PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles city manager will seek an independent review of an ethics complaint filed against City Attorney Bill Bloor, the city said Thursday.
The 33-page complaint, filed with the city Wednesday by attorney Peter Perron of Port Angeles, is the third ethics complaint filed against city officials this month, all revolving around the fluoridation issue.
The first, filed Feb. 4, was against Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd; the second, filed Feb. 19, was against Kidd and Councilman Dan Gase.
The complaint from Perron, who has frequently commented against water fluoridation at council meetings, said that Bloor violated Chapter 2.78 of the Port Angeles Municipal Code.
Not applicable to employees
That chapter “is applicable only to current and former public elected or appointed officials,” the city said in a news release issued late Thursday afternoon.
“It does not apply to city employees who work under the direction of the city manager,” the news release said.
“However, employees are also held to a high standard of ethical conduct and there is a separate process to assess complaints against employees,” the release said.
“That process will be followed in this case.
“This complaint has been passed along to the city manager, and he intends to seek an independent review of its contents,” the city said.
Neither Bloor nor Perron could be reached for comment Thursday.
Perron had cited Port Angeles Municipal Code in his complaint and said that the council must assemble a three-person temporary Board of Ethics for investigation and disposition of this specific complaint.
He also said it must be reviewed independently from the other two complaints that have been filed.
Perron’s complaint does not seek disciplinary action against Bloor, saying that is the purview of the State Bar Association.
The complaint “concerns the ethical conduct of [Bloor] in his capacity as city attorney . . . relating to his actions and inactions in connection with his role as a professional advocate for the city, which include his ethical duties owed to the public as his fiduciaries,” the 33-page complaint states.
Three events
The complaint cites three separate events connected with the city’s fluoridation system construction project.
The complaint says Bloor made “fraudulent misrepresentations” in a memo issued July 21, 2015; failed to object to a Dec. 15 motion by the City Council to continue fluoridation; and failed to object to Kidd chairing a Feb. 2 meeting.
The fluoride project, constructed by CH2M, was completed in May 2006 and the city then commenced injection of fluorosilicic acid into the public water supply, Perron said.
The $400,000 fluoridation project was funded by the Washington Dental Service Foundation, but only if the city agreed to continue fluoridating the water supply for a 10-year period ending May 18, 2016, he said.
On Dec. 15, Kidd, Gase, Councilman Brad Collins and Mayor Patrick Downie voted to continue fluoridation of the city’s drinking water and on Jan. 5 reaffirmed that decision despite results of a water customers survey that rejected the practice.
Alleged misrepresentations
According to the complaint, a memo released in July 2015, titled Fluoride — Background Information, “restated in writing [Bloor’s] prior representation of a ‘donation’ by the [Washington Dental Service Foundation] WDSF to the city.”
Perron argues in the complaint that Bloor misrepresented the legal status of fluoride transactions pertaining to the city as a “gift,” which Perron says “was never even close to the reality that the general contract with WDSF, together with the associated acid supply contract, constituted a commercial public works project.”
Procedural issues
During the City Council meeting on Dec. 15, Kidd and Gase made the motion to continue community water fluoridation for a period of 10 years, until June 30, 2026.
In the complaint, Perron argues that “at all times during and after this motion, [Bloor] failed to raise any procedural or substantive objection whatsoever to the motion . . . [which] was completely vague and ambiguous as to exactly what was being proposed or passed.”
Perron said there was no mention of what the term fluoridation means; what chemical compounds are involved in the term; what suppliers would be used over the 10-year period, the production sources for the fluoride, the contracting protocols for a purchase agreement over a 10-year period; what testing protocols would be used; who would have jurisdiction over the policy; the reporting requirements needed to update the city, state and other applicable governmental entities; the specific legal basis for the new June 30, 2026 termination date; and no fiscal impact statement.
“At the very least, [Bloor] should have counseled the council to be more precise in its formal action,” Perron writes.
Questions meeting
During the Feb. 2 city council meeting, Mayor Downie was unable to attend in person due to illness, “and therefore attended the meeting via 2-way speakerphone,” the complaint says.
“Without any council discussion or action, at the start of the meeting the mayor unilaterally and informally attempted to cede his powers and duties as chair of the meeting to [Kidd]” by asking her to do so, Perron said in the complaint.
“The mayor did not indicate exactly when he asked the deputy mayor,” the complaint reads.
“Because his statement was in the past tense, it is fair to assume that his request was made prior to the meeting and off the record.”
Perron said that Bloor should have objected.
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
To view the complaint document, follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/j442pn8
