care from medical professionals willing to donate it. Susan Peterson, executive director for the medical society, said the project provided almost $3.7 million in care in 2007 and has helped 958 clients since 2005. But the society would have to shut down Project Access without the federal help — or assistance from some other donor, she said.

One other earmark — for $446,500 — helps pay for a gym and culture center for Nisqually tribal youth. Two others go for a state DNA database that helps police link stranger-rapists to crimes. Yet another gives Intercity Transit $343,000 to design a bus station — for lease to Greyhound — next to IT's transfer station in downtown Olympia.

Still others go for Puget Sound cleanup and habitat restoration; a methamphetamine-treatment program designed to help keep families intact in Olympia; a program to help the uninsured get care instead of going to hospital emergency rooms; a sewer project in Belfair; and to retrain timber workers in Lewis County to do environmental analyses.

Cities question need for lobbyists

One skeptic about having local governments hire lobbyists is Rep. Brian Baird, whose 3rd Congressional District includes Olympia and most of southwest Washington.

"Public entities have a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. It is called their member of Congress," Baird said. "They don't need to pay somebody $40,000 a year to write me a letter and schedule an appointment. ... These are people I'm elected to represent. There are some exceptions where lobbyists truly are value-added. But I would say those are truly the exception."

Baird said the use of lobbyists by local governments is "getting worse. It started getting worse with the Republican increase in earmarks" earlier this decade.

Murray's spokeswoman, Alex Glass, said the senator has a process to accept earmark requests from anyone in the state and was able to get money for about 250 of the more than 1,000 requests she got last year.

Data on file with the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics show that Lacey is far from alone in hiring lobbyists. Lacey paid $40,000 last year and $10,000 the first three months of this year to Portland-based Conkling, Fiskum & McCormick. That firm also has represented the cities of Battle Ground, Longview and Vancouver.

No documents are on file yet for Intercity Transit, but the agency's development director, Roger Dean, said it has a $72,000 contract with Gordon Thomas Honeywell of Tacoma for lobbying. Its client list includes the transit agency in Benton and Franklin counties, the cities of Gig Harbor and Puyallup, and the Port of Vancouver.

A firm hired by the Port of Olympia in 2005-06 for $80,000 a year also represented the cities of Bellevue; Burien; Tukwila; Boise, Idaho; and Portland; as well as several local ports. Sackrison, the Lacey mayor, admitted it seemed improbable when the idea came up about two years ago. After all, the city only recently had agreed to hire a lobbyist to work Washington's Capitol, paying former Mayor Mark Brown to lobby the Legislature.

But Sackrison's fellow city council members quietly agreed to go forward with an outstretched hand to Congress. Sackrison and Cuoio also spent $2,416 to make an overnight lobbying trip this spring to Washington, D.C.

Tribes and lobbyists

Two local tribes also had lobbyists help them in the 2008 budget:

• The Nisqually tribe has used lobbyists for about 20 years, tribal administrator Richard Wells said, and it spent $80,000 of casino profits last year for lobbying that helped land a $445,500 earmark. The money will buy furnishings and equipment and help with startup of a $6.3 million youth activities and cultural center also intended to serve as a community shelter during major emergencies. Tribal Chairman Cynthia Iyall said the lobbyist helped set up key meetings with the office of Rep. Adam Smith, the Tacoma Democrat who secured the earmark. The Nisqually have spent $240,000 lobbying Congress since January 2004, including $70,000 in the first three months this year on gaming-related issues.

• The Skokomish tribe north of Shelton has spent $100,000 on lobbying since 2004. The Skokomish secured two earmarks — $984,000 for a tribal wastewater-treatment plant and $980,000 for a tribal access road and realignment of U.S. Highway 101. Democratic Rep. Norm Dicks of Belfair secured the sewer earmark; Murray and Cantwell secured the road funds.

State lawmakers rank high

The Olympian's review — which relied on an earmarks database compiled by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense group and was augmented by the Center For Responsive Politics' Web site on political financing — didn't turn up obvious signs that the recipients of money in South Sound have been making heavy campaign donations to their benefactors. But data does show that lawmakers representing South Sound are prolific winners of earmarks.

Sackrison said he doesn't know how much Lacey will spend at the U.S. Capitol this year, but the lobbyist is assisting on requests for help on trail projects, a reclaimed water project and a police information management system that would be shared with Olympia and Tumwater.

Cuoio said the city wants to be ready when Congress starts debating a major six-year transportation-funding bill in the next year. Lacey wants to be in line and looking for ways it can get its I-5 projects considered.

With a lobbyist, Cuoio said, he hopes his city can learn about more options for financing for its reclaimed-water project and other requests.

IT is hiring its lobbyist for similar reasons. Dean, the development director, said the transit agency thinks it has a good chance to land major financing this year or next in the six-year transportation plan — including a share of the possible $2 million construction cost for the Greyhound transfer station. IT also would like to secure federal help for half of the $10 million cost to expand its bus-maintenance facility.

Baird said earmarks are a small part of the federal budget and are necessary. Two months ago, he announced his more than 60 earmark requests for the 2009 budget. Those include $1 million for Tenino's sewer system; $2.2 million for Chehalis River flood reduction; $6.9 million for Puget Sound restoration; $1.15 million for hybrid buses for IT; $1.895 million for IT's multi-modal bus station project; and $441,000 for design work to rehabilitate Olympia's Percival Landing.

Sackrison and Cuoio said it is appropriate to have earmarks, distinguishing their requests from projects such as the Alaskan "Bridge to Nowhere."

"When I started in local government, this is what you called revenue sharing. It was not a dirty word. It was tax dollars that went to the federal government and came back to us in the billion and billions" for sewers and roads, Cuoio said.

"We don't call them earmarks. We call them local government priorities," added Emmett Dobey, the utilities and wastewater management director for Mason County, who is overseeing the $31 million Belfair sewer project and is one of the parties involved in the Skokomish tribe's three-partner sewer.

Don Pierce, executive director of the sheriffs and police chiefs group, said it is better to have earmarks than to require funding for many local programs to go through competitive grant programs. Otherwise, he said, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., would decide what is best for Washington state.

"I'm not a fan of bad earmarks," Sackrison said. "But sometimes there is no other way for the little guy to get funding."