Newspaper sues Fire District 13

La Conner Weekly News has filed a lawsuit against Fire District 13, accusing the district of repeatedly violating open government laws.

Filed Thursday, March 6 in Skagit County Superior Court, the lawsuit seeks relief for actions by the fire district staff that this newspaper alleges were attempts to thwart its coverage by withholding public documents, delaying release of documents and possibly destroying documents after the newspaper asked for them.

Further, the lawsuit alleges that fire district commissioners held closed session meetings on several occasions for reasons that are not allowed under the state’s Open Public Meetings Act.

According to Michele Earl-Hubbard of Allied Law Group in Seattle, the firm representing the newspaper, the state’s Public Records Act mandates the fire district to promptly turn over records when requested. The alleged stonewalling began the day our reporter asked for copies of lawyer bills generated by an investigation of then district Secretary Deborah McFarlane’s harassment complaints against Commissioner Doug Avery.

Commissioners Chuck Hedlund and Jim Grove, who at that time comprised the majority vote on the three-member board, released a nine-page “Confidential Investigative Report” based on interviews with McFarlane, Hedlund, Grove and Fire Chief Roy Horn and his wife Maggie Horn, the district’s administrative assistant. The report was released on October 15, the day before the ballots were mailed out for the November election.

Grove was seeking re-election. It was apparent that if he was defeated, the dynamics of the three-man board could shift and put Commissioner Avery in the new board majority.

The report Grove and Hedlund released upheld all of McFarlane’s accusations of harassment and even stated that she and Maggie Horn were afraid of Avery.

Everyone interviewed in the report against Avery was campaigning for Grove at the time. And that’s what got our attention.

We wanted to know how much taxpayer money the district spent to attack Avery during an election that had the potential to change his status on the three-man board from odd man out to a member of a new majority.

We requested copies of the lawyer bills three times, and each time we were told they didn’t exist. We were then told that the district’s insurance company handles such matters. When we asked for a copy of the insurance claim, we were told there was none.

To find out who was paying the lawyers, we asked for all communications pertaining to the McFarlane-Avery matter. About a month later, we received nearly 200 pages of documents consisting of multiple copies of our own emails and letters and multiple copies of meeting minutes. Another huge installment that arrived in January consisted almost entirely of meeting minutes and agendas we had requested.

Grove was defeated in the Nov. 5 election by farmer Arne Fohn, who was set to take office in January.

On Nov. 12, the board went into a closed session. When they emerged, Commissioner Hedlund and outgoing Commissioner Grove approved employment contracts for McFarlane and Maggie Horn to give them each two years of back pay for vacation, bereavement and sick leave and guaranteeing them each 12 months pay if they were fired. Avery voted against that deal.

The day those contracts were approved, with several copies of them around the table and a working copy machine in the next room, the newspaper asked for copies. McFarlene said to come back in two days.

When we came back, the district refused to provide the contracts. The reason given was that the provisions for back pay for time off for the part-time employees who previously had no vacation time proved to be illegal. Also, we were told the contracts we requested were to be destroyed.

The newspaper believes that the district racked up three violations of state law on the contract issue: holding an illegal closed meeting, withholding public records, and destruction of public records while a request was pending.

In January, after Arne Fohn took office, and about three months after we first requested the lawyer bills concerning McFarlane’s allegations against Avery, the district turned over some of its attorney invoices.

An invoice dated Sept. 30, 2013 had a hand-written date indicating it wasn’t received until Nov. 14; an invoice dated Oct. 31, 2013 was marked with a hand-written “received” date of Dec. 16.

The invoices also show that the district ran up more than $700 in attorney bills in October having its lawyer help craft responses — mostly denials — to our records requests.

The State Attorney General’s Office, the Washington Coalition for Open Government and several other agencies provide free training and advice to government bodies on the state’s open government laws.

Should the newspaper prevail in this case, the district could be required to pay many thousands of dollars in fines. The law allows penalties of $100 per day per document for each day of improper delay or denial of access. Attorney bills on both sides are sure to exceed the fines.

This newspaper has no desire to punish the district’s taxpayers with huge penalties and costs for lawbreaking by some of the district’s staff members.

Therefore, our settlement offer requests that the commissioners and staff receive regular training in open government laws, stop withholding public documents and pay $24,500, most of which will pay our attorney bills and court costs.

Should the district accept the settlement, the newspaper would end up with $3,750, which we will donate as follows: La Conner Boys & Girls Club, $1,000: La Conner new library building fund, $500; the town’s fund to develop the new waterfront park, $500; La Conner volunteer firefighters, $500; Washington Newspaper Publishers Associa-tion Foundation fund for reporter internships, $500.

The newspaper would keep $750 to help pay for wasted reporter time, copying fees they charged us for hundreds of pages of meeting minutes and multiple duplicates of documents that included our own emails and records requests, and future copying fees.