King County assessor struggled with alcohol, say friends, former staffers

During his 16 years as King County assessor, Scott Noble has been widely viewed as a consummate professional. His office has won awards for excellence. His polished image and ability to cite the intricacies of property-tax assessments helped him win re-election four times.

There is another side of Noble that is not known — except to his closest associates. He is, according to old friends and former employees, an alcoholic who has struggled for years with his addiction.

The hidden side of Noble's life finally intruded into the public spotlight when the news broke that Noble, 58, had been arrested Jan. 18, after allegedly making a drunken U-turn on Interstate 5, driving his car headlong into an oncoming car, injuring two women and himself.

The state Attorney General's Office charged Noble last week with two felony counts of vehicular assault. He will be arraigned next Thursday. Prosecutors are asking that he remain free without bail pending trial.

While Noble's wrong-way accident on I-5 came as a shock to many elected officials and political activists, several people who have worked with him were not surprised. They say that over the years, they saw him go on drinking binges that kept him away from the office for days at a time, followed by periods of sobriety.

"Others knew it"

"I've known Scott for a long time and he's had this problem. I didn't know it was this bad," said former King County Assessor Harley Hoppe. "I knew he had been an alcoholic and drinking for a long time. Others knew it, too."

Hoppe said that after he left the office in the 1980s he hired Noble as a consultant to his assessment-appeal business. Hoppe said he even urged Noble to run for assessor, initially viewing him as a good, conservative fit.

But Noble's drinking became an issue, Hoppe said. "The longer he was in [office], the more he became withdrawn. He wasn't in a lot. You could never get him by telephone. He was missing in action from that standpoint."

Noble, first elected assessor in 1992, hasn't worked at his office since the January accident. As an elected official, Noble sets his own schedule in the $146,000-a-year job and doesn't have a specified amount of sick leave or vacation time.

And because he's elected countywide, he answers to no other public official nor elected body — not the Metropolitan King County Council or Executive Ron Sims.

This autonomy — and the relatively low profile of his office — allowed Noble to run it without oversight. That independence meant he had no boss with the authority to confront him about his drinking.

Tried treatment

It is not clear how Noble's drinking and extended absences affected the performance of his office, which has a $20 million annual budget. Rich Medved, Noble's chief deputy, said he wasn't aware of his boss missing work because of drinking.

Asked if he knew of a long-standing drinking problem, he said, "I don't really have any comments on that."

Noble has tried to deal with his alcoholism, enrolling in treatment programs at least twice, according to former employees and a fellow client in one of the programs.

The apparent relapse that changed his life took place a little after 2 in the morning, when motorists told the State Patrol they saw a northbound SUV pull to the shoulder of I-5 in Federal Way, then turn southbound into oncoming traffic, forcing drivers to swerve around him. An SUV driven by Leslie Workman with a passenger, Lyndsey Jones, was struck head on by the wrong-way car.

Blood drawn from Noble at the scene showed an alcohol level of .22 percent, nearly three times the legal limit of .08 percent, the Patrol said.

Noble's involvement wasn't reported in the media for more than a month after the wreck because troopers and reporters didn't initially realize that Russell S. Noble, his full name, was Scott Noble the assessor.

If convicted of vehicular assault, Noble faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and, as a felon, would have to give up his office. The standard sentencing range for a first-time offender is 12 to 14 months.

While some Democratic and Republican party leaders have called for his resignation, Noble and his attorney, John W. Wolfe, have declined to answer questions about the accident, Noble's drinking history or his political future. He would be up for re-election in 2011.

No details on injuries

It is not known how badly he was injured or how he is able to supervise a staff of 224 employees from a remote location.

Since the crash, Medved said, Noble has telecommuted while he recovers from his injuries. "We talk many, many times a day. We exchange e-mail. ... He has his hand on the pulse of everything that is going on and is continuing to steer the activities here."

The accident shocked some people who know Noble.

"I know him pretty well," said King County Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Sheary. "It's mind-boggling to me. He is so quiet, so reserved, such a gentleman. ... It's out of character to the man that I know."

Metropolitan King County Council Chairman Dow Constantine said he has known Noble professionally for a long time and had no knowledge of a drinking problem. "I've never known anything like that. ... He always seemed to me to be highly professional and organized at work, so it came as quite a surprise."

But some people who worked for Noble said they feared something bad would happen.

"I wasn't surprised," said Jerry Crossler, who held two management positions in the assessor's office between 2001 and 2005. "I'm surprised, to be honest with you, that some incident hadn't occurred before this."

Another former employee, who asked not to be named, said Noble sometimes missed work for days at a time during periodic drinking binges. "It's not a new problem. It's been going on a long time," the employee said.

Crossler, who was hired and fired by Noble, said he never saw his boss drunk on the job, but, "it was pretty well known that Scott was a recovering alcoholic. ... Sometimes he would be gone and then he would be back and all you had was speculation. There was never a discussion of why he was out."

Despite those unexplained absences, the office was generally well run, with the help of experienced and qualified managers, Crossler said.

Lower-level staffers, including appraisers who spent much of their day inspecting properties, would have had less knowledge of Noble's drinking problems, said the other former employee.

The International Association of Assessment Officers gave Noble's office awards in 2002 for distinguished research and development and in 2008 for administrative excellence.

Medved said Noble modernized his department, using computers to improve efficiency and eliminating more than 40 staff positions.

Reports by the King County Auditor in 2002 and 2006 urged Noble to use electronic building-permit records and make information easier for homeowners to find on the Web. The auditor also found that Noble's office met international standards intended to assess properties at fair market value.

But his office has come under fire from property owners who have filed a record number of appeals — more than 12,600 — of the higher assessments they received last year after real-estate prices began to drop. Assessments made in 2008 were based on property sales over the three previous years.

Yakima County Assessor Dave Cook, who has worked extensively with Noble on state legislation, said he has never seen him "impaired. ... You can't find a more dedicated public servant. He's an extremely bright man who knows his job as well as anybody in the state."

Even before felony charges were filed, some observers said it appeared Noble's days in office were numbered.

"Plenty of elected officials have overcome a simple DUI issue, but this case is so severe that it's likely a career-ending problem," said Democratic political consultant Christian Sinderman.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published March 13, 2009, was corrected the same day. A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Jerry Crossler's name.