PORT ANGELES — Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd had the authority to ban political signs from the City Council chambers in advance of a Feb. 2 council meeting, an ethics board has ruled.
Kidd was exonerated of the alleged ethics violation by unanimous vote Thursday.
The three-member panel precluded itself from considering alleged violations that a previous ethics board had addressed.
The complaints against Kidd were brought by the anti-fluoride group Our Water, Our Choice!
Our Water, Our Choice! complained in part that Kidd directed staff to post a sign asking the public to keep political signs in the hallway outside of council chambers.
Kidd chaired the Feb. 2 meeting in the physical absence of Mayor Patrick Downie, who was home but participated by phone.
“As I read the rules for the operation of the council, the mayor, or the presiding official at the time, does have the right to determine procedure,” said Ken Williams, ethics board chairman and retired Clallam County Superior Court judge.
“That procedure would include the right to determine, frankly, whether or not signs would be allowed.
“To be an ethics violation, it would have to be an intentional violation of somebody’s rights,” he added.
In a Friday interview, Kidd said the board reached a “logical conclusion.”
“As chair, I was following the rules to maintain order and conduct the meeting,” Kidd said.
“I really think the charges themselves are rather frivolous, and I’m sorry that we have had to go through all these ethics complaints.”
Feb. 2 meeting
Kidd abruptly adjourned the Feb. 2 council meeting by cutting off an anti-fluoridation speaker.
An earlier ethics board — which was composed of Frank Prince Jr., Grant Meiner and Danetta Rutten — had ruled that Kidd violated the ethics code by interrupting a speaker and by abruptly adjourning the meeting.
That panel unanimously voted to recommend that the City Council verbally admonish Kidd.
Council members decided to wait to consider the recommendation until the board chaired by Williams finished hearing the Our Water, Our Choice! complaint and until a third board rules on a similar complaint against Downie that was filed by Marolee Smith.
The contentious Feb. 2 meeting had been dominated by criticism of four council members — Kidd, Downie and Councilmen Dan Gase and Brad Collins — who had voted in favor of continued fluoridation of the city water supply. They were dubbed the “Fluoride Four” after the 4-3 vote last December.
Williams and fellow ethics panelists Meiner and Jerry Dean determined that Kidd had the authority to direct the city clerk to post a sign that read: “We ask that all signs remain in the hallway outside of council chambers.”
“I think it was a procedural thing just to make the meeting run smoothly,” Dean said.
The panel had decided in April that Kidd had the right to chair the meeting.
Precluded three complaints
The ethics board precluded three Our Water, Our Choice! complaints from consideration Thursday.
The allegations had been made in an initial complaint filed by fluoridation opponent Smith and considered by the ethics board composed of Prince Jr., Rutten and Meiner.
Our Water, Our Choice! and Smith each complained that:
■ Councilman Lee Whetham was gaveled out of order when he asked for a legal opinion on extending the first public comment period in the Feb. 2 meeting.
The Prince-Meiner-Rutten panel — the first panel to consider complaints surrounding the Feb. 2 meeting — had ruled that the City Council, not the ethics board, should determine if Kidd acted appropriately regarding Whetham.
■ Kidd declared a five-minute recess at the end of the first comment period without allowing time for the council to overrule the recess declaration.
■ Kidd did not allow time for the council to overrule her decision to adjourn the meeting.
“Cherie was shrill,” Smith told the Williams-chaired ethics board.
“That’s the only way I can describe it. She was shrill and she was tense for the entire meeting.”
Smith said she filed her complaint because the deputy mayor was in “clear violation of not being respectful to the people of Port Angeles.”
The Our Water, Our Choice! complaint was brought against Kidd and Gase, both of whom left the Feb. 2 meeting as other council members stayed to hear more public testimony on fluoride.
Gase was exonerated of any wrongdoing in the second ethics board’s initial meeting.
Smith alleged that Kidd made an arbitrary decision to ban signs from the meeting, preventing citizens from “exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Williams countered that there is “no right to speak at a City Council meeting unless it’s provided by the City Council itself.”
“It’s not an open, public forum,” Williams said.
“Free speech in that context means that if you are invited to speak, you may speak freely, but there is no automatic right to speak anywhere at any time.”
“Signs clearly are free speech,” Williams added.
“So the question is whether or not they may be precluded from coming into the City Council chambers.”
The City Council has the right to conduct its business with or without public input, Williams said.
“To me, it’s not really a free speech issue,” he said.
Williams said he recognized that Kidd’s decision to restrict signs from the council chambers “may well have triggered what devolved into unfortunately a rancorous meeting that I think those of us who are citizens of the city of Port Angeles regret happened in the matter in which it happened.”
In her remarks to the ethics board, Kidd said she tried to conduct an orderly meeting according to state law, City Council procedures and Robert’s Rules of Order.
Kidd’s response
Kidd thanked the panelists for their time and effort, adding: “I’m very grateful that the community has given me so much support and encouragement through this time.
“I love this community,” Kidd said. “I love the people of this community. I do my best to serve. Each meeting is different, and I try to serve appropriately and I did my very best.
“If there is a disagreement with me as a parliamentarian, that’s fair,” she added.
“I welcome comments. But to call it an ethical violation when I was trying to run a meeting to the best of my ability, I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
Marolee Smith also filed an ethics complaint against Downie that centers on his actions directed at fluoridation opponents at Jan. 5 and Jan. 19 council meetings that he chaired.
That board has yet to consider Smith’s complaint.
Another ethics panel — composed of Meiner, Prince and Diana Tschimperle — will hear a complaint filed May 2 by Marie Wiggins against council members Whetham, Michael Merideth, Collins and Sissi Bruch.
That complaint alleges the four violated the ethics code by violating the state Open Public Meetings Act when they stayed in council chambers to hear public comments Feb. 2 after Kidd abruptly adjourned the meeting.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
