State Supreme Court denies Seattle Port commissioner's bid to stop recall effort

The state Supreme Court has denied a motion by Port of Seattle Commissioner Pat Davis to reconsider its decision to allow a recall effort to proceed against Davis.

Chief Justice Gerry Alexander filed the one-sentence order Oct. 30. Citizen activist Chris Clifford said he expects soon to finalize recall-petition language and start collecting signatures to put a recall on the ballot next year.

Once petition language is approved by King County officials, Clifford will have six months to gather about 155,000 signatures.

Clifford, a public-high-school teacher from Renton, said he doesn't have any financial benefactors and doesn't plan to spend any money gathering signatures.

Davis, whose term expires next year, has said she would not seek re-election. But that hasn't deterred Clifford. "Every day she serves is one day too many," he said.

In a unanimous decision in August, the Supreme Court ruled that Clifford had sufficient legal grounds to ask voters whether Davis committed malfeasance by signing a 2006 memo that sought to give former Port CEO Mic Dinsmore almost an additional year of his $339,841 salary after he retired in March 2007.

Davis has maintained that she did not break any laws or act inappropriately. Port officials refused to give Dinsmore the money after Davis' memo was made public.

In its August ruling, the court concluded that "Davis understood her duties as Port Commissioner and the legal necessity of voting in public session before potentially obligating the Port in any monetary agreement, and, for the purposes or recall, intentionally acted outside the scope of these duties by signing an agreement with Dinsmore."

In her September motion, Davis asked the court to reconsider. The motion argued that the court affirmed a malfeasance charge without identifying a specific violation of the law.

Wendy Ferrell, a spokeswoman for the court, said Davis has no further appeal rights at the state level. "I think this has gone as far as it can go," Ferrell said of Davis' attempt to have a recall reconsidered.

Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com