PORT ANGELES — Will the impasse continue?
Clallam County commissioners acquiesced in part to county Treasurer Selinda Barkhuis, deciding in a Monday work session to hold a public hearing on two disputed Opportunity Fund grants that she has refused to process.
The commissioners’ hearing on the infrastructure grants will be at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 4 at Clallam County Courthouse, with formal contracts also requested by Barkhuis awaiting the commissioners’ signatures, county Administrator Jim Jones said in a later interview.
But other roadblocks may await the release of a $1 million grant to the Port of Port Angeles for its Composite Recycling Technology Center and $285,952 to the city of Port Angeles for its delayed waterfront improvement project.
While the Opportunity Fund Advisory Board is expected to re-recommend approval of the port grant Thursday, commissioners’ board Chairman Jim McEntire said in a later interview that he does not favor signing written contracts, contending they would be “superfluous.”
He also threatened to not approve the grants if they are subject to contracts.
“I need to think here about what I’m going to do,” he said.
“A contract serves no purpose here,” he said, adding they apply more to purchases of goods and services not grant awards.
“I’m more than happy to sign some innocent piece of paper that memorializes everyone’s understanding that the funds be used according to that particular RCW [Revised Code of Washington],” he said.
The Opportunity Fund Advisory Board unanimously re-recommend approval of the city grant Thursday after county commissioners, confronted with Barkhuis’s objections, rewound the process to avoid paying interest of more than $400 a day on the unfulfilled warrants.
Barkhuis, who has threatened to take the dispute to county Superior Court, has demanded that allocations be subject to public hearings as a debatable budget emergency and be approved only with formal contracts signed off on by Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols.
She was not ready Monday to say she will sign warrants releasing the funds.
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see what they do,” Barkhuis, a non-practicing lawyer in her second term as treasurer, said in a later interview.
“I can’t continue to babysit these commissioners.”
According to County Policy 560, supplied by Barkhuis to justify her assertions, “a written contract is always required . . . for all intergovernmental agreements.”
Nichols said the policy applies only to purchasing agreements.
Barkhuis, whom McEntire invited to Monday’s commissioners’ work session, did not attend.
“I have better things to do than listen to the histrionics of the commissioners,” she said.
She also has said the hearing should be held as a debatable budget emergency, which the commissioners dispute and to which they are not acquiescing.
Nichols and the state Auditor’s Office have said the matter does not constitute a debatable budget emergency because the commissioners are not increasing the Opportunity Fund budget.
During their Monday work session, commissioners were anxious to schedule the hearing.
“There will be no hostage taking in county government,” McEntire said.
“We should be able to find a way to resolve our difference of opinion in a rational and civil way.”
Commissioner Bill Peach said further delay could create “mobilization” issues with the projects, adding that the composites center was expected to generate 100 jobs.
“It’s time to hold the treasurer accountable,” he said.
Commissioner Mike Chapman urged that the hearing be held.
“Let’s just honor someone who represents the citizens who elected us as well,” he said.
“To me, it’s a lot of kerfuffle about nothing.”
The Peninsula Daily News reported Sunday that McEntire, Peach, Jones and Nichols had already learned that the state Auditor’s Office said it was fine for the county to not hold hearings and not sign contracts covering the grants.
Chapman learned about that conclusion during a PDN reporter’s inquiry.
“If you guys have information, I think we need to share it with the public,” Chapman told his colleagues.
McEntire said he expects a written report on the audit.
McEntire said in the article that he “presumably” heard of the results from Nichols before commissioners asked for the special compliance-review audit.
“I will not bring hearsay to this table,” McEntire said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.