busker

Just Im-Peddy-Ment

How does the Book of Common Prayer have it?

The Banns for the Solemnization of Mayoralty?

"If any of you know cause, or just im-peddy-ment, why these two parties - candidate and electorate - should not be joined together in holy Mayoralty, ye are to declare it."

I have some interest in this race, and I pronounce William K. Peddy resoundingly "buzz-ted".

Luxuriant bouquets to be laid at the feet of Cathy "Nick 'em" Nickum and crack detective Althea "Bee-sting" Paulson - indeed, everyone in the The Buzzhive - for nailing peddy-vile gaps in the varlet's résumé.

I had huge fun 30 years ago publicizing the UK edition of WoodStein's "All the President's Men", and now I have the pleasure of saluting Bainbridge's very own Woodward and Bernstein, abbreviating so appropriately to Nick-Son that I hardly dare suggest it.

Getting back to Peddy, it's interesting to note that the man is not above plastering our island with vulgar self-promotion flags, but distances himself from us "little people" in observing a differently enforced code of truthfulness.

This sort of thing tends not to play well at the voting booth.

To quote and summarize:

Questions have emerged concerning qualifications asserted by mayoral candidate William K. Peddy.

• Claim: Interviewed by the sleuthing Buzz, Peddy stated that he graduated from the University of California at Davis with a degree in biology.
• Fact: On calling to confirm his precise Peddy-gree, The Buzz was informed by the registrar at UC/Davis that the school has no record of WKP attending.
  • In response to requests from the Buzz, Peddy declined to provide proof of his graduation.
• Fact: UC/Davis registrar records date back to 1965. Peddy says he was born in 1950, making him a precocious 15 yrs old in 1965.
• When contacted, Peddy reiterated that he had graduated from UC/Davis but refused to disclose the year.
  • On being told that the UC/Davis registrar had no record of his attendance, Peddy issued an aloof:

    “I’m not concerned about that. It’s not relevant to this race. No one who is voting for me cares.” [My emphases].

• Claim: Peddy’s résumé states that he was building official for two years and “Director of the Building and Planning Department” for the City of Colville in 1980.
• Fact: When contacted this week, the City Clerk’s office of Colville, WA, said that Peddy did indeed serve as *a* building official from March 1979 to February 1980 – a mere 11 months - but did *not* hold the position of Director. Indeed, according to the clerk, there was no Director of Planning back then. (Whoops - do we detect un peu de peddy-foggery in the Peddy camp?)
• Claim: Peddy’s résumé states that he had “16 years of governmental experience in planning and community development” before coming to work for the City of Bainbridge Island as a Code Compliance Officer in 1997.
• Fact: In terms of Peddy's professional municipal experience, The Buzz was able to document no more than a paltry *eight* years with the City of Fresno and 11 months with the City of Colville.
• Claim: For the years 1980 to 1988 - and despite the minor detail of not actually being burdened with a degree in engineering - Peddy says he was employed by the City of Fresno, California, as a structural engineer.
  • Quoth Peddy in explanation: “My uncle pulled some strings.”
    Did he, by George? And some strings have an unfortunate propensity for knitting into nooses.
• Fact: The City of Fresno personnel department confirmed that Peddy was hired as a temporary structural engineer technician in 1980 and was made a permanent technician three months later.
  • In October of 1985 he was promoted to “Rehabilitation Specialist II” and in January of 1988, he resigned from that position with the City of Fresno.
• Claim: In last week’s mayoral debate, Peddy stated that he had led an Emergency Assessment team in Loma Linda, California.
• Fact: When contacted, neither the City of Loma Linda nor the Loma Linda Fire Department had any record of Peddy.
• Pressed on his 'emergency assessment' experience, our moustachio'd falsifier fell back on his trademark back-peddyling, protesting that his remarks had been "misreported" and that he had *actually* worked for a regional office of FEMA, following up on the Loma Linda earthquake and heading an inspection team assessing the earthquake damage.
• The Buzz has calls into FEMA offices and awaits confirmation.

The rattle of late-closing stable doors and the cluck of home-roosting poultry:

Several hours after The Buzz informed Peddy of these findings, campaign manager Jim Ølsen fired off an “amended” copy of Peddy’s achievements.

Surprise surprise: the revisionist version no longer boasts Willy boy's UC/Davis Bachelor degree.

Even less surprise: it presents a considerably more down-to-earth picture of Peddy’s sojourn in the Groves of Academe, namely “U.S. military service and real-life work experience as the functional equivalent of an undergraduate degree.”

And the final insult to all those to whom Peddy has peddled these inventions?
The adjustment of his distinguished directorate with the City of Colville down to frill-free “Building official”.

This is absolutely unacceptable in a man running for public office.

I feel the bile rise just remembering that smirking peacock stance in the doorway of City Hall on the evening of the debate. And now this, exposed as a braggart and fantasist.

TGIF, so I can head home and cleanse my palette with large and multiple draughts of the nectar from Arinambeast and Uigidale. Lord knows how many Peddy-purging swigs it'll take but these things have to be done.

Also to be done, hearty braVOs and unseemly hugs and slurred toasts and whooping ^5s to the Buzz on a really splendid job unearthing these facts ... and a loud raspberry to William K. Peddy for his functional equivalent of fibbing.

Not content to litter our highways with his signage and our Letters columns with his campaign manager's buffoonery, he prefers also to discard the truth as 'not relevant to this race'.

I've never been quite clear what Peddy affects to enforce, but he sure as hell offends *my* moral code.

'Knick-knack, Peddy whacked' News Flash: I see that none other than Steve Gardner has weighed in with a nifty piece in the Sept 15 Kitsap Sun.

Ace man for the job, Gardner, not one to be fobbed off with peddy-strian glib lies. Check out his take on a certain "BI Candidate Accused of Falsifying Past" (except that you need to be registered for that link, dammit).

Here's how Gardner kicks off:

"A contender for the Bainbridge Island mayor's position who has said he has a bachelor's degree is taking it back.

Will Peddy, Bainbridge Island's code compliance officer and one of four candidates for mayor, was challenged by The Bainbridge Buzz, an online site targeted at Bainbridge residents, for information his campaign provided to site administrators.

Among those was Peddy's claim to have a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of California at Davis. Peddy also wrote that he had a bachelor's in biology in a questionnaire he submitted to the Kitsap Sun but never named a college ..."

Also a nice little mealy-mouthed quote from James Ølsen, who

"Told the Kitsap Sun on Wednesday that the reference was 'a mistake,' and said he didn't know how the incorrect information originated.

Ølsen said Peddy has the equivalent work experience of a bachelor's degree."

How Ølsen and Peddy must have ransacked their Dissemblers Dictionary to come up with *that* juicy weasel term.

What, I wonder, will they use to gloss over their hoodwinking us with their "Equivalent Truth Experience".

Double-speak lives. Orwell is not mocked.

Dept of Credit Where Due:

Tsk, almost forgot. Before I give the impression of a lynx-eared Busker antenna, I only rumbled this peddyculous situation thanks to my daily Bloglet subscription and its tip-off that,

"The investigative piece by the Buzz team about Mr Peddy shows how citizen journalism works much better than traditional newspapers, especially when they don't embrace the new media. It is telling that the Buzz is so obviously better than the Review and the Sun/Islander.

[Ed note: Ouch yaroo! Body blow. In the spirit of my ever-toadying cultivation of media movers 'n' shakers, anyone mind if I distance myself from that Review/Islander barb?

I have some PR irons in the fire (not to mention dead letter-boxes placements  of used notes of non-sequential denomination) that I'd hate to see go to waste]

Bloglet continued:Did anybody also wonder what we get from BIB in terms of news (except the passive recording of city council meetings)?

Any idea of what the Buzz team could achieve with a similar budget?

Add email subscriptions to your weblog at the indispensible bloglet.com".

Duty discharged. Eric Blair giggling.