Jefferson County has produced some but not all of the e-mail records that Joe D’Amico requested two weeks ago as part of the five-year battle the owner of Security Services Northwest Inc. has been waging over a county crackdown on his firearms training operation on Discovery Bay.
D’Amico said he discovered that the terms of a previous records request had not been met during a deposition that uncovered correspondence between Prosecuting Attorney Juelie Dalzell and Frederick C. Herzog, a retired judge and resident opposed to the shooting facility.
Dalzell’s office sent D’Amico 87 pages of e-mails, including copies of one between Dalzell and Herzog regarding his support of her courtroom competence during her re-election campaign in 2006, the e-mail D’Amico had not received from the previous request.
D’Amico said he was not entirely satisfied with the response but did not elaborate.
At the time of the earlier request, Dalzell’s office said there was no e-mail correspondence between her and Herzog.
“I don’t know why that happened,” said David Alvarez, chief deputy civil prosecutor.
Not all of the newly provided e-mails were required to be disclosed under state law, Alvarez said, and many of them related to the campaign.
D’Amico’s latest request also asked for copies of e-mails referencing him and his business using non-county addresses from the three county commissioners as well as Dalzell.
County commissioners have said it will take some time to comply and notified D’Amico they will provide the e-mails by Dec. 1.
D’Amico and the county have been in ongoing litigation and appeals since 2005, when the county hearing examiner decided that firearms training offered to police and military at the facility did not comply with county land-use regulations.
D’Amico told the Peninsula Daily News last year that the issue had cost him $800,000 in legal fees.
Last year, he recovered a little of that when the county was ordered to pay him more than $41,000 in fines for refusing to provide phone records.
But D’Amico has paid the county about $68,000 for its legal expenses in defending his unsuccessful challenges to its land-use decision.
So far, he’s lost every appeal, including a decision in June by the state Court of Appeals rejecting his claim for damages against the county for communications he claims violated his right to a fair hearing.
The state Supreme Court has been asked to review that decision but has not yet responded.
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Julie McCormick is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. Contact her at juliemccormick10@gmail.com.
