Open Letter to Mike Carlson, Tim Blanchard, and John Lackey:
Please answer the three questions below regarding a specific CAO-related issue where you play simultaneous and conflicting roles as members of the San Juan County Planning Commission and as directors of the board of the Common Sense Alliance (CSA).
The public has a right to know your answers given that you are public officials appointed by the County Council to serve on the Planning Commission in the best interests of the public without any irreconcilable bias. The public also has the right to expect that as public officials you do not violate: a) the laws of the county and state regarding conflicts of interest; b) the principles of good governance, common sense, and fairness; and c) in the case of Mr. Blanchard, the ethics guidelines of the Washington State Bar Association.<
First, some background. As directors and decision-makers of the CSA, the three of you recently voted to approve its petition filed on October 1 with San Juan County Superior Court. This lawsuit asks the court to reverse the recent ruling of the Growth Management Hearings Board that rejected all of the CSA’s challenges, and upheld eight of the challenges of Friends of the San Juans, that were both filed earlier in the year to the revised CAO approved by the County Council in December. The Planning Commission on which you now serve was recently tasked by the County Council to draft its response to the GMHB ruling in favor of the Friends’ challenges. Therein lies a serious conflict.
However, the eight issues now before the Planning Commission are not isolated to Friends’ successful challenges. Instead, several if not all of these issues are also the subject of the CSA petition filed on October 1, although with an opposing slant, as well of the CSA’s original filing with the GMHB and of its comments to Friends’ filing during the subsequent GMHB hearings. So the three of you have conflicting roles in the deliberations before the Planning Commission and San Juan County Superior Court.
Here are the questions:
1) Whose interests do you serve on the Planning Commission, those of the public or of the CSA and its supporters?
2) Do you have a conflict of interest under county and state law, as well as under the principles of good governance, common sense and fairness, resulting from your dual roles on both sides of the lawsuit just filed by the CSA?
3) Does Mr. Blanchard believe that his dual roles violate any of the ethics guidelines of the Washington State Bar Association.
In your response, please do not insult the public by arguing that any Friends’ director has a similar conflict of interest. To claim so is a red herring, as there are no directors or decision-makers of Friends sitting on the Planning Commission, Marine Resources Committee, or any other citizen board appointed by the County Council. If there were a Friends’ director on a committee and if Friends were to file a lawsuit that involves deliberations before the same committee, I would agree that the Friends’ director should recuse him/herself. But there is no such situation today.
I look forward to your reply to the above questions.
David Dehlendorf
I will forward here Randy Gaylord’s recent response (10/14) to questions from the Planning Commission on this issue, which are in line with his previous advice to us.
Please be aware – Mr. Dehlendorf has brought this and similar issues up concerning the Planning Commission multiple times in the past, and each time been informed that his understanding of the situation is incorrect and unfounded, yet he continues to pursue members of the Commission without basis.
I will follow Randy’s advice, and the Planning Commission will move forward.
Brian Ehrmantraut
Chair, San Juan County Planning Commission
From Prosecutor Gaylord’s office:
————————————–
Dear Brian,
I have been asked to review my previous advice to the planning commission regarding allegations of improper conflicts of interest in the participation of members of the Common Sense Alliance following the legal challenge filed by Common Sense Alliance to the decision of the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board.
I have considered the fact of the challenge and retain the position stated in my earlier email to you.
It is proper for the CSA Board members to make clear that they are members of the CSA and to inform the other planning commission members of that fact. I believe this disclosure has been made previously, but if not then it certainly should be done.
I do not find sufficient evidence of a conflict of interest that requires disqualification under the applicable law.
Every member of the Planning Commission should keep open mind about matters before them, remain engaged to persuade others, and at the same time remain willing to be persuaded. If they are not able to do this, he or she becomes ineffective and should voluntarily not participate. But I cannot say that the fact of the legal challenge creates a conflict that is prohibited by the law or would invalidate the action taken by the planning commission.
Regards,
Randy
Randall K. Gaylord
San Juan County Prosecuting Attorney/Coroner
350 Court Street First Floor
PO Box 760
Friday Harbor, WA
360-378-4101
Unfortunately, in his October 16 email to Ehrmantraut, not the 14th, Gaylord completely ignored his legal analysis in his April 5 memo to the County Council by not updating it to account for subsequent events he himself anticipated, including the CSA lawsuit filed in Superior Court on October 1. Today I sent an email to Randy demonstrating that based upon his own legal analysis on April 5, the three need to be removed. So stay tuned.
No matter how Gaylord rules from a legalistic viewpoint, this conflict does not pass the public smell test. Moreover, would Erhmantraut, Carlson, Blanchard, and Lackey come to the same conclusion about lack of conflict of interest if Friends had three board members on the Planning Commission and the CSA had none? If anyone says Yes, I have a bridge in New York to sell you.
I encourage other readers to comment. Am I off base in believing that this is a serious conflict of interest?
Brian, here’s a possible solution. Ask three Planning Commission members who are not associated with the CSA to recuse themselves and replace them with three Friends’ board members. That way there would be offsetting biases and conflicts of interest.
No, it doesn’t pass the “smell test” whether or not there’s a legal problem. (Just imagine the hullabaloo if the Friends had three board members on the Planning Commission.) At the very least, the CSA board members should clearly identify CSA positions when discussing Commission issues, and this information should go the County Council when the Commission makes its recommendations. The Council has a right to get all the information needed to evaluate a PC recommendation, including the degree to which it does or does not reflect a partisan –or independent– position.
David–I know it has being very hard for you to understand that a majority of San Juan County voted against the candidates that you supported in last Aprils county council election. The fact is that YOUR special interest group lost.
One of the main reasons that Pratt and Byers lost the last election was their positions regarding the CAO that was passed last December by a lame duck session of the previous six person council. In the early months of 2013, it became readily apparent to the majority of Islanders that the CAO documents were as flawed as the process by which they were created. The CAO is being shoved down the throats of the island community without proper scientific studies to support the heavy costs that they will effect on private individuals and the community as a whole. Brian Ehrmantraut, Mike Carlson, Tim Blanchard and John Lackey are fine neighbors who would rather be spending their time focusing on their own lives (businesses, jobs, families and community interests) rather than constantly working to defend the community from your special interest group. The last election demonstrated that these individuals DO represent the concerns of a majority of Islanders.
David–has it occurred to you that you cannot have Peace in a community when one group is constantly maneuvering to steal what belongs to others? Your group has encouraged others to look the other way while the Friends do most of the dirty work. Is this moral, honest or ethical? Why can’t you be honest enough to just say that you want fewer people to build homes on the islands? Why do you have to hide behind “legal” manipulations of laws that were actually made to protect the environment? If you or your group want fewer people here, then stand up and voice your position in an honest manner. Your lack of honesty and constant obfuscation of facts have only served to polarize the community.
I find it very consistent that you have written to Mr. Gaylord for more guidance yet you are preemptively dismissing his response. I also find it interesting that we can have a former president of the Friends(Ranker) as a state representative, yet you don’t find his voting history to be one-sided or have any tainting of conflict.
Since you asked–I do find you very off based–but I enjoy your consistency.
Royce Meyerott
TrustIslanders!
I understand that Mr. Dehlendorf is not a lawyer. That fact does not, however, give him license to continually misstate the law and facts of conflicts of interest in an effort to sully the reputations of citizen volunteers who devotes countless hours to service on county committees and commissions.
As the Chair of the Planning Commission has already noted, our Prosecuting Attorney has repeatedly rejected Mr. Dehlendorf’s attacks on the Common Sense Alliance board members who serve on the Planning Commission. Nothing from the Prosecuting Attorney has calmed Mr. Dehlendorf’s fears that board members of CSA are participating in the consideration by the Planning Commission of potential amendments to CAO—the same CAO that is now the subject of court appeals by numerous parties, including CSA and the Friends of the San Juans.
The key fact that Mr. Dehlendorf seems not to understand is that the Planning Commission is an ADVISORY commission. It conducts its proceedings in the public, votes on the record, and provides its RECOMMENDATIONS to the County Council, which alone takes official action on the matters before them.
Because the Council appoints the Commissioners, the Council is quite familiar with the Commissioners’ civic, family and other associations, which are disclosed in their applications for appointment.
The fact that the Commission now comprises a diverse group with wide-ranging political philosophies is not only appropriate and refreshing; it is required by the spirit and the letter of the enabling statutes. Indeed, recent proceedings of the Planning Commission do not reflect a bloc of three (the prospect of which seems to be what has Mr. Dehlendorf so agitated). The challenged members have taken differing positions in different situations, disagreeing on occasion among themselves and agreeing on occasion with others of the remaining five members of the Commission, with whose political leanings Mr. Dehlendorf apparently has no quarrel.
There is no legal, ethical or other reason to remove these members from the reconsideration of the CAO by the Planning Commission. As the Prosecuting Attorney noted, an active debate in the public eye, including all perspectives on the issues, is the best guarantor of a good policy result. The changes in question will be debated by the Planning Commission and its recommendations will be considered by Council in at least three open sessions before Council votes on them.
So, yes, Mr. Dehlendorf, you are way off base here. You are wrong on the law and you are disturbingly one-sided in your perception of bias. I believe that, before further defaming County citizen-volunteers, you should yourself consult with an attorney.
Peg Manning
(I am the wife and law partner of one of Mr. Dehlendorf’s targets.)
Royce: What an interesting Ted Cruz, Tea Party-like rant full of irrelevancies and non-sequiturs! I’m just surprised that you didn’t bring Obamacare, Agenda 21, and black helicopters landing on BLM islets into your diatribe.
How about directly addressing the issue at hand, that there is a serious conflict of interest in having three CSA board members on the Planning Commission? (Last time I looked, Kevin Ranker is not involved.) If the tables were reversed and there were three Friends board members on the Planning Commission, and none from the CSA, what would your position be? I for one would argue that they should recuse themselves. I imagine you would agree.
And your suggestion that my “group”, whatever that is, lost the April election and that therefore I should shut up is both ignorant and anti-democratic. Think about it. If you and your supporters had followed your own advice, there would be no CSA and no Trust Islanders today.
And I stand by my statement that if Gaylord issues an updated legal opinion contrary to what I believe, this whole situation will still not pass the smell test. It will still stink!
Peg: I resent your effort to muzzle my right to freedom of speech by threatening legal action against me. I have not defamed anyone, and you as an attorney know that.
I look forward to Gaylord’s revision of his April 5 memo to the council taking into consideration the events that have occurred since that date, particularly the CSA’s lawsuit against the county.
Please answer one simple question: If the CSA’s and Friends’ roles were reversed, what would be your position? I would argue that the Friends directors on the Planning Commission would need to recuse themselves. Do you agree?
David – while I understand that for whatever reasons you are trying to create an issue based on a misapplication of the common-language understanding of “conflict of interest”, you are mistaken about how the actual rules apply to actual appointed commissions and elected officials in this state.
Randy has issued multiple opinions on the matter over several years. The training provided officials and commissions in this state also tends to cover the issue, and agrees with Randy’s opinions.
I myself have spoken with several non-Randy lawyers about the matter, and have attended the training I mention above, as well as the training offered by the WPPA and have reached the same conclusions.
For the actions the Planning Commission will be engaged in during our upcoming work on the CAO and SMP, there is no conflict.
I have observed the Planning Commission members intelligently work together as a team and discuss matters before us productively, regardless of their political, religious, sexual, sports team, or dietary preferences. “Factions” do not generally vote as a block, and people “on the same side” often disagree with each other. Quite often we produce consensus findings and opinions on most matters.
Continually raising the issue of “conflict of interest” in the manner and tone that you use smells very much like an attack on the character and performance of members of the Planning Commission. It is unwarranted, and uncivil, and will serve only to polarize a community that works well together.
Further, your off-the-cuff proposal to stock the PC with Friends and CAO members betrays a fundamental confusion about how people in this county think, work, and live. There are more than two sides. There are likely 15,824 sides – and perhaps even more, as I often argue with myself.
Please take the time to educate yourself on the actual roles and responsibilities of the Planning Commission before lashing out at our members. Perhaps asking your wife, who was on the Commission for quite some time, would be helpful to you? The state’s Short Course on Planning, which I believe your wife attended, covers the essential difference between legislative and quasi-judicial actions, and how the Appearance of Fairness Doctrine applies, for instance.. She may still have the notes, but I provide you a link to them below.
(Here’s the guidebook from the Short Course. It’s “only” 369 pages, which tells you how planners interpret “short”…
https://www.commerce.wa.gov/Documents/GMS-Short-Course-Guidebook-5-1.pdf )
Thanks for your thoughts, Brian. But I do understand the issues based upon reading and studying innumerable times Gaylord’s memo to the Council dated April 5, which was written before the CSA lawsuit and therefore requires an update that was not included in his October 16 email to you. There are five different statements by him in the memo that support my case given the events since April 5. I am looking forward to his response to my email to him today. Ask Peg for a copy.
BTW, I was joking about putting three Friends’ board members on the Planning Commission.
Thank you for asking these questions and following through, David. I hope you will get thoughtful and straightforward answers — from those folks you originally addressed.
Again, David, I know that you are not a lawyer, but I am in no way seeking to limit your First Amendment rights. I do believe that you should consult a lawyer who knows something about what constitutes a conflict of interest in the context of local government, as you appear to have on several occasions rejected the advice of the one lawyer in the County most likely to know the subject, the Prosecuting Attorney, but persist based on your own opinion.
Repeatedly accusing your neighbors of conflicts of interest when you know (or should know) better is, in fact, defamatory. That seems to trouble you very little. Given my husband and partner’s sterling national professional reputation, and his long hours of service to the County, it troubles me very much.
And, no, as I understand the law (and Brian did a great job of setting forth sources for you to review), there would not be a conflict if the Friends had three board members on the Planning Commission in this situation. That’s the nice thing about the law–it is the law, regardless of whose politics you approve.
David–if you have any sincere concerns, I suggest that, rather than publish redundant and factually inaccurate challenges in the media, you should consider filing complaints with the Attorney General (360-753-6200) or the State Bar (800-945-9742).
Thank-you David for pursuing this Conflict of Interest issue. It is only common sense that the three Common Sense Alliance board members who serve on the Planning Commission should recuse themselves when an issue relates to bringing the Updated CAO into compliance with the Growth Management Hearings Board decisions. The CSA board was responsible for approving the use of CSA money for both the CSA appeal before the Growth Management Hearings Board (which they lost) and their current appeal to Superior Court. Conflicts of interest are most obvious when you can so easily “follow the money.”
The CSA and their board are invested in preventing strong protections for our natural resources that include clean water, abundant salmon, rare plants, and endangered animals, such as Orca whales. The Critical Areas identify and seek to protect these resources that benefit us all.
I am not at all happy with the extreme complexity of the CAO Update. But the County Council was convinced that the public supported a “site-specific” approach. “Site-Specific” cannot be separated from complexity. Complexity leads to expense. Expense is what limits most people’s ability to live in our islands.
I attended many of the Planning Commission meetings during the lengthy CAO Update process. The Planning Commission’s work is very influential and important. It shapes what is presented to the County Council. Protections that were presented by the county’s expert scientist, Dr. Adamus, in the beginning of the CAO Update were gradually eroded as the process proceeded. This process of erosion of Critical Area protections led to the ruling by the Growth Management Hearings Board that the CAO Update buffers for water quality and for fish and wildlife habitat protection are not based in the Best Available Science and must be widened.
Peg & Brian: I look forward to Gaylord’s updated legal opinion to the council.
Among other things, I have asked him to update several of his statements in his April 5 memo in view of the GMHB ruling and the CSA lawsuit, such as “A person who has authority to direct litigation or administrative proceedings against the County should not be allowed to make decisions or recommendations to the County Council related to those proceedings under the common law conflict of interest or County Code applicable to advisory committees.”
And also “However, depending on the outcome before the Growth Boards or in the courts, it is possible that items tightly linked to the legal proceedings will return to the Planning Commission. If and when they do, then both Mr. Blanchard and Mr. Carlson might be disqualified under common law conflict of interest rules.”
Those are Gaylord’s words, not mine.
Stay tuned.
Two more quotes from Gaylord’s April 5 memo before the GMHB ruling and the CSA lawsuit:
“In the future, a proposal may come before the Planning Commission where the Common Sense Alliance has already fixed a position. In that event, any officer of Common Sense Alliance on the Planning Commission could be disqualified.”
“The Washington Supreme Court in 1909 recognized the common law doctrine “as old as the law itself” that one should not judge his or her own cause.” “Thus, even if the statutory conflict provisions and the Appearance of Fairness Doctrine do not apply, one still must consider whether this court-created doctrine would prohibit a particular vote or action.”
Again, stay tuned for Gaylord’s update.
David–again you are consistent. I leave for a while and come back to find that I am now channeling Ted Cruz and the entire Tea party–you must be slipping as you did not mention the Koch brothers, though you have made some progress in your development towards honesty by actually writing the words “Agenda 21”.
Last year, after my wife heard some scratching under my house, I grabbed a flashlight and investigated. As I directed the light towards a small alcove in the foundation, I discovered a large rat. Immediately the rat started hissing and spitting every invective that it could conjure up in order to make me go away. I found the rat both entertaining and very sincere. Your response in the first paragraph reminds me of that rat, though I must say I have more respect for the honesty of the rat.
I would never insinuate that you should shut up, after all, you have been the poster child that keeps reminding islanders why CSA and TrustIslanders! were formed in the first place. Your constant whining has been our best fundraiser. Thanks again.
Janet–you are also consistent along with the rest of the Friends:
“The CSA and their board are invested in preventing strong protections for our natural resources that include clean water, abundant salmon, rare plants, and endangered animals, such as Orca whales. The Critical Areas identify and seek to protect these resources that benefit us all.”
First of all, the above is a fill in the blanks statement that we so expect from the Friends. I think that the original statement from the Friends read:
The Friends of the San Juan’s are invested in creating strong protections for our natural resources that include clean water, abundant salmon, rare plants, and endangered animals, such as the Orca whales. We have defined all areas of San Juan County as critical in order to protect these resources that benefit us all.
Now isn’t that a more positive approach toward what you want people to believe? Do you feel so threatened by CSA that you must publicly mis-characterize them? Please save your kindergarden environmental speeches for your fundraisers in Seattle.
Royce Meyerott
TrustIslanders!
Royce: Thanks for the kind words. You are a wonderful guy and will always have my utmost respect.
How about answering the two questions I asked you, but this time without pouring on the sugary words?
I am the wife of a public figure here on Orcas. I am here to thank those of you who serve. The capacity to which you choose to leave your family to help our community is amazing. Although we may never all agree on any one issue, I do believe that not one group here in the San Juan Islands is “out to get” another. There is only passion for what one individual or group may believe in.
I believe that those who serve are passionate about the board, or commission they have been elected to be a part of in our community.
I would like to remind those here and on all the official boards or commissions that the people you choose to attack are sons, daughters,sisters, brothers, husbands or a wife and possibility children of someone. These attacks over the years on both or any side saddens me.
Please be passionate, but also be respectful of others thoughts. We live in a world where communication is at the press of a button…I encourage those who ask questions, because I am one of those who ask. However respect and kindness is so much easier to work with.
Look where hate and anger have gotten us over the years…. When I ask a question I try to remember that the person I am talking to is passionate enough to be involved way more in a particular subject than most of us.
Just a thought from a wife who has watched anger and hate drive individuals to hurt others around them.