Public deserves to know the dirty details of "Strippergate"

As a young prosecutor in the early 1970s, Norm Maleng battled the systematic corruption that gripped Seattle from the beat cop on Pike Street to the upper reaches of City Hall. Now, some 35 years later, he's at it again — this time as the county's chief prosecutor.

The criminal charges Maleng filed yesterday against the Colacurcio father-son duo and their operatives may differ from the schemes he prosecuted decades ago, but the underlying motivations of the accused are exactly the same: the influence and power money can buy.

And that's exactly why Maleng's pursuit of the "Strippergate" case is so fundamentally important to our civic virtue.

The Colacurcio family, notorious to both local and federal law-enforcement officials, wanted to expand the parking lot of its Lake City strip club by eight stalls. They sought the city's permission in 1988 and again in 1998. Both requests were denied; the rezone did not meet city qualification standards.

But, after decades of using money to get whatever they wanted, the Colacurcios were not deterred. In late 2002, they mounted a third effort.

Neighbors living near the strip club opposed the expansion. City land-use officials opposed it. An independent hearing examiner opposed it. Everyone opposed it — except for the Colacurcios, their employees and crony enablers, and five members of the City Council.

In order to win, the Colacurcios knew they would have to do more than present their case and abide by the law. So they crafted a scheme to influence the City Council, to manipulate public life for private gain. And in so doing they defrauded every single citizen of Seattle.

Their scheme involved private meetings and secret discussions with the members of the council who would decide their case, a glaring violation of state and city rules governing quasi-judicial matters like this one. The meetings involved Councilwomen Judy Nicastro and Heidi Wills, both voted out of office in 2003, and current Councilmen Jim Compton and Richard McIver.

The Colacurcio enterprise funneled political-campaign contributions through intermediaries to Compton, Nicastro and Wills, a ploy that allowed them to exponentially exceed campaign-gift limits and conceal the identity of the true donors.

Despite the clear warning signs, including alarms sounded on this page, the City Council pushed forward — either oblivious or indifferent to the terrible significance and implications of the situation. In the end, Compton, McIver, Nicastro, Wills and Jan Drago approved the rezone request, siding with the nefarious Colacurcio family instead of city officials and the ordinary folks in Lake City.

From the beginning, "Strippergate" has not been about nude dancing, or whether adult clubs should be regulated or zoned into particular sections of the city. Rather, it has been about integrity, the openness of government and basic fairness. It's about the rule of law and whether we truly believe in public disclosure and campaign-gift limitations. Or, conversely, it's about allowing maliciously motivated players to subvert our local governance.

"Strippergate" matters because our City Council recklessly allowed convicted felons with links to the corruption that permeated our city for decades to bully their way to positions of influence.

Some have minimized the significance of "Strippergate." They argue it's overblown compared with the flow of campaign gifts to city officials from others. However, an examination of election records shows that the amount of money involved in "Strippergate" (at least $62,000 from the Colacurcios and related parties) breathtakingly exceeds what any other grouping of individuals gave in the 2003 election cycle. For example, for all city campaigns in 2003, city employees gave a total of $35,316, Microsoft employees gave $11,230, Vulcan employees gave $7,865, and Boeing employees a grand total of $2,725.

It's imperative now that the city Ethics and Elections Commission continue its investigation and exercise its considerable powers to bring civil charges against everyone who participated in this scheme. At the appropriate time, Maleng should aid this effort by petitioning the special inquiry court that helped with his investigation to release all its evidence to the commission.

The commission should hold public hearings to bring to light every possible detail of this case. The commission's subpoena power to compel public testimony, especially from the elected officials involved, should be used so the public can gain a full appreciation of how a criminal family and their fellow travelers were able to target and then strike so close to the heart of our city government's integrity.