SEQUIM — Scott Nagel, the former executive director of the Sequim Lavender Growers Association who abruptly left the organization last week for the newly formed Sequim Lavender Farmers Association, on Wednesday turned over business documents the growers association had demanded.
Nagel, through his attorneys, Craig Miller and Larry Freedman, delivered boxes of documents late Wednesday afternoon in Sequim.
Jacque Dulin, the growers association’s attorney, and Terry Stolz, the group’s board president, were joined by several other association members who picked up the documents at Miller and Freedman’s office on Sunnyside Avenue.
“I think this is a good first step,” Dulin said Wednesday night at his office at 237 N. Sequim Ave., where his firm is donating space to the growers association that is a short walk from where the association has for years staged its street fair for the annual Sequim Lavender Festival in July.
‘Going to take some time’
Dulin and Stolz said the growers association would now carefully account for all the documents.
“It’s going to take some time going through things and verifying things,” Stolz said at Dulin’s office.
Dulin said the growers association also has asked Nagel and the farmers association not to open any of the growers association’s mail.
“We also asked them to preserve all information on the hard drive,” Dulin said.
“We have to arrange in an orderly manner in which their hard drives are scrubbed. We’ve go to do a forensic review” of the computer hard drives.
Lavender group split
The tense situation between the growers association, Nagel and the farmers association comes after a group of lavender farmers split Jan. 8 from the growers association, citing philosophical and administrative differences.
Last week, the new farmers association announced it was hiring Nagel away from the growers association.
This week, Dulin demanded the documents in a letter but received only a portion of them from Nagel’s Port Angeles office — and said that Freedman called the Port Angeles Police Department on Monday when they arrived.
Dulin said he told police the growers group was there to take its documents, and the police left.
That led Dulin to say Nagel and the farmers association were “holding the documents hostage” until Nagel was paid what he believed he was owed.
Nagel denied he and the farmers association were doing any such thing, adding that he had previously tried to set up delivery times but that growers association members failed to show up.
Dulin on Wednesday complained that the documents obtained Tuesday were left in a unsecured common area at Nagel’s office.
An audit of the lavender growers’ documents and property is under way, he said.
Both Dulin and Stolz said Tuesday that they have reason to believe Nagel was working for the group of lavender farmers that later formed their own association before he left the growers association.
‘Ridiculous claims’
Nagel said Tuesday that was among the “ridiculous claims” being made by his former employer.
Stolz said it was unclear what Nagel was owed. He said Nagel was paid through December.
Nagel declined to say if he believes he is still owed money.
Nagel said his company, Olympic Peninsula Celebrations, was paid $6,000 a month.
Last week, he said his contract with the growers association had not been renewed since September.
Nagel, as an employee of the growers association, had directed the Sequim Lavender Festival since 2004, an event that annually draws about 25,000 people.
Now, Nagel will work for the farmers association, directing the Sequim Lavender Farm Festival, which will occur simultaneously with the Sequim Lavender Festival from July 15-17.
Both organizations have said they will have separate crafts fairs and tours.
While the growers association lost six key farms in the lavender festival farm tour, at least 18 to 20 members remain with the growers association.
Nagel said he wanted to work for the farmers association because he strongly believes the farms are the main attractions at the lavender festival.
The farmers association plans to have its own festival location with food, music and vendors, using it as a hub for its farm tours to the six key Dungeness Valley farms that left the growers association. It will be called the Sequim Lavender Farm Festival.
Dulin said he wants to settle with Nagel and the new association amicably, and Freedman said the same for his farmers association clients.
Contacted Wednesday night, Nagel said, “We had a transition plan all approved, and there was not really any problem” until the growers association took the group’s issues to the Peninsula Daily News.
He declined to comment further.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
