PORT ANGELES — The state Auditor’s Office is once again reviewing whether the Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority was created legally.
Spokeswoman Mindy Chambers said officials within the office are looking at new information, brought to them within the last month, that could change the conclusion of a previous report that cleared the city and Port of Port Angeles of any wrongdoing in creating the public development authority.
That information, which involves e-mails and other documents between the city and the port, was given to the Auditor’s Office by Port Angeles residents Shirley Nixon and Norma Turner, who filed the original complaint that resulted in the last report, released May 27.
They attained the documents through several public records requests with the city and port.
The Auditor’s Office is reviewing the new documents to see if it needs to revise the findings of the report, Chambers said.
Nixon and Turner said that the Auditor’s Office either didn’t have some of the documents or overlooked some red flags during the initial investigation.
They both allege that the city and the port violated the state Open Public Meetings Act when Harbor-Works was created May 20, 2008.
The May 27 report concluded, “We reviewed meeting minutes for the City and Port, e-mail and other documents and found no violations of the Open Public Meetings Act.”
The City Council approved the creation of Harbor-Works, with support from the port commissioners, at a joint city-port meeting May 20, 2008.
Harbor-Works was created to acquire Rayonier’s 75-acre former mill site and redevelop the property, as well as assist in the environmental cleanup of the land.
Exactly to what extent will be determined by negotiations with Rayonier and the state Department of Ecology, which is overseeing the cleanup of the property and portions of Port Angeles Harbor nearby.
The Rayonier property is contaminated with pockets of PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other toxins left by the pulp mill, which operated there for 68 years before closing in 1997.
In 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called the site “moderately contaminated.”
Documents not used?
Nixon and Turner both said they gave the Auditor’s Office documents last September that it didn’t use in the initial investigation.
“A lot of it hadn’t been shared with the Auditor’s Office” in Olympia after it had been provided to the Port Angeles office, Nixon said.
In response to the May 27 findings, Turner and Nixon said they reviewed each of the roughly 6,000 pages of documents that went into the investigation through a public records request.
“We did discover some gaps,” Nixon said.
Most surprising, Nixon and Turner said, was that e-mails from City Council members in 2008 weren’t used as part of the report.
Chambers couldn’t confirm if that was the case.
Susan Remer, Auditor’s Office deputy director of state and local audits, is heading the second review but declined to comment on any of it.
While Chambers said that issues brought to the attention of the Auditor’s Office did warrant a review, she didn’t know the details of what concerned officials.
No authority
Chambers said that while the review could confirm or counter the findings of the May 27 report, the Auditor’s Office does not have the authority to dissolve Harbor-Works if it concludes that the Open Public Meetings Act was violated.
“That would be up to them — the people who created the public development authority,” she said.
“We don’t have any enforcement power.”
Turner said she hopes that the second review will hold local elected officials accountable.
“What I’m hoping is that we have an honest review of whether or not the way this was done was within compliance of the Open Public Meetings Act.,” she said.
Nixon said that if the act was violated, Harbor-Works should be dissolved.
“I would not be dismayed if Harbor-Works goes away,” she said.
The creation of Harbor-Works brought criticism from some local residents, including Nixon and Turner, who alleged that the details of Harbor-Works were determined behind closed doors by the city and port without an opportunity for public input.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
