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REARDON OUT Not so many years ago, Aaron Reardon seemed to be one of the rising stars in Washington Democratic politics, maybe a prospect for governor or some other higher office, after his move from the legislature to becoming executive of the state's third-largest, and one of its key political swings, Snohomish. How the tides turn ... He has been in recent months, as the headlines say, "embattled," and this morning he said he will resign as executive at the end of May. As the Everett Herald summed, "He was investigated last year by the Washington State Patrol, and never charged, for allegations of misusing county money during an extramarital affair. He is the focus of a state Public Disclosure Commission investigation into using county resources on political campaigns, and he has been subject to repeated efforts by a Gold Bar blogger to recall him from office." Not pretty, and maybe not recoverable (politically) at this point. And Snohomish politics, often shaky, looks about to rumble and roll again.
ALBERTSONS REDUX Looks as if the people who will be running the New Albertsons supermarket operations (evidently being spun from SuperValu) may be the people who were running Albertsons long ago, when it was an independent operation. That may be helpful for the operation, if these executives learn from recent history.