PORT ANGELES — At a public work session Tuesday, the entire seven-member City Council will again broach the formal complaint brought by council member Brooke Nelson against another council member, Max Mania.
“Council members will be polled to see if any action should be taken,” according to the meeting agenda released late Wednesday by Mayor Cherie Kidd.
“It is the intent of the chair that this will conclude discussion on this complaint,” according to the agenda.
Tuesday’s work session at 5 p.m. in council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St., will begin with an hourlong budget presentation by City Manager Dan McKeen, followed by discussion of the complaint.
Council members also will review a 12-page draft code of ethical conduct for city public officials that would set up a council-appointed board of ethics to adjudicate complaints like Nelson’s, which was discussed in a tense regular council meeting Tuesday.
Mania said that the complaint “smeared” him and objected to the fact that he was not allowed by Kidd to question Nelson during the council meeting.
Nelson’s complaint
Nelson’s complaint said local residents had complained about Mania’s behavior.
She accused Mania of attempting to “undermine or sabotage positions formally adopted by the council” in correspondence to opponents of Nippon Industries USA’s ongoing project to expand its biomass cogeneration plant.
This coming Tuesday, council members will be allowed only to make statements regarding Nelson’s complaint, Kidd said.
No direct questioning about the complaint among council members will be allowed, including by Mania of Nelson, Kidd said Thursday.
Not a debate
“The forum is not set to turn into a debate,” Kidd said.
“I think this is the best way to handle it, and we would like to bring this to a positive conclusion.
“Until we have other procedures, we will handle it this way.”
The council does not have a procedure to process and decide on complaints by public officials, defined in the draft code as “any person who is elected or appointed to fill any public office of the city of Port Angeles, or as a member of a city board, commission, committee, task force or other multimember body.”
The draft code does not apply to city employees, who already have separate codes of conduct and procedures.
“A code of ethical conduct describes expected behavior to promote an environment of respect based on integrity,” McKeen said Wednesday in a memo to council members attached to the draft.
“If the code is breached, the situation can be addressed,” McKeen said.
“If a complaint is lodged, the code provides a fair, responsible and consistently applied process for resolution.”
Violations would include taking part in action that would create a conflict of interest using public office for personal or family gain or profit.
‘Offensive personal conduct’
“Offensive personal conduct” by public officials would include “abusive conduct, personal charges, verbal attacks upon the character or motives of other public officials, staff or the public.”
They also would include expressions of personal opinion while in public.
“When in public, public officials shall refrain from presenting personal opinions or positions, and will explicitly state that any personal opinions do not represent the elected or appointed position, or the city.”
City Councilman Dan Di Guilio said Tuesday that he did not expect that the new code will be retroactively applied to cover Nelson’s complaint.
The behavior she describes and the email records she distributed Tuesday “disparage the council, the work we are trying to do and the relationships we have worked so hard to strengthen,” Nelson said in the complaint.
In the emails, Mania calls Kidd “underhanded” and “a corporate robot” for praising Nippon for the expansion, urges parents of schoolchildren to speak to the council against the project, criticizes the Sequim City Council for taking action that “smacks of back-room deals” for deciding not to hold a biomass forum and says biomass project opponents could hold up signs protesting the project at a City Council table at the downtown farmers market.
Ethics board meetings and hearings would be open to the public.
The panel would recommend action to the City Council.
Kidd said she did not know if the council Tuesday will discuss an unrelated July 20 complaint by former Clallam County Vice Chair Jack Slowriver alleging that Mania engaged in “unethical” behavior and used foul language against her.
That complaint had originally prompted discussion of an ethics code.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
