Today
is supposed to be the day when Pacific's city council finds out whether
the city is going to be pulled from the brink of disaster. The only thing that will save Pacific will be the issuance of
insurance coverage that is more expensive and less comprehensive than
the current coverage. The current coverage expires New Year's Eve.
This isn't the first time the city has been on the brink of disaster over insurance.
In 2000, prior Pacific Mayor Howard Erickson returned to take office again, winning on an issue about whether Pacific should allow a detention center for illegal immigrants. Erickson and his associates called the center a "prison" that would hold hard-core criminals, and he had in his political camp an individual whose mental illness and exploitation by others continues to plague Pacific 12 years later.
The new mayor quickly ran afoul of Stan Aston, a former state patrolman who had been appointed Pacific's police chief. He pulled duty right along with the rest of his officers and professionalized the department to the point that it qualified for accreditation for the first time in its history. This represented the high water mark for the city: the staff was as professional as it had ever been.
But Mr. Erickson didn't like Mr. Aston. The background story never became public, but their interaction began the straight-line slide toward the loss of Pacific's insurance coverage. Mr. Erickson fired Aston in a way that got the attention of the city's insurer at that time. They told him they wanted him to attend classes that would professionalize him and reduce the city's risk. Mr. Erickson walked out of the classes and the insurer gave notice of cancellation.
There were two municipal insurance giants in Washington at that time, and the other one was Canfield and Associates, which turned Mr. Erickson down three times before they finally agreed to insure the city.
Do you get this? Pacific was on its knees begging for insurance. A Canfield representative met with the city council and the mayor. As a councilman-elect, I was in the meeting to hear them tell Mr. Erickson that if Canfield's insurance was lost, the city would be in a "world of hurt."
And then for the next 12 years, the nonsense continued and the city bumbled along, abandoning its police accreditation, violating laws, alienating its residents. tolerating and enabling incompetence and abuse. It was as if Pacific was plagued with a low-grade infection that continued to weaken the body politic until an opportunistic infection came along and took it down.
And so, here's Pacific once more, hat-in-hand, pleading for insurance coverage.
Begging.
On it's knees.
"We'll be better! Honest!"
And the city's current insurer is not persuaded.
What the news seems to be is this: You can be just as stupid as you want to be, but we're not going to be the fall guys. Coverage is going to cost you, and there's some coverage you aren't going to get, even with a higher premium."
And get it straight this time, people: A third chance isn't a great liklihood. The patient is still alive, but a commitment to healthy living is still a long ways away, because everyone is still focused on the opportunistic infection, and not on the practices that weakened the body politic.
And here's my message to the city council: You have taken on a very sick patient. Stop blaming the infection and start thinking about what made the patient sick in the first place.
