Auburn police say Virginia Haugen conceded at first she might have known who trespassed onto the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad trestle over Auburn Way South and hung up a sign on July 4.
But police say the Auburn City councilwoman denied numerous times in her first interview at City Hall on July 7 that she had never seen that sign before. It was only the next day, police claim, when Haugen saw that they had a copy of the invoice from the sign company bearing her name and showing that she had ordered and picked it up, that she admitted her own role.
“All right you got me, I lied,” an investigating officer wrote of Haugen’s response in the police incident report. When officers asked why her why she had lied, she replied that she wanted to keep the people involved out of trouble.
That is the police account of a matter that has Haugen facing a single charge of obstructing a police investigation. The Auburn Reporter obtained the report through a Freedom of Information request filed with the City of Auburn. Obstructing a police investigation is a gross misdemeanor in state law and Auburn’s code, carrying a maximum penalty of one year in jail and/or a $5,000 fine.
Haugen pleaded innocent Aug. 28 in Auburn Municipal Court. Her next court appearance is 8:30 a.m., Sept. 16. The City of Tacoma’s Prosecutor’s Office is handling the case for Auburn.
The controversy centers on a 4-by-3 foot, corrugated cardboard sign reading, “Will the last business to leave downtown … Please turn off the lights,” that briefly hung on the BNSF trestle before city employees removed it the same afternoon.
As Haugen has told the Reporter, several local businessmen, unhappy with “the mess the city has made of the downtown,” had first discussed the sign idea last fall. One of them later gave her money to pay for two signs. She said she ordered them, used the cash given her to pay for them and picked them up.
Haugen did not put up the sign or trespass onto the BNSF property.
Revelations in the report included:
• A column that appeared in The Auburn Reporter with words nearly identical to the wording of the sign lead police to the Auburn Sign shop at 4208 Auburn Way N. and to the tell-tale invoice. That column was written by a woman whose husband worked in the shop. The man checked his in-house records and found that Haugen had ordered the signs March 7, paid $108.90 in cash for them and picked them up March 10. His wife remembered the wording on the sign, but thought it was an ecological statement for businesses to turn off their lights to conserve energy. Neither she nor her husband had ever met Haugen before that day and had nothing to do with the incident.
• When police pulled Haugen out of a Public Works meeting at City Hall July 7 to talk to her about what had happened, her first reaction was, “Am I in trouble or something, am I under arrest?” She later told police her first thought had been that a family member had been injured, but her initial reaction aroused police suspicions.
• Haugen repeatedly referred to the incident as an unfunny “prank.” Police claim they asked her at least five times if she had ever seen such a sign and she replied, “No, never.”
• When officers suggested that as council member she should be more willing to provide information, Haugen said she would not do so except under threat of subpoena. She allegedly stated that the officers had no right to question her conduct, only fellow council members.
