No 'rewind' for Spokane mayor

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Mayor Jim West, a former Boy Scout executive and sheriff's deputy, says he no longer engages in gay sex and has stopped visiting Internet chat rooms.

"I wish there was a rewind button," he told The Associated Press. "Basically, that's what I'm asking the public for: a second chance."

However, polls indicate a second chance isn't likely when voters decide Tuesday whether to recall West from office.

He was caught in a newspaper's sting operation in which he offered a city job to what he thought was an 18-year-old man he met in a gay chat room on the Internet.

The young man was actually a ruse created by The Spokesman- Review to track the mayor's online activities. The newspaper has published more than 175 articles, editorials and columns accusing West of pedophilia and of using his city-owned computer to look for dates with men in cities he planned to visit.

West, 54, has acknowledged having relationships with young men but denies doing anything illegal. No charges have been filed, but the FBI is investigating.

Polls indicated 60 percent of registered city voters would vote to recall the once-powerful Republican state senate leader.

"People just want to get it over with and move on," said Lance LeLoup, a Washington State University political science professor. "Spokane has been ready to move on since within a couple of weeks of this thing breaking."

Ballots for the mail-only special election were sent out Nov. 18 to more than 110,000 registered city voters. More than 47,000 have already been returned.

Contributions to West's Committee for Spokane's Progress have fallen far short of the $150,000 he sought.

The committee has raised about $19,000 from lobbyists, developers, friends and family members. About $12,000 of that went for radio commercials touting the mayor's record in office. He owes lawyers $85,000 for an unsuccessful state supreme court challenge of the recall.

On Friday, he ran a half-page ad in The Spokesman-Review asking voters to vote against the recall: "I have made personal mistakes, and ask forgiveness for those but I have never done anything to harm our city."

Pro-recall advocates run a "Recall Jim West" Web page and have raised about $7,500, enough for a television spot accusing West of embarrassing the city, being bad for business and degrading its youth.

If the recall ends West's 25-year political career, he would become the first Spokane elected city official to be ousted from office. City Council President Dennis Hession would become mayor pro tem until the council appoints someone to serve out the remaining two years of West's term.

Spokesman-Review Editor Steven Smith said the newspaper was simply doing its job: exposing the conduct of a public official who was abusing his office.

"It's a very odd set of circumstances, but he is a politician who is in a political contest who can't really boast about his record," Smith said.

The mayor, a conservative Republican in a nonpartisan office, lost the support of both the state and local GOP organizations, which joined the Spokane City Council and Chamber of Commerce in calling for his resignation.

A subsequent investigation by a lawyer hired by the City Council found that West violated city computer policies and broke state law by trolling a gay chat room from his office.

LeLoup said the mayor's sexual preference is not the core issue in the election.

"What a lot of people see is hypocrisy and the degree of revelations of the material on the mayor's computer," LeLoup said.

Spokane has a history of turning out its mayors after one term and isn't likely to undergo any upheaval because of the recall, LeLoup said.

"This recall is about an individual and how he conducted himself, not how liberal or conservative Spokane is," LeLoup said.

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