Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Comment topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public comments at Pierce County meeting focus on homelessness deaths, identity theft hardships and clerk-oath concerns
Summary
During the council’s community forum, speakers urged better counting of unhoused deaths, called for temporary identification documents to speed recovery from identity theft, and alleged potential missing oaths of office in the Clerk of Superior Court; the chair said the council would follow up.
At the Pierce County Council’s Jan. 6 community forum, three members of the public urged the council to address homelessness fatalities, identity-theft recovery barriers and the administration of the clerk’s office.
Sally Perkins (District 4) asked the council to mark Homeless Persons Memorial Day by improving how the county counts and responds to deaths among people experiencing homelessness. Perkins recounted a neighbor in Hilltop who had a broken wheelchair, multiple sweeps that removed his belongings, and deteriorating health leading to an avoidable death last September. “We failed,” Perkins said, and she urged the county to organize services that meet people where they are and to do a better job of identifying and counting unhoused deaths.
Angeline Esquierdo described years of identity theft and its financial consequences, citing Federal Trade Commission and credit-bureau figures and asking the county to help victims obtain temporary identification documents while waiting weeks for replacement Social Security cards, birth certificates and driver’s licenses to avoid cascading penalties and loss of work.
Heather Benedict raised a legal-administration concern about the Pierce County Clerk of the Superior Court. Benedict said public-record searches showed an interim clerk (Julie Murray) who served roughly five months did not have a filed oath of office and questioned whether the newly confirmed clerk, Ivan Sandoval, had an oath on file. Benedict said an oath is required by Washington state law and warned that missing oaths could call into question the clerk’s legal authority to docket and manage court records. “No oath means no lawful authority,” she said. The chair replied that Council member Robert Denson had sworn in clerk Ivan Sandoval and that the council would follow up to provide documentation to Benedict.
The council did not take action on these requests during the Jan. 6 meeting but the chair pledged to follow up on the clerk-oath question and staff noted willingness to provide additional information requested by the speaker.
