Historically, from the Magna Carta to the American Revolution to the Women's Suffrage Movement to Gandhi's Indian Independence Movement to the Civil Rights Movement of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., anytime a group of people have either gained or increased their voting rights, a rise in the living conditions of that group of people has always followed.

Unfortunately, the fundamentally basic constitutional responsibility of the government to be accountable for ensuring that each citizen is given a right to vote and that each vote cast is properly counted has been under attack during the last 56 years in Pierce County by corruption in the Pierce County Auditor's Office, corruption in the court system and corruption/incompetence in the media and corruption is the so-called "activist" community.

Does this sound too wild to believe? Decide for yourself! Here are the facts:

Fact #1. All City of Tacoma elections and all Pierce County elections are run by the Pierce County Auditor. ( A public office that all citizens of Tacoma and all citizens throughout Pierce County get to vote on.)

Fact #2. The Pierce County Auditor also runs the licensing department. (You know, where you pay for your car tabs.)

Fact #3. Three of the last five Auditors who have been "elected" (including the current Auditor, Cathy Pearsall-Stipek) have ended up on the losing end of court cases as a direct result of their actions on the job while in office. (That's every other auditor for the last 56 years.)

Fact #4. The names of the last 5 auditors are Joseph E. Ford, Jack W. Sonntag, Dick Greco, Brian Sonntag, and Cathy Pearsall-Stipek.

Fact #5. Two of those three Auditors (Joseph E. Ford and Dick Greco) went to jail.

Fact #6. Tuesday, November 3, 1942. Joseph E. Ford is elected Pierce County Auditor.

(Tacoma News Tribune 11/5/1942 Page # 1)

Fact #7. Monday, January 11, 1943. Joseph E. Ford begins his term of office.

Fact #8. Friday, July 23, 1948, 12 :00 P.M. A warrant is issued charging Pierce County Auditor Joseph E. Ford with five counts of grand larceny. (Embezzling public money.)

Fact #9. Friday, July 23, 1948. 1:35 P.M. Joseph E. Ford is placed under arrest in the office of State Examiner Alfrede Hawkins.

Fact #10. Friday, September 24, 1948. Pierce County Auditor Joseph E. Ford is sentenced to 15 years in the Walla Walla State Penitentiary after he pleads guilty to a charge of grand larceny and automatically forfeits office on that day by state law.

Fact #11. Tuesday, September 28, 1948. Jack W. Sonntag is appointed to fill Joseph E. Ford's unexpired term.

Fact #12. Tuesday, November 2, 1948. Jack Sonntag is elected Pierce County Auditor to fill Ford's unexpired term.

Fact #13. Saturday, October 4, 1969. Pierce County Auditor Jack Sonntag dies of a heart attack outside Husky Stadium on his way to a University of Washington football game.

(Tacoma News Tribune 10/5/1969 Page # 1)

Fact #14. Tuesday, October 28, 1969. Richard Greco is appointed to fill Jack Sonntag's unexpired term.

(Tacoma News Tribune 10/28/1969 Page # A-1)

Fact #15. Thursday, August 21, 1986. Pierce County Auditor Richard Greco is suspended from office by Pierce County Executive Joe Stortini after Greco is charged with 19 counts of bribery- (including soliciting bribes from warehouse owners who stored Pierce County voting machines) - Greco is eventually convicted on 9 counts of bribery (including the 1 count relating to the storage of voting machines).

Fact #16. Friday, August 22, 1986, Ken Brewer is appointed acting auditor.

Fact #17. Tuesday, November 4, 1986. Brian Sonntag is elected Pierce County Auditor.

Fact #18. Monday, December 1, 1986. Brian Sonntag is appointed acting auditor.

Fact #19. Tuesday, November 3, 1992. Brian Sonntag is elected Washington State Auditor. (He took office as State Auditor on January 13, 1993).

Fact #20. Monday, January 11, 1993. Cathy Pearsall-Stipek is appointed Pierce County Auditor. (She took office on January 13, 1993 - and she has refused to leave ever since).

Fact #21. Tuesday, January. 9, 1996. Cathy Pearsall-Stipek closed over 150 voting precincts throughout Tacoma and Pierce County and forced 24,000 citizens in those precincts to vote by mail, whether they wanted to or not. (The Auditor eventually backed down only after months of public outrage.)

Fact #22. Tuesday, January 23, 1996. A jury of twelve Pierce County citizens awarded former county employee, Sally Riccobono, $741,000 because Cathy Pearsall-Stipek (Pierce County Auditor) had retaliated against Riccobono after she had filed a racial discrimination complaint against Stipek. Taxpayer money.

Fact #23. Thursday, January 25, 1996. The "Tribune" responded by printing an editorial criticizing the jury:

Fact #24. Friday, September 13, 1996. Washington Supreme Court Justice Charles Smith ordered Stipek to "cease and desist" tabulating ballots early. Isn't tabulating a fancy word for counting? Counting ballots early. Justice Smith ruled that Pierce County could suffer irreparable harm if this practice were not halted.

Fact #25. Tuesday, September 17, 1996. The "Tribune" responded by criticizing State Supreme Court Justice Smith and the group that brought the complaint:

"Justice Charles Z. Smith of the state Supreme Court did the public no favor last Friday when he ordered Pierce County to stop "tabulating" its mail ballots until after the polls close tonight. The timing of this order — four days before an election — was inexcusable.... The entire state could be unnecessarily kept in suspense about the outcome of the primary, especially in closely contested races that may well be decided by votes in Washington's second largest county.... Pearsall-Stipek's pre-processing of ballots has raised some understandable suspicions, but Pierce County has gone through several successive elections without credible evidence that votes were being tampered with or tracked by political operatives....In effect, he threw a wrench into Pierce County's election machinery so shortly before the primary that some measure of wreckage can't be averted. His order was rash. And CLEAN's eleventh-hour act of legal sabotage can only be called malicious."
(Tacoma News Tribune 9/17/1996 Page # A-10)

(Please Note: While Will Baker believes that CLEAN - Citizens for Leaders with Ethics and Accountability Now - performed an important public service by bringing this legal action, Will is not, never has been, and never will be a member of CLEAN. Many CLEAN "leaders?" and CLEAN members have stated that they believe that "... in order to effectively fight the government and the ‘Tribune’ you have to use the same tactics they use...". However, historically speaking, the" fight fire with fire" approach has been disavowed by all the truly great (and successful) activists such as Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez.

Furthermore, CLEAN has been caught by Will Baker:

• A. Posting an article on their web site that falsely listed Will Baker as the author.

• B. Manufacturing evidence to win a change of venue court hearing and

• C. Sending out reports to the public that are written in such a way as to mislead a person to believe that work that Will Baker has done in the community was actually done by CLEAN.

Fact #26. Thursday, October 31, 1996. Susan Coffey, a former publicly elected Metro Parks Board member, was assaulted by a 275 pound election worker Billy Joe Arends at the Pierce County warehouse located at 3009 S. 36th St., Tacoma. (according to state law, the public must be allowed to watch election workers handle ballots, RCW 29.54.025)

Fact #27. Tuesday, November 5, 1996. Citizens of Tacoma and Pierce County vote on eight proposed amendments to the Pierce County Charter (the constitution for Pierce County). Most of the proposed amendments had to do with making government more accountable to citizens and increasing the voting rights of citizens. Pierce Country Auditor Cathy Pearsall-Stipek mailed out a voters' pamphlet that contained statements written in favor of passage of the amendments and against passage of the amendments. However, she did not print the text of these amendments. This violates RCW 29.81A.040. Stipek then appointed her husband to the committee to write statements against passage of amendments.

(Please Note: RCW 29.81A.040 clearly states that the next of all ballots measures are to be printed in the voter’s pamphlet so that voters do not have to take the word of the people that write the statements for passage of a ballot measure or against passage of a ballot measure; instead, voters are to also have the opportunity to be able to read the measures for themselves.

Basically, by withholding information that the law says is to be made available to voters in the voter’s pamphlet and then naming her spouse to committees to write statements in the voter’s pamphlet that was specifically designed to persuade voters to vote a certain way on certain ballot issues, a reasonable person could make a strong argument that Stipek used her office to try to influence the outcome of the election.)

Fact #28. Tuesday, December 3, 1996. Will Baker testifies at Tacoma City Council meeting during "Citizens' Open Forum" that RCW 29.81A.040 clearly states that the text of all ballot measures are to be provided for voters so that voters do not have to take the word of the people that write the statements for or against; instead, voters can read the measures for themselves. Will then asked why no one on the current council was concerned about an obvious violation of election law during the Tuesday, Nov. 5, 1996 election?

Fact #29. Tuesday, December 3, 1996. Mayor Ebersole replied, "Will, could you try to direct your comments to issues that are somewhat tangentially related to the business of the Tacoma City Council." Apparently, having elections within the guidelines of state law is not something that concerns the City Council.

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