Parks department head Tim Gallagher has spent nearly three of the past six weeks traveling to conferences at taxpayer expense—a total bill, including conference fees, flights, and hotels, of more than $7,000, records provided by the parks department confirm. That includes his recent junket to Australia, which cost the city $2,837. (He took a deputy, Recreation Division Director Sue Goodwin, along with him to Australia, bringing the total cost of that trip to around $6,000, as KOMO first reported.) Gallagher also took trips to Palm Springs, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.

And as we reported today, Gallagher put his Magnolia house on the market back in October, with an asking price of $1.3 million.

Last October, PubliCola broke the news that Gallagher was fined $300 by the city's ethics and elections commission for using his position to obtain a permit for his wedding in a part of Discovery Park that is off-limits to the general public. More recently, he was in the news for issuing a total ban on smoking in parks, then reversing it one day later.