PORT ANGELES — As they inch closer to possible court action, two of three Clallam County commissioners will meet behind closed doors Tuesday to discuss legal strategy they will employ to break the board’s months-long impasse with Treasurer Selinda Barkhuis.
The third member of the team is sitting it out.
Out of protest, Commissioner Mike Chapman, the board’s senior member and former chairman, will not join his colleagues Bill Peach and current Chairman Jim McEntire at Tuesday’s 9 a.m. executive session at the county courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St.
To take action, commissioners must publicly discuss what course they will take during the board’s regular meeting, which will begin at 10 a.m.
“I’m boycotting out of a protest that I don’t think it’s an appropriate [executive] session, nor do I think my viewpoint is being listened to,” Chapman said Monday.
He spoke after a work session during which the board vs. Barkhuis dispute over two Opportunity Fund grants was vigorously debated.
Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols said the board can legally hold the executive session as a matter of potential litigation but that holding the meeting in public is “always an option” for the board.
Barkhuis has refused to process Opportunity Fund infrastructure grants of $1 million to the Port of Port Angeles and $285,952 to the city.
Barkhuis has said she will not issue the warrants without an order from a Superior Court judge or unless the commissioners approve the grants in a manner that she has demanded.
Chapman said the board has discussed asking a judge to issue a declaratory judgement affirming that the actions the board took were legal.
“I believe that’s what they’ll be discussing Tuesday,” Chapman said.
Barkhuis has said that the grants need debatable-budget-emergency hearings and formal contracts, while the commissioners, state Auditor’s Office and Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols have said they don’t.
McEntire and Peach, who also have declined to follow Barkhuis’s suggestion that the grants be included in the 2016 budget, set the stage for Tuesday’s meeting at Monday’s work session.
“We have come to the end of it,” McEntire said after laying out his argument for the board staying the course.
McEntire cited the powers and duties of elected officials as outlined in the county charter and in the constitutions of the state of Washington and Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
“I am convinced, and the prosecuting attorney has affirmed for us, that we have acted within the scope of our legal responsibilities, and I would say exclusive responsibilities as a board of commissioners, and we have done so in a conciliatory way,” McEntire said.
Commissioners have held hearings on the grants and said they would be subject to memos of understanding, not contracts.
McEntire likened Barkhuis’ demands to terms of unconditional surrender.
On Thursday, in Barkhuis’ latest correspondence to the board through her attorney David Alvarez of Jefferson County, she refused release the grants unless commissioners agreed to her conditions.
And following Barkhuis’ course of action was not an option, McEntire said Monday.
“We have the choice of capitulation or some kind of action that would resort to the judiciary,” McEntire said.
“The bended knee is not the tradition of the board of commissioners.
“The best way, I believe, to get to the other side is to go through with it and . . . not to capitulate.
“I cannot see the good that comes from that stance.”
Chapman urged the board to include the funding in the 2016 budget.
“My whole political career has been built on compromise,” he said. “It’s not capitulation, it’s just working through the process.
“It’s just good government.
“We lose a lot if we take the treasurer to court.”
To do that is “beyond the pale,” Chapman said, adding the budget is three months away from adoption.
The grants were drawn from Opportunity Fund money that had been set aside for the Carlsborg sewer project for 2015 that will be replaced next year by new sales tax proceeds that annually fuel the Opportunity Fund.
Barkhuis has refused to process the warrants since May and said she will not be at Tuesday’s meeting.
“I don’t know what would make any difference for me to be there,” she said Monday in an interview.
“They know what they need to do.
“They are refusing to use their process to do the job I am asking them to do.”
As though addressing them, she said in frustration, “Process the budget change according to your own policy, according to state law.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
