Notes
Seattle Times article by Bob Young, Jim Brunner, and Steve Miletich reporting on a campaign-finance scandal in Des Moines, WA involving Mayor Don Wasson, businessman Hank Hopkins, and political consultant Tom Hujar. The three concealed $49,000 in campaign spending aimed at electing City Council candidates Richard Benjamin, Gary Petersen, and Maggie Steenrod in the November 2001 Des Moines City Council elections, with the goal of making Des Moines less active in opposing the proposed third runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The state Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) charged Wasson and Hopkins with failing to report campaign contributions and spending; Hopkins, represented by attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., was also accused of concealing a conveyor system permit scheme tied to the third-runway construction contract worth roughly 15 million cubic yards of dirt.