Rivals show up at Hutchison news conference

King County executive candidates Dow Constantine and Larry Phillips didn't have to work hard for the opportunity to appear before television cameras Wednesday.

They just showed up at an outdoor news conference Susan Hutchison called to tout her budget-balancing credentials and say how she proposes to get county spending under control. They didn't like what they heard.

Standing on a busy sidewalk outside Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle, Hutchison, a former KIRO-TV news anchor, said citizens "hold their hands up in disgust" over a state auditor's report that told of piles of uncounted bus-fare cash sitting on tables and a construction-project performance audit that couldn't be finished because none of the audited departments produced the necessary records.

Even "more troubling," she said, was County Executive Kurt Triplett's response that auditors were at fault because they didn't make clear what records they were looking for.

If elected, Hutchison said, she would make sure the county cooperates with state audits and would give the county auditor more money for performance audits. She reiterated her intention to deal with operating budget shortfalls by renegotiating employee labor accords and slimming the 30-employee executive's office.

Hutchison also said possible cuts to human services "breaks your heart" and she wants to ask voters to approve a property-tax levy to maintain human services.

While Hutchison said she has succeeded as Seattle Symphony board chair in cutting costs and avoiding bankruptcy, the presence of Metropolitan King County Councilmembers Constantine and Phillips highlighted a very different campaign issue: their claim that Hutchison has kept much of her political agenda hidden by failing to participate in a number of candidate forums.

On Tuesday night, Hutchison missed a Town Hall forum sponsored by the Green Choice environmental coalition, explaining Wednesday she already had committed to attend a friend's retirement celebration.

Phillips said Hutchison "won't debate the issues broadly in forums," and Constantine said she has been "notably absent" from a number of debates.

An ordinance Phillips proposed last week would require the executive to report within 60 days on steps taken to implement the state auditor's recommendations. "You don't have to wait for the next county executive to make sure that's done," he said.

Constantine noted the state auditor praised the oversight he promoted for the Brightwater sewage-plant project, and said as County Council chair, he cut $500,000 this year by reorganizing staff and not filling vacancies.

In the hardest-fought executive contest in years, Constantine and state Sen. Fred Jarrett, also an executive candidate, took the unusual step Tuesday of issuing a joint statement urging Hutchison, Phillips and state Rep. Ross Hunter to make public all their responses to questionnaires from special-interest groups.

Hunter said Wednesday all of his responses either have been posted on his campaign Web site or are in the process of being posted.

Hutchison said she isn't sure she will release her answers because that "will take some time and money, so it's not our highest priority."

Phillips said he would release answers if the interest groups agree to his doing so. "It's really more their document than mine," he said.

Also running in the Aug. 18 primary are investor and handyman Goodspaceguy, disbarred attorney Stan Lippmann and engineer and former municipal public-works director Alan Lobdell.

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