[Update: The third in the series is up today along with an important blog post from Mullick on the ethics complaint.  Those of you interested in seeing the ethics complaint expanded should check it out]

It’s the proverbial TV crime scene and the investigators is just about to finish pouring the plaster casts on the tire tracks of the getaway car.  But this time, the investigator is the Tri-City Herald’s Chris Mullick, and the tires are piled high in a recycling yard on the west end of town.  And while I or most anybody around these parts don’t like to see a long and fairly distinguished political career end on such a sour note, Shirley Hankins has been fingered.

Well, it isn’t exactly a felony to try and help your daughter’s business succeed, but when you are using your influence and flexing your political muscle to do so, it does fall into an ethical political dilemma that once mired, there isn’t much getting out. 

And after that self serving intro, big kudos to the Herald and (especially) Chris Mullick for the first two (one and two links) of a three part series on this story.  And it started with a rather bold and unfamiliar lede like this…

Longtime Richland state Rep. Shirley Hankins has repeatedly used the power of her office in the past five years to muscle state and local officials into directing business to her two daughters’ struggling tire baling company.  

And the story adds meat to its bones with this…

Her overtures have been heavy-handed enough that agency Director Jay Manning [ed. Wa. Dept. of Ecology], in a December letter to her “implied that she is pursuing tire interests on behalf of her kid’s recycling business,” according to an e-mail he later sent fellow staffers.

Hankins has been even more direct at home. She’s told city regulators the company’s licensing hurdles would be overturned by legislation in Olympia, and she has told volunteer members of two Richland advisory boards that she could secure grant funding for the city if they used tire bales in their projects.

Pretty hard hitting report.  The last in the series should be in tomorrow’s Herald and the story has prompted at least one Eastern Washington political blog to call for her resignation. 

I spoke to Shirley on the phone last week.  And while I was less than confrontive with her I did hint that I had heard of an investigation on her in Olympia over this issue, to which she flatly denied, and was yet in fact already underway. 

A Herald investigation shows the Republican lawmaker’s efforts to promote Northwest Tire Recycling have ranged from carefully indirect to downright blunt, and the tactics raise questions about abuse of power.

Through a spokesman, Hankins said she won’t discuss the issues until a complaint against her filed with the Legislative Ethics Board is resolved. But in interviews in late January, she denied she’s ever used her office to promote the daughters’ business — statements her spokesman said she stands by.

According to the report, Hankins was aggressive in pursuing the interests of NW Tire to the extent of being belligerent. In Mullicks second installment, it becomes even more clear that Hankins was approaching other state officials aggressively to push contracts to her families business.

On May 12, 2005, a fire broke out in a tire pile at Junior’s Trucking in the south King County town of Skyway. The next afternoon, Hankins’ son-in-law, Jim Penor, in a note sent from his city e-mail address at the Richland municipal landfill he manages, offered Northwest Tire Recycling’s services to Cullen Stephenson of the Department of Ecology.

“I’m not sure if this cleanup is going to be under your Division or not but would like the chance to be involved,” Penor wrote. “We could mobilize our equipment within a short time, also with my knowledge of remediation of a hazardous site of this nature, I feel I could be very helpful.”

Stephenson, who manages the agency’s solid waste program, did not respond to the e-mail. But he did pass the offer along even though a competing company already had contracted with King County for the work.

Six days after the fire, Hankins wrote a letter to Stephenson expressing her dismay, sending a copy to the governor’s office.

“The department was offered assistance of cleanup. Your office and the Director’s office have not responded as of yesterday, May 17th. I would like to know why,” Hankins wrote. “I’m not sure why I’ve spent the last three-and-a-half years on a tire bill that gives your department authority to help solve this state’s problems, and that would give your department your only legal and permitted company and the only woman-owned recycling company in this state. Frankly, I’m a little tired of this.

“I do believe the next communication will be to the Attorney General’s office to ask to what extent state departments are responsible for enforcing the laws we pass. I want an answer today,” she added.

The report is extensive but the whole story is quite telling.  And it appears that Hankins efforts paid off in some extent to a contract for NW Tire to clean up a large tire dump in Goldendale Washington.  All the while not operating with a business license. This spawned my previous post on the earlier report regarding Richland Mayor Rob Welch.  It is pretty clear to me after my conversation with Shirley that the exchanges between her and the city regarding the business license were not good.  Let’s just say she has no love for Hizzoner. 

“You got one (muffled explative that I didn’t quite catch) running that city.”

It is starting to become clear why she feels that way, and becoming quite obvious that the dealings with the City of Richland are a small subset of the overall problem.  Money and business problems with NW Tire and the overall politics to resurrect that business have led Hankins to a place she never should have been.

Hankins has been even more direct at home. She’s told city regulators the company’s licensing hurdles would be overturned by legislation in Olympia, and she has told volunteer members of two Richland advisory boards that she could secure grant funding for the city if they used tire bales in their projects.

At least one of her long time supporters has told me that they are taking the “innocent until proven guilty” approach to the investigation.  And while I appreciate that sentiment and generally agree, the whole thing is pretty damning, and in all likelyhood could have more far reaching consequences than just Hankins.

Stay tuned…