This editorial ran in the Sunday edition of The Seattle Times:
State Sen. Don Benton for environmental post? Really?
Putting Sen. Don Benton in charge of environmental review is like using a paper shredder to edit a document.
But that’s apparently the point for the two Republican Clark County commissioners, who suddenly last week picked Benton, a longtime Republican legislator from Vancouver, to reform what one commissioner called the “job-killing bureaucracy” of the county’s Department of Environmental Services.
The job’s minimum qualifications included eight years of management experience overseeing “complex environmental services,” and gave strong preference for a master’s degree in a related field.
Benton, who most recently worked as an advertising consultant, has neither.
But he does have deep roots in Republican partisan politics. That was apparently enough for the commissioners to halt a job hunt before it had really begun and to pick Benton for a job that likely will pay more than $100,000 a year. No other candidates were interviewed.