November 20, 2019  Sandy Robson

Remember former state representative Jay Rodne, who is the co-founder of Pac Rim Bridges LLC, the business that he and state senator Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) founded in November of 2017?

That’s the business under which Mr. Rodne and Sen. Ericksen registered as foreign agents last year, and are being paid (a $500,000 annual contract) to consult/lobby on behalf of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Well, on Friday, November 15, 2019, I submitted a complaint to Washington state’s Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) against Jay Rodne. The link to my complaint is: https://www.pdc.wa.gov/browse/cases/60235

Below is an excerpt from my PDC complaint:

“To the best of my abilities, I cannot find any evidence to substantiate that the purpose for Mr. Rodne’s payment of $200.00 using his ‘Friends for Jay Rodne Surplus’ account he made to Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State, was for anything related to his stated purpose which was, ‘fees for C1.’

“However, I was able to find substantiation for the possibility that Jay Rodne may have used funds from his ‘Friends for Jay Rodne Surplus’ account to pay a $200.00 fee to register his business, PacRim Bridges LLC, with Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State.

“In reviewing Mr. Rodne’s $200.00 expenditure listed on his C4 report dated 12/11/17 for the report period 11/1/17 to 11/30/17, I am cognizant of the fact that, according to records I obtained from Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State, Mr. Rodne and Washington state Senator Doug Ericksen are listed as individual ‘ ‘Governors’ of a business named PacRim Bridges LLC which was registered with the Office of the Secretary of State on November 28, 2017. According to those records, Jay Rodne is the listed registered agent for PacRim Bridges LLC. I have attached a screenshot of the registration in Exhibit A accompanying this complaint.

“The public records recently released to me which I obtained from Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State show there was a $200.00 credit card payment made by Jay Rodne for the registration fee charged for registering the PacRim Bridges LLC business with the Office of the Secretary of State. I have included a screenshot of the Certificate of Formation record in Exhibit A accompanying this complaint.

“Because of what I’ve outlined above, I believe it is possible that Jay Rodne may have used $200.00 from his ‘Friends for Jay Rodne Surplus’ account to pay Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State for the $200.00 registration fee for registering the PacRim Bridges LLC business in November of 2017.

“I request that your agency investigate this matter to determine the purpose of that $200.00 expenditure listed on the C4 ‘Cash Receipts and Expenditure’ report dated 12/11/17 for the report period 11/1/17 to 11/30/17 for Jay Rodne’s ‘Friends for Jay Rodne Surplus’ account.”

Yesterday, Nov. 19, Jay Rodne submitted a response to the PDC. In it, he acknowledged that he did, in fact, use the MasterCard credit card linked to his surplus campaign funds account to pay the $200.00 filing fee to Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State for his company, Pac Rim Bridges LLC.

However, Mr. Rodne claimed that was done “inadvertently,” as he says he has an “almost identical” personal MasterCard.

Today, I sent an email letter to the PDC responding to Mr. Rodne’s response, saying that while he claims to have “inadvertently” used a Mastercard linked to his surplus campaign account to pay the filing fee for Pac Rim Bridges LLC, it is important to note that the subsequent action he took of listing the $200.00 as having been paid on 11/27/17 for the purpose of “fees for c1” on his “Friends for Jay Rodne Surplus” account’s C4 Expenditure report dated 12/11/17, is not accurate and is untrue. I’ve attached a screenshot of my Nov. 20 response email.