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City rejects settlement offer after losing public records suit
MONROE - The Monroe City Council voted last week to not accept a nearly $200,000 settlement offer to end a three-year public records lawsuit the city recently lost in the state Court of Appeals.
In addition to the lawsuit’s heavy cost, the city is facing a $293,000 deficit in next year’s budget that will need to be closed by year’s end. It is unclear how the city plans to pay for the settlement.
“I do not have information to provide at this time,” finance director Carol Grey wrote in an e-mail last week.
Councilman Mitch Ruth said last week that he was told a number of times by city attorney Phil Olbrechts that the city’s insurance pool, Washington Cities Insurance Authority, would not cover penalties and attorney fees associated with this lawsuit. The city has spent nearly $77,000 to defend itself in court. Ruth was the only council member last week who wanted to accept the settlement offer.
“There were personal agendas and politics at foot that blocked the ability to resolve this at the beginning,” Ruth said. “The issue should have never gotten this far,” he also said.
If the city’s insurance pool won’t pick up the tab, then that leaves the general fund, which is stressed because of the economy.
Ruth continues to question the advice the city is getting on the lawsuit. Last year, he questioned the quality of the city’s legal advice after an open government panel, which included the state attorney general, essentially scolded the city’s handling of the records request that prompted the lawsuit.
Mayor Donnetta Walser said she plans to question whether city attorney Olbrechts should be advising the city on the matter because of his involvement in the controversy that led to the lawsuit. Olbrechts did not handle the lawsuit in court for the city, but he advised the council on the settlement offer at last week’s council meeting, to Walser’s surprise.
The offer was discussed behind closed doors.
The lawsuit, filed by Meredith Mechling, stems from actions taken by then-Councilman Chad Minnick to weaken the city’s ethics ordinance. In 2005, Minnick wanted to slip through a significant vote on the city’s ordinance, a politically charged issue at the time. The move to disband the ethics board without public notice prompted Mechling’s records request for officials’ e-mails related to the issue.
She wanted to see what was going on behind the scenes that could explain why the vote went down a month before it was scheduled to and why the public wasn’t notified.
The records revealed that over a one-week period Minnick, then-city administrator Jim Southworth and city attorney Olbrechts were e-mailing back and forth about how the city could bump up the vote, as requested by Minnick, and minimize public outcry.
Some of those e-mails were withheld from Mechling by the city under the 2004 state Supreme Court Hangartner ruling, which broadened the attorney-client privilege exemption under the Public Disclosure Act.
One of those e-mails was from attorney Olbrechts. The e-mail dated March 4, 2005 reads: “The continued meeting doesn’t contain any notice of a new ethics ordinance (a new one that calls for the elimination of the board). It’s usually OK to amend an agenda to add new items, but courts are likely to draw the line at the adoption of ordinances that aren’t listed on the agenda. It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine people making an issue of the fact that the ethics ordinance was amended again without any public notice. The city should either tack on a special meeting on Wednesday, for an adoption of an ethics ordinance (this only requires 24-hour notice), or hold off until March 16. The ethics board can’t meet until staff provides notice...The council could direct staff to not provide notice for the meeting until the ordinance issue is resolved March 16. Obviously you don’t want the council disbanding the ethics board right after they get a complaint against someone. Remember Nixon and his special prosecutor? So, we should get this done quickly.”
The e-mail was sent to Minnick and Southworth.
Another e-mail sent later that week from Southworth to Olbrechts reads: “Phil (Olbrechts) Good grief! How’s that for an agenda? I know it’s not ‘right’ but the best we could do, considering.”
The subject of that e-mail was the meeting agenda. For possibly the first time, the council’s agenda was abbreviated to disguise the ethics vote.
At the time of her records request, Mechling had no idea that e-mail existed because the city completely withheld it and failed to disclose it had withheld the e-mail on a redaction log as required by law.
The proposed settlement included $109,000 for attorney fees and $83,950 in penalties, for a total of $192,950.
A council member told the Tribune that the council was in favor of taking a chance with a lower court judge who would likely award a smaller settlement. The lower court was more favorable to the city than the appeals court, the council member said.
The council member is not supposed to talk about discussions that take place in executive session.
Olbrechts did not return a call for comment.
By JESSICA SPARKS
Published Nov. 18, 2009