Subpoenas for CROWD and Rasmussen: LRI wants records

This week citizen activist Viki Steiner of CROWD and Senator Marilyn Rasmussen will answer subpoenas by Land Recovery Inc. (LRI) to “present all documents comprising or referring to communications between or among you, RDC, Rabanco or Allied.” The garbage company is forcing a legal hand to explore records held by CROWD and the senator as it vies for market control in the recent longhauling companies lawsuit. The senator and Steiner are asked to produce a laundry list of documents, records and communications. Many feel LRI has always wanted to know what information CROWD and the senator have compiled over the years in their bid to stop the landfill from development in south Pierce County. As a result, the company is merely using a legal hammer and opportunity in this entanglement to cast eyes on all information. Senator Rasmussen feels the subpoenas are a form of harassment. We can’t comment. We can provide some food for thought, however.

LRI subpoenaed Rasmussen as a senator. Therefore, any legal strings the company attaches to Rasmussen will be unraveled at taxpayers’ expense; the attorney general’s office would actually be the senator’s legal representation. While Rasmussen will have a powerful backstop in the political machine the same cannot be said for Steiner, who has to face the inquisition alone — with personal legal representation. For a mere citizen this latest development must seem very tiresome.

In LRI’s defense it feels, as is the American way, it should have every opportunity to face the accusers and produce needed evidence to present its case. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps LRI will only shakedown the information, store it, “see what the other side has,” and move on in its relentless mission to make the Meridian site pay off.

We hope this isn’t the garbage company’s way of dealing with opposition. We hope it will not take additional steps to intimidate the senate, the citizenry and cast a shadow on our rights to assembly and free speech under the constitution.

This week CROWD and the senate face LRI’s attorneys. They will, as good citizens, provide the information. What LRI does with this information is open to speculation. The company already has a public relations mess on its hands and is not a welcome neighbor. We only hope LRI can learn to take the high road and face its bullies on its own. After all, our local folks didn’t pick the fight between the longhaulers and the garbage company.

To use a legal lash on a few “folks” who have worked day and night to protect the community from unwanted developments seem like pretty petty politics.