PORT TOWNSEND — The chairman of the Jefferson County Democrats has called for one sheriff’s candidate to condemn campaign tactics against another.
A letter signed by George Yount, county Democratic chairman, to David Stanko, who is running for sheriff against Wendy Davis in the Nov. 4 general election, was put on the party’s website and emailed to party members.
The letter, posted Sept. 25, refers to “character assassination campaigning,” saying, “It has come to our attention that supporters of your candidacy have recently stepped up their anonymous and ongoing smear tactics against Wendy Davis, our endorsed Democratic candidate for sheriff.
“You must by now be aware of the emails that have been circulating. . . . We appeal to you to publicly condemn such activities, and to do all you can to put a stop to them.”
Yount, who characterized email and social media campaign messages against Davis as “a smear campaign, said among the most egregious comments is a reference to Davis’ son, who committed suicide in 2007.
One Facebook account, posted Sept. 25 on Edeltraut Lessing’s Facebook page, said, “The below information are excerpts from Wendy Davis’s Bremerton and Poulsbo Police Department personnel files acquired under the “Freedom of Information Act.”
Lessing, who is married to Bob Sokol of Port Townsend, said that she did not originate the document.
“I had some facebook addresses in this space however I cannot out my friends and since I was born in Nazi Germany I am particularly sensitive to this,” she said in an email.
In regard to the suicide, the post says in part, “on 10/30/2007, Wendy Davis’s 20-year-old son Mathew Davis committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. It is suspected that Mathew used Wendy Davis’s handgun. It appears Wendy did nothing to prevent Mathew from committing this tragic act.”
In Davis’ personnel file is a request for emergency withdrawal of deferred compensation funds after the suicide of her son. The document does not specify the weapon.
Davis said that the handgun used by her son belonged to her husband and was secured in the garage of the house, to which the family had recently moved.
“It was not my service revolver that my son used, that gun was kept secured in my locker,” Davis said.
“If it had been my gun don’t you think it would have been in my personnel file?”
The Facebook posting is a long account that goes into complaints, suspicions, and personnel action at both Bremerton — where Davis worked from September 1995 to October 2011, leaving as a sergeant — and in Poulsbo, where she began work in November 2011 as deputy chief and left in April 2013 as a sergeant.
It includes two recommendations for Davis’ termination from the Poulsbo department. Mayor Becky Erickson intervened and Davis was not terminated.
The account also refers to an affair between Davis and a sergeant she supervised as deputy chief. The two told the chief and Davis agreed to a demotion to sergeant.
Stanko, who filed as a Democrat but who has since said he plans to change to independent, responded last week to the open letter from Yount during an interview with the Peninsula Daily News.
“I am angered and saddened that people have resorted to this kind of defamation without verifiable facts,” he said.
“I have told all of my supporters to stay positive and stick to the facts, I want them to talk about me and not my opponent.”
Stanko said that he was not familiar with any of the material on Davis “aside from what I’ve read in the newspaper.”
Davis said she doesn’t believe that Stanko has nothing to do with the negative campaign material.
“It is obvious my opponent and his cronies will stoop as low as they think they need to in order to win this race,” she wrote in a Sept. 30 letter to supporters.
She turned the situation into a fundraising opportunity.
“Any amount you can squeeze out of your pocket would go a long way toward helping me fight off these scurrilous attacks.”
Stanko’s personnel files are not available.
He retired as a lieutenant from the Fullerton Police Department in 2004 after serving for 27 years.
Records are shredded five years after a person leaves the department, according to current Chief Dan Hughes.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or at leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
