Kessler defends bill to tape secret meetings in talk before Port Angeles chamber
By Brian Gawley, Peninsula Daily News
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Her promise during a speaking engagement before the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce was made despite opposition from a Clallam County commissioner and Port Angeles city councilwoman.
Kessler, D-Hoquiam and one of three North Olympic Peninsula state lawmakers, was addressing the chamber's weekly luncheon meeting at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant.
After discussing the recent legislative session, including the state ferry system and its new director, Paula Hammond, Kessler said:
"Now I want to talk to the elected officials."
In the 2008 legislative session, Kessler — who is also House majority leader — sponsored House Bill 3292 which was killed by enormous opposition from local government officials before it ever came to a vote on the floor.
HB3292 would have required local governments to tape their executive sessions and keep the recordings for two years.
If credible evidence, supported by a legal declaration or affidavit, was presented that an open meetings law violation occurred during a closed-door session, a judge would review the tape in private.
If an open meetings act violation was found, only the offending section of the tape would be released.
Open meetings act
Kessler said she tries to ensure the state's open public meetings act is followed everywhere, from the state government down to the smallest cities.
"The preamble to the state's open public records and open public meetings act states, 'Government is there for the people.'
"We have a right to know what they are doing," she said.
Kessler cited the Port of Seattle giving its outgoing executive director a lavish retirement package in an executive session as one of the abuses that prompted proposed state legislation.
Without an audiotape, there was no way for the Port of Seattle's commissioners to prove they didn't do anything wrong, Kessler said, adding that agency now tapes its executive sessions.
She, Attorney General Rob McKenna and State Auditor Brian Sonntag didn't explain well enough that the bill is not just good for the public, it's good for public officials as well, Kessler told the chamber audience of about 120.
Large opposition
"It was such a miserable vote [in committee]. I was able to get it to the Rules Committee, but I had no support for it," Kessler said.
Tacoma and Seattle passed resolutions in support of the bill, but other governments were calling their legislators telling them not to support it, she said.
"I had no idea they were doing such nefarious things in executive sessions," Kessler said.
But Clallam County Commissioner Steve Tharinger objected to the whole process of people challenging executive sessions, including the appeals.
Kessler replied that Sonntag had noted 460 violations of the open public meetings act in executive sessions — and those were just the ones that other people in those meetings reported.
Port Angeles City Councilwoman Karen Rogers said most of those were errors regarding the clerical recording of the correct section of the open meetings act.
"All 460?" Kessler said.
"We'll chat," Rogers said.
"It's going to pass," Kessler replied about her bill.
State ferry system
Kessler also said the state's ferry system has suffered from "decades of benign neglect," but she has hope that newly appointed Transportation Secretary Hammond can turn things around.
Kessler is not on the transportation committee but got involved in the ferry issue, she said, because of problems on the Keystone-Port Townsend route, whose communities rely heavily on that ferry run.
The 80-year-old Steel Electric-class ferries that plied that route were pulled from service by Hammond on Nov. 20 after severe rusting was found throughout the hull of three of the four boats.
Kessler said she went to a Todd Shipyards dry dock in Seattle and saw the condition of the Steel Electric ferries for herself.
"Trust me, you didn't want to know you'd been in those boats," she told the chamber crowd.
They had a new coat of paint over severely rusted hulls, Kessler said.
"You had an 80-year-old boat with a 60-year lifespan. They needed to come out," she said.
Washington State Ferries is rebidding a project to build a smaller model based on the leased Steilacoom II now making the Port Townsend-Keystone route.
In an interview Monday afternoon, Kessler sounded optimistic when discussing Hammond, who replaced Doug MacDonald as transportation secretary last July.
"Now Paula Hammond, she is straightforward and very communicative. I talk to her more than I talk to my sister," Kessler said.
"I have great hope for Paula Hammond. She's accessible, a problem-solver, nothing like [MacDonald]," Kessler said.
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached at 360-417-3532 or brian.gawley@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: April 07. 2008 9:00PM