Complaint against Mania prompts Port Angeles City Council to consider code of conduct

Published 12:01 am Friday, August 17, 2012

PORT ANGELES — A July 20 complaint by former Clallam County Democratic Party Vice Chair Jack Slowriver against City Councilman Max Mania has prompted the council to consider a code of ethical conduct for the city’s elected officials.

Slowriver’s complaint to the city cites incidents related to Slowriver not supporting Mania’s wife, Dale Holiday, in her bid for Port Angeles-area District 2 county commissioner in the Aug. 7 primary.

City Manager Dan Mc-Keen said a draft of the code will be ready by Tuesday and that he hopes the council can review it in a work session by Aug. 31.

He said punishment for violating the code could range from verbal admonition by a majority of the council to written censure.

The suggestion of a code came up during general discussion between staff and individual City Council members after the complaint was filed, McKeen said.

The complaint “made us realize we don’t have a proper policy in place to deal with formal complaints,” Mayor Cherie Kidd said.

“It just prompted us to take positive steps to deal with a complaint at any time.”

McKeen said the code likely will not be approved until after the council is expected to address the complaint against Mania.

Mania said Thursday in an interview that he has in the past argued for an ethics policy.

“That’s the irony of this,” he said. “I was an advocate for a clear, strong policy.”

The incidents Slowriver cited in the complaint revolve around a widely disseminated June 26 email titled “Clallam County Joint Endorsement” in which she criticized Holiday and expressed support for another Democrat in the primary, Patti Morris, and for the incumbent commissioner, Mike Chapman, who said he had no party preference when he ran in the five-person Aug. 7 primary.

Top vote-getters

Chapman and Republican Maggie Roth were the two top vote-getters in the primary and will be on the Nov. 6 general election ballot.

Slowriver, who was then party vice chair, wrote in the email that Holiday “lacks the temperament and stability needed to appropriately represent our community.”

Slowriver left the Clallam Democrats when she moved to King County.

She remains the Port Angeles-area service director for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest.

She said Mania talked with her about the endorsement email in a July 2 telephone conversation.

Slowriver said Mania suggested his actions on the City Council that supported issues of concern to her “indebted” her to him and that Slowriver’s support of Holiday “was expected.”

“I was greatly disturbed by the tone and content of the conversation,” Slowriver said.

Fourth of July parade

She said her concerns escalated when she walked by Holiday and Mania shortly before the city’s Fourth of July parade.

She said Mania yelled “f— you” to her twice and called her a “backstabber,” she said.

“I am concerned that Councilman Mania believes in a type of political horse trading that is unethical and that his behavior is completely unprofessional and unbecoming of a city councilperson,” Slowriver said in her complaint to the City Council.

In an interview with the PDN, Slowriver said she sent the June 26 endorsement email as a private person, not an officer of the county Democratic Party, and did not write or transmit it using party resources.

In an eight-page statement (with 12 pages of supporting documents) he delivered to the PDN, Mania said Slowriver’s June 26 email contained “lies and slanderous statements” about Holiday.

Mania said that during his telephone conversation with Slowriver, he “reminded” her that he actively supported her campaign when she ran unsuccessfully for hospital commissioner in 2011.

“In sum, I recounted the many ways that I felt Dale and I had been personally and professionally supportive of her and then asked her, in light of all that, how she could have sent out such a poisonous email about Dale,” he said.

‘Private conversation’

Mania admitted cursing twice at Slowriver and calling her a “backstabber” two days later in downtown Port Angeles shortly before the start of the Fourth of July parade.

The language was “used in a private conversation and never intended for public consumption,” he said, apologizing “if the language I used was offensive to anyone.”

He added that he was “sorry this whole ugly and unnecessary matter was foisted on the city.

“It is all very regrettable, and those responsible should be ashamed.”

Mania said Thursday that he was not acting as a City Council member during the Fourth of July exchange with Slowriver and that no one else heard the conversation.

“You don’t give up your First Amendment rights just because you were elected to office,” he added.

Mania said there was also tension with Slowriver over a personal matter.