PORT ANGELES — A three-person city ethics board is stepping through uncharted territory as it reviews the first-ever complaint against a Port Angeles City Council member — Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd.
“Basically, we have a blank page in front of us,” panel Chairman Frank Prince Jr. said Friday.
“We are flying blindly, finding our own way through this.
“We are taking it one step at a time with nothing to guide us but our own thoughts and our legal representation from Mr. [Bill] Bloor,” Prince added, referring to the city attorney.
Three complaints have been filed against council members who in December approved continuing the practice of water fluoridation.
The complaints say council members behaved unethically and disrespectfully at council meetings where the topic dominated public comment sessions.
In response to the complaints, the City Council has formed three ethics panels from a pool of volunteers, all private citizens.
Each on its own
Each of the panels can decide its own procedures for fulfilling its mission, according to Bloor.
The ethics ordinance approved in November 2012 directs that panels first must determine if the alleged facts in the complaint are sufficient for review, decide to hold a hearing or hire an investigator at taxpayers’ expense to collect the facts, then deliberate, Bloor said.
“The details of how they do that are pretty much left up to them,” he said.
“They are the ones to decide, in particular instances, how they want to proceed.”
The panel made up of Prince, Grant Meiner and Danetta Rutten met for the first time March 8 to consider a complaint against Kidd for her actions at a Feb. 2 City Council meeting.
After more than two hours, the panel went back to square one by allowing the complainant, Marolee Smith, to submit a revised version of her grievances originally filed Feb. 4.
Meet again Thursday
It will meet again at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
The panel will watch a video of the Feb. 2 council meeting that is the focus of Smith’s complaint against Kidd.
Prince said no public input will be taken, nor will ethics board members discuss Smith’s complaint.
“All we are going to do on Thursday, March 24, is watch a movie, take notes and decide when we are going to meet again,” he said.
“It couldn’t be simpler.”
He said his goal for the committee is to meet again to deliberate on the complaint the week of March 27.
“From my perspective, I’d like to move the process along,” Prince said.
Meiner, a former Clallam County Superior Court judge, said the rules of evidence found in court proceedings do not apply to ethics board proceedings.
Quasi-judicial
“This is a quasi-judicial proceeding,” he said Friday.
“That would mean the rules that are usually applicable in courtroom procedures are relaxed.
“It doesn’t provide a structure, but in such an informal proceeding, I’m not sure it’s all that critical.”
Attorney involvement
Attorneys, though, will be involved in the hearing of the second complaint, which was filed Feb. 19 against Kidd and Councilman Dan Gase by Our Water, Our Choice!, an anti-fluoridation group.
The inclusion of attorneys delayed proceedings.
A meeting of the panel — made up of Ken Williams, Jerry Dean and William Yucha — that was slated for last Tuesday was postponed after Kidd and Gase hired Issaquah municipal lawyer Mike Kenyon to defend them, at $345 an hour and at taxpayers’ expense.
Gase and Kidd opted for legal representation after attorney Peter Perron of Port Angeles notified city officials he would represent the anti-fluoridation group.
And Perron himself has filed a complaint against Bloor regarding actions concerning the fluoridation issue. City officials have said the complaint filed Feb. 24 will be independently reviewed, since the ethics ordinance applies only to elected or appointed officials.
A third ethics complaint against elected officials was filed March 1. Smith filed the complaint against Mayor Patrick Downie.
After the three council members named in complaints recused themselves, the other members of the council — Brad Collins, Lee Whetham, Michael Merideth and Sissi Bruch — chose Ken Williams, Diana Tschimperle and Rutten to serve on the ethics panel reviewing the complaint against Downie. Rutten now is serving on two panels.
A time for that panel to meet has not been set.
Possible action
The ethics boards that will hear the complaints will recommend action to the City Council.
The panels can recommend:
■ Issuance of a cease-and-desist order to the council member that the person can seek review of from Clallam County Superior Court.
■ Removal of the council member from boards, commissions, committees, task forces or other multimember bodies, or from the position of mayor or deputy mayor.
■ A verbal admonition that would be put on the record in council-meeting minutes.
■ A letter of reprimand that would be included in the minutes.
■ A public censure, or condemnation, of the council member.
Edmonds, another Washington city with a code of conduct for council members, does not have ethics boards to hear complaints, said Kristiana Johnson, City Council president.
“They felt it was going to be expensive and also that it would allow for, it would provide an opportunity for, citizens with conflicts to air them in public,” she said Friday.
“We have some citizens that have grievances that go back to 2007,” Johnson said.
“We tried to explain that we couldn’t go backward, that we would only go forward with our code of conduct and ethics policy.”
Johnson said that while no process is set forth in the Edmonds municipal code to hear complaints, the City Council would likely decide on a complaint’s validity.
“It’s not so much for the citizens as it is [a set of] guidelines for elected officials and members of boards and commissions,” she added.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
