PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council did not follow an ethics board recommendation to verbally admonish Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd for abruptly adjourning a Feb. 2 meeting, choosing instead to read a statement.
After a 3-3 deadlock on a vote to admonish Kidd on Tuesday night, council members voted 4-2 to read a general statement to the public at Tuesday’s meeting in City Council chambers.
The statement Mayor Patrick Downie read to about a dozen citizens — with Kidd sitting beside him at the dais — pledged that council members will follow the state Open Public Meetings Act.
“This council will respect the public and follow Open Public Meetings Act protocol for adjourning meetings, and we will do our best to be tolerant, patient and respectful of all,” the statement said.
Councilwoman Sissi Bruch made the motion to approve the statement. It was seconded by Councilman Brad Collins.
Unless the council did something, “we are going to be a laughingstock,” Bruch said. “We really need to move forward.”
Members can adjourn
According to the Open Public Meetings Act, “the governing body of a public agency may adjourn any regular, adjourned regular, special or adjourned special meeting to a time and place specified in the order of adjournment.”
The council rules of procedure contain specific guidelines for adjourning council sessions.
A volunteer ethics board determined in April that Kidd’s actions “reflected discredit on the City Council and upon herself as a public official” and that it “tended to bring the city into disrepute” when she adjourned the meeting while being severely criticized by water fluoridation foes.
Former Clallam County Superior Court Judge Grant Meiner was on the board that included board chairman Frank Prince Jr. and Danetta Rutten.
Meiner, who was not at the meeting, said Wednesday he worked 30 to 40 hours on the complaint.
“Obviously, it was not time well-spent,” he said. “I’m sorry that the city has this process and that it apparently didn’t work very well.
“It seems to me that it was an effort that didn’t lead to anything, and that leads me to some frustration.”
Six council members spent an hour Tuesday trying to reach a compromise without Kidd present. She had left during the discussion and returned after it was over.
The council members waded through repeated no votes and had to start over when seconds of motions were withdrawn as proposals evolved.
Majorities of 4-2 could not be reached for motions for admonishment, censure or removal of Kidd as deputy mayor.
Finally, Downie and council members Dan Gase, Bruch and Collins approved a statement without references to Kidd.
Councilmen Lee Whetham and Micheal Merideth, who were in favor of stronger punishments, voted against it.
Whetham, Bruch and Downie had voted for admonishment.
But Merideth voted with Collins and Gase against it, leading to a 3-3 deadlock.
Merideth favored Kidd losing her standing as deputy mayor.
“I will not accept partway,” he said during a meeting break.
“If I would have received some type of apology or more acceptance of what occurred, I would have had a different opinion.”
At the Sept. 20 council meeting, during council reports generally reserved for farmers market news and council-trip stories, Kidd discussed the Feb. 2 meeting.
“I have learned from this experience,” she said in a prepared statement.
She stopped short of an apology then and in an interview Wednesday.
“That’s not a debate I’m interested in getting into,” she said.
Kidd also would not say if, on reflection, she would have acted differently.
“I did learn from it, obviously, but that’s not my focus,” she said.
“I want to do the work to help the community I love.”
The complaint against Kidd was the last of four filed against council members since February revolving around meetings that elicited comments from water fluoridation opponents.
All council members were subject to complaints. The only one resulting in a recommendation for disciplinary action was one against Kidd.
The complaints cost the city $20,000 for legal representation for Gase, a complaint against whom was dismissed, and Kidd.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
