Washington State Jobs with Justice coalition members will offer its annual Pierce County 'Grinch of the Year' award to the Rainier School Superintendent Neil Crowley. Crowley won for:

• Shuttering services and housing for the developmentally disabled while laying off 18 line staff and hiring 7 mid-managers at the state Rainier School in Buckley. Crowley even created an “assistant to the assistant to the Superintendent” against state directive.

• Canceling the school's December bazaar and dance where the developmentally disabled clients interact with neighbors, demonstrate learned life skills, earn proceeds from hand-made goods, and bring in revenue for the school's adult training program.

• Calling off the Holiday party last year within weeks of arriving from Las Vegas to start his job – and then canceling it again this year.

• Refusing to support organized staff proposing solutions to state policies that currently cause school budget problems and that politicians use to try to close the school. Instead of giving privatized social services agencies free reign to cherry-pick the least expensive cases leaving the Rainier School to service the expensive combative clients, the state could permit the school to compete to serve more of the lower cost clients to generate more revenue. It looks like Neil would rather coddle to his bosses (Linda Rolfe, Head of Dept of Developmental Disability and ANITA DELIGHT, Region 5 Director) who hope to "drown government services in a bathtub" (to borrow a pre-Katrina phrase from Presidential advisor Grover Norquist) than to work with Rainier School staff, members of Washington Federation of State Employees Local 491.

• Signing "Scrooge" on recent memos to staff. No wonder over 500 Rainier School front line staff signed a petition of "No Confidence" in Neil Crowley to Governor Gregoire

'Grinch of the Year' candidates are nominated for doing the most harm to working families in our community. Previous winners of the award have met an untimely demise, such as former Tacoma City Councilmember Kevin Phelps, former Darigold CEO John Mueller, former US Senator Slade Gorton, former UW President Richard McCormick, and former Congressperson Newt Gingrich.

JwJ activists pledge "we'll be there," we're not scared of any Grinch. By publicly awarding the Grinch of the Year, our expectation is that Crowley's heart will grow 3 sizes bigger, as Dr. Seuss envisioned, particularly at a time when government services for the vulnerable are under attack. This year's Grinch cuts against the grain of what it means to be an American. He could show great leadership to support people in need at a time of national unease. Instead he has turned to Grinchy motives.

A surprise delegation of Jobs with Justice coalition activists presented its annual Pierce County ‘Grinch of the Year’ award to the Rainier School Superintendent Neil Crowley during holiday festivities at the Division of Developmental Disabilities Region V Office. Crowley and his peers graciously welcomed the delegation into an office conference room where managment merrymaking apparently was in full swing. The delegation announced the reasons for the award and Crowley’s peers encouraged the group to sing the Grinch song. At that point, the delegation sang in wonderful harmony:

You're a mean one, Mr. Crowley. A scrooge you really are. You sign your memos as such, ANITA says you'll go far. Mr. Crowley. You poisoned our community When you cancelled the bizarre You're bureacracy, Mr. Crowley. You laid off front line staff. Shut down housing and service, Hired mid-managers and laughed. Mr. Crowley. Linda Rolfe and you will drown quality service in a bath