— by Margie Doyle —
San Juan County, and Prosecuting Attorney Randall Gaylord are the Defendants in a lawsuit accusing them of violations against the Public Records Act.
The complaint, filed in Skagit County Superior Court on Oct. 9 states:
“This case is about elected officials and public employees conspiring to conceal improper governmental conduct from the public. Plaintiff Sheryl Albritton alleges that the actions of the Defendants have caused multiple violations of Washington State’s Public Records Act.”
The complaint states that Ms. Albritton is a professional whose business concerns land-use and building code regulations. She decided not to buy a property adjacent to her own on San Juan Island because of the existence of “burdening wetlands” on them.
In the statement of facts, the complaint further states:
2. The Plaintiff decided against purchasing Lot 9 adjacent to Albritton’s property due to existence of wetlands
3 The County erred in not requiring a wetlands permit
4 . Reports of improper permitting and construction were reported to (Washington State) Dept.. of Ecology and the San Juan County investigation begins
5. The investigating officer (Laws) files a report of improper governmental activity
6. The Prosecutor attempts to disguise involvement by county officials
7. Wetlands exist on parcel 9
8. Prosecutor Gaylord produced a report that officer Laws finds is erroneous
9. Prosecutor Gaylord produced a revised report conceding officer Laws’ criticism
10. Plaintiff requested documentation of county actions regarding the permitting and land use issues and enforcement file
11. County attempted to “sanitize” the file and misdirect plaintiff
In the section of the Complaint listing claims of the Violation of Public Records Act, Albritton’s attorney, Nicholas Power, lists 25 separate claims relating to the case before stating the Judgment sought from the court asking for the following “relief:”
1. A Declaration that the Defendants have violated the [Public Records Act]
2. In accordance with [the law], an order for San Juan County and Prosecutor Gaylord to show cause why Ms. Albritton has been denied an opportunity to inspect or copy the public records she requested.
3. An order requiring San Juan County and Prosecutor Gaylord to allow Ms. Albritton to immediately copy and inspect the requested public records.
4. As provided in [law], an award of penalties against San Juan County of $100 per day, per record, for each day that Defendants denied Ms. Albritton an opportunity to inspect or copy any non-exempt record.
5. As required under [law], an award of all costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees, incurred in connection with this action.
6. Such other relief as the Court deems just and reasonable.
When such a complaint is filed, the defendants have a limited period of time to issue a written response.
YES !!! Unfortunately the County has unlimited time, funds and backscratching chits to make things like this fade away. Once again.
Also of note in regards to this case is that the San Juan County Council summarily acquited all those involved in this issue through a written summary with no outside investigation, despite the fact that both a sitting member of the council, the County Administrator, and the Administrators wife were all involved in various degrees in this case.
Rather than bring in outside experts to audit the process and give everyone a third party look at the issues, the County chose to take the closed-rank approach and now we are all going to pay the price for some fairly unprofessional behavior.
As per recent article in the San Juan Islander, there is a lot more information relating to this story. Three former employees that were involved in this case are no longer with the County.
Chris Laws (Code Enforcer) Annie Matsumato-Grah (Planning Dept)
Kathy North (Prosecutor Office)
Sam Gibboney has been appointed the position of Director of Public Works and the Planning Dept will have a new Director that was chosen by Mike Thomas (County Manager) as reported in the Island Guardian. Which also refers you to the article of February 2015 relating to the whistle blower story of John Geniuch another County employee.
Great points Justin! Very similar situation to the alleged drunk driving incident involving Orcas Fire employees.
The common denominator in both stories?
Local investigation by compromised officials and Mr. Gaylord!
Anyone suprised?
Although a copy of the complaint can be had by simply emailing our County Prosecutor and making a request, it might conserve County resources if Orcas Issues can post a PDF, or provide a link to where (conceivably) it might be posted on a SJC webpage.
I found it fascinating reading.
Since this issue involves a non-standard approach to the designation of wetlands, I’ll be interested to see what the Friends of the San Juans has to say about it.
https://sanjuanislander.com/news-articles/government-news/san-juan-county/20337/lawsuit-filed-against-county-prosecutor-over-opma
So many times, wetlands have been illegally violated, wetland trees cut down illegally (then it was covered up), and permits and developments pushed through that never should have been allowed. Most of the people who were once in head of Community Development and Planning (now called Department of Community Development – notice how “planning” was taken entirely OUT of the picture) – are long gone – fired or left town suddenly. Unfortunately, any planner that questions them is removed too – so many good planners are weeded out if they whistleblow, or ask too many questions.
If you look into the records of CD&P (Now DCD) heads, prior to coming to work for SJC, their records were extremely poor – showing they had been fired, sometimes numerous times, before coming to head SJC. I wish someone had investigated the connections way back then; I’m sure they’re there if you dig deep enough.
We will probably never know the truth, but can surmise, based on past record tampering and degradations/violations of wetlands. There were no fines for perps or repeat perps – not even a hand slap for (repeat) violators who were wealthy or influential enough to buy their way into any permit they wanted. Nepotism is the order of the day in this county.
Rene Beliveau, one of the worst offenders, picked on people who didn’t have a lot of money, and made their lives hell over every little detail of a permit. And then he turned a blind eye to the real Critical Areas violations going on in other instances; Why? What was his agenda? Who was calling the shots? Under his “watch,” it was nearly impossible to get information through FOIA. (bring back the microfiche! LOL)
I knew it was a BAD idea to get rid of the County Administrator! Now Council answers to no one, and Mike Thomas apparently answers to no one either.
This stuff has been happening as long as I have been here; likely much longer. Too bad all this wasn’t called to the carpet 25-30 years ago, when Eastsound Swale was still a forested wetland. Dorothy Austin tried. No one listened, and no one is listening now.
Language like this on a wetland delineation of a few years ago, gives an example of the doublespeak allowed by the County to certain privileged people. The “non-significant wetland” on a certain very wealthy person’s property, after he violated County regulations by cutting down trees and had an independent wetland “delineation” so that he could pay the “delineator” to say whatever would buy him the permit, reads like this: – (his parcel, entirely a wetland) was written on the report as “Part of Eastsound Swale but Not in Eastsound Swale- therefore “insignificant.” This nefarious and disingenuous language allowed more degradation and loss of habitat, loss of forested wetlands and filtering trees, buildings to be built where none should have been according to our protective regulations, and loss of what really mattered in this town to the health of the ecosystem and the populace. And so it goes.
Whoever was complicit in covering this latest thing up, I don’t know – but I hope this is just the beginning of far greater and more comprehensive investigations by Ecology and the State, of county actions for the last 30 + years, concerning wetlands and sensitive nearshore habitats. Let’s hope someone still has the old maps!
I feel sorry that the truly good planners and employees at DCD are under -appreciated, told to push through permits on stuff that never should be permitted at all (or lose their jobs, I suppose!) They take a lot of flak while their so-called leaders are compromising the integrity of the entire department. And then they pay with their jobs, or their health and conscience.
Maybe these islands can’t be bought by the highest bidder to degrade – but so far, what I have seen in 34 years here full time, is if you have enough money and clout, you can buy and bully your way to anything. Let’s hope this is the beginning of some serious reformation that needs to happen in this County. I say, call in Ecology and the Feds and let them sort it whether we have been caring for our waters the way we should.