The story of the financial shenanigans at Eyman's Permanent Offense, Inc. signature gathering and initiative filing outfit has garnered plenty of headlines in the Seattle media. Is there any reason to suspect there might shady dealings similar to, or even worse than, the problems at Permanent Offense at the other end of the political spectrum? The answer I found recently is yes. At least when it comes to the business ethics of PCI, a nationwide signature gathering company I gathered signatures for this Summer.

Progressive Campaign's web site (www.progcamp.com ) says to its potential clients that "Your issue has enough backing to make it to the ballot. But challenges come first: Deadlines, Regulations. Even Fraud (Author's emphasis). You need the right team to qualify," and that "We work with top quality signature gatherers to ensure a well-managed campaign. Training and motivation keep our staff directors alert against irregularities and Fraud (Author's emphasis again), a further safeguard for the integrity of the petitions." When it comes to fraud they forget to mention PCI's record of not paying their signature gatherers for the last week or two of a campaign.

Signature gatherer's are overwhelmingly low-income people. Many of them are street people, or are on the verge of ending up back on the street. This is a disposable and powerless class of people and I don't doubt for one second the head of PCI Angelo Paparella is aware of this.

My brief career as a paid signature gatherer began on the morning of this past June 15. I went to a signature gatherer training session held at the temporary office PCI rented in the Fremont neighborhood. The training session was led by a man with an East Coast accent named Tom. I never have learned Tom's last name. The only thing I know about him is that his now disconnected mobile phone number had a 301 area code prefix, which is located in the northwest panhandle of Maryland. "Tom always seemed to be in a hurry and wanted nothing of any questions I might have had for him," said David Zaitzeff, another signature gatherer.

The campaigns I helped gather signatures for were the above mentioned Seattle Initiative-77, a campaign aimed at increasing funding for pre-school and childcare programs, plus the statewide Initiative-790 (www.i-790.org ), an initiative to reform the board that overseas the pension fund for Washington state's firefighters and police officers. The pay out promised to signature gatherers was 70 cents per each valid signature for I-790 and $1 for I-77. I ended up gathering about 400-500 total signatures combined for both campaigns.

Signature turn in days were Mondays. Until July 4 the campaign office was open from 9 - 5, Monday thru Friday. Pay days for signatures turned in happened the following Monday. Thursday, July 4 was the last turn in day for I-790. Tom informed me on July 4 that PCI's temporary office was closing and that signature turn ins were being moved to a nearby motel.

This is when I started to become suspicious of the entire operation. PCI's phone was disconnected. Tom was only collecting signatures and handing out fresh petitions for I-77 on Mondays and Wednesdays from Noon - 3. He was no longer giving us voter registration forms, something PCI was supposed to be doing, I later found out at the King County election's office. The final turn in day for I-77 was July 22.

Tom left town before July 22 to work on a drug law reform campaign in Ohio (www.ohiodrugreform.org). We were informed by a woman named Emma, the only Seattle resident employed by PCI I knew of, that the final signature turn in would be at the Bauhaus cafe on Capitol Hill, from Noon - 2. Using my better judgment, I didn't gather a single signature for I-77 after I turned in 108 of them to Tom at the motel on July 15.

When I arrived at Bauhaus shortly after Noon, I was met by about a dozen other signature gatherers. Emma showed up about 45 minutes late to inform us that, surprise, she had not received our checks for the July 15 turn in and that she was going to take down our names and addresses. Our checks would be mailed from PCI's California headquarters.

All hell broke loose at this point with many of the signature gatherers screaming bloody murder at Emma. One of them called the police, a waste of time in what was clearly a civil matter. Other signature gatherers were threatening to call the local newspapers and television stations. Most, if not all, of the signature gatherers took their remaining signatures to the Belltown office of another company that also worked on I-77, hoping that they could get paid for turning their remaining signatures in with this particular company. One woman PCI owed about $570 dollars was looking at loosing her lease and heading back to the shelters and streets. Another woman with $1 to her name was looking at becoming homeless again also. It was a very upsetting scene.

I gave Emma my name and address. Emma refused to give me and the other signature gatherers PCI's main office phone number. Most of the other signature gatherers were genuinely surprised that this had happened. Not me.

Neither was Melissa Dennis, a signature gatherer who was homeless at the time I met her. The same thing had happened to her during a campaign down in Eugene, Oregon in 2000. The last turn in day came and there were no checks for any of the signature gatherers. "I was owed $80. I played phone tag with PCI for a few weeks with both their Portland and corporate offices," said Dennis. "The phones for both offices were eventually disconnected and I was never paid the $80 I was owed. I gave them a second chance when I decided to gather signatures for them this Summer and then they do this again. I'm going to head down to California and file a lawsuit against them before the two year statute of limitations runs out in August."

This is when I first met David Zaitzeff. He gathered phone numbers so that we could share information with each other as we pressed our claims over the phone with PCI in Santa Monica. One of the first pieces of information Zaitzeff shared over the phone after I left Bauhaus was the name and number of a California signature gatherer who claimed he was not paid at the end of a campaign he had worked on for PCI. His name was Ryan Crenshaw and the incident in question happened in Ventura County, where he still resides, back in 1998. "I was never able to get PCI to pay me for the signatures I turned in at the end of the campaign," said Crenshaw. "They didn't even give us advance notice as to when the final turn-in day was going to be. They just pulled the campaign without informing us. Most of the other signature gatherers never got paid for that campaign."

Zaitzeff and I wrote a letter of complaint to the Attorney General (AG) for Washington State the day after the final signature turn in. We both explained what had happened and what we claimed we were owed. I was owed about $300, while Zaitzeff was owed up to $780.

I immediately called PCI's Santa Monica office the day of the final signature turn in. An office worker named Anne-Marie told me my check was being mailed immediately. I then told Anne-Marie I was planing on writing an article about my experience gathering signatures for PCI. I asked her about the case of Melissa Dennis not having been paid the $80 she claims PCI owed her on the last week of the campaign down in Eugene in 2000. I told her I would give her until the end of the week for her to get back to me about this case.

Next day after I talked to Ryan Crenshaw down in Ventura, I called PCI and spoke with Anne-Marie again. I told her about Crenshaw's claim. She became defensive. She asked me, "Isn't it a coincidence that none of these people have pressed any of their claims for the money they say they are owed?" No, not at all. This is the only comment on this matter I have ever been able to get out of PCI (Angelo Paparella has never called me back, as Anne-Marie said he would). Most people don't have a clue how they should go about pressing a claim in this kind of situation, either through the civil courts or by way of the AG's office. This quote suggests to me that PCI is fully aware that they are taking advantage of powerless people.

After playing phone tag with PCI's corporate office for a week, Zaitzeff and I both received our money a week after the last turn in day. I doubt the other signature gatherers were as lucky. We both informed PCI that we had written letters to the state AG and we forwarded letters by e-mail to PCI. As of this writing (August 5). I'm not surprised PCI paid up to Zaitzeff and me. The last thing they wanted was a cross-state AG investigation into their business practices. I can't imagine most of the other signature gatherers were as lucky as we were. It takes persistence, plus knowing what body of authority to file a complaint with to get any money out of an outfit like PCI in a situation like this.

After I found out Tom had disconnected his Maryland based mobile phone number, I heard his voice on the answering machine for PCI's Cincinnati office. I called the office August 5 and asked where Tom was. I was told by another Tom who picked up the phone that "Tom from Washington D.C." was out and about today qualifying the initiative in various counties across the state. I was told that the Columbus office might know how to reach him since he had disconnected the mobile phone number Zaitzeff had given to me. I was unable to contact the PCI's Columbus office for the purpose of getting Tom's contact information.

What I wanted to ask Tom, since the Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus office phones were all still in service on the last turn in day of August 5, was whether or not the checks for that turn in were going to distributed to the signature gatherers a week later on August 12. After all, I want to make sure, "Everybody gets paid," as Tom was fond of saying to me. I wanted to know if Tom and PCI's other full-time staffers were going to be leaving the state this week. I wanted to know if the phones to the Ohio campaign offices were going to be disconnected after today. I wanted to know if the job of giving the bad news that the final checks had not arrived next week was going to be given to a hapless local underling, like Emma here in Seattle.

There are some signature gatherers who might put their experience of not getting paid by PCI for the last week or two of a campaign behind them. Perhaps they will feel good about the volunteer labor they had done for "a good cause" as consolation for the way they were treated by PCI.

There are others who believe they were betrayed by an organization of cheap confidence tricksters and want to tell the world about it.