Dori: Economic meltdown — unless you’re Ed Murray and his husband

In the midst of this economic crisis, there are at least two people who are doing fantastically well.

Former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray — who resigned when at least five men accused him of sexual abuse — and Ed Murray’s husband Michael Shiosaki.

This week it was announced that another 170,000 Washingtonians have lost their jobs. That brings the total to a half-million since the coronavirus struck.

But don’t worry about Murray and Shiosaki. This week, the City of Bellevue announced that Shiosaki has been hired as its new Parks and Community Services Director.

The job — as of 2018 — has a salary range up to $198,000/year. I’m sure a powerful Democratic party insider like Shiosaki is at the very top of that range.

Now, should Shiosaki be responsible for the alleged sins of his husband? You decide.

I found the accusations against Ed Murray to be incredibly compelling. So did most of the Seattle City Council which demanded his resignation after years of protecting him. I personally would find it repulsive to be married to that man.

When Murray dared his accusers to sue him, saying he was broke, Shiosaki sat silent. Then, based on a listener tip, the Dori Monson Show discovered that, along with their shared Capitol Hill home, Murray/Shiosaki also share a vacation home on the Peninsula. From my April 2017 story:

When asked what was at stake with the sex-abuse allegations, Murray said that his husband Michael Shiosaki owns their Capitol Hill home.

‘And so, in that sense, [Michael] won’t lose his house,’ Murray said. ‘I have no assets, I have no investments and if I lose, everything I have done, everything I have worked for, the most important thing to me — my integrity — it’ll be gone. My life as I know it will be over at 62. I’ll be labeled an unemployable pedophile.’

He has nothing? No assets, no investments?

After a tip from one of our listeners, we went to the King County Assessor’s Office, and we discovered that the house was purchased by Shiosaki and Murray in 1996. I had sources in the real-estate industry do a title check on that property to see if the ownership has been altered to remove Murray from the title.

It has not. Ed Murray is a part-owner, and presumably, a half-owner of that Capitol Hill house.

Given that Washington is a community property state, it would follow that this house is owned by both Murray and his husband.

When Ed Murray claimed all he has left was a “tiny pension,” Shiosaki sat silent. That “tiny pension”? Ed Murray will make $116,000 a year on his pension for the rest of his life. And now his husband, because of his Democratic Party insider status in the midst of the worst economic crisis of our times, has gotten yet another government job that likely pays close to $200,000.

While most of our state’s citizens are dealing with financial disaster, the mayor who resigned because of sexual abuse accusations and his husband will be making over $300,000 a year, all off the backs of the taxpayers.

This is as stomach-churning as government cronyism gets.

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