PORT ANGELES — With issues of legality looming, a three-person board will discuss today making a recommendation to the City Council on whether city Councilwoman Cherie Kidd should be punished for violating the ethics code while chairing a Feb. 2 council meeting.
The board, which will meet at 11 a.m. in City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St., also will discuss Kidd’s lawyer’s April 4 request to reconsider the panel’s unanimous decision that she violated the code, a violation alleged in a complaint filed by Marolee Smith, a former City Council candidate.
The lawyer, Michael Kenyon of Issaquah, is representing Kidd at taxpayer expense on a similar complaint filed by the anti-fluoridation group Our Water, Our Choice!
That group’s pared-down complaint will be considered April 19 by a second ethics panel.
Jurisdiction question
The second panel questioned its own jurisdiction last Thursday and is seeking the advice of a lawyer after Our Water, Our Choice! withdrew allegations that Kidd interrupted speakers and adjourned the meeting too soon, which the board that is meeting today had already ruled was an ethics violation at an April 1 meeting.
Ken Williams, a member of the second panel, said the advice was necessary given that the first panel might have already ruled on several issues now before the second panel.
In an interview last week, Williams, a retired Clallam County Superior Court judge, questioned the constitutionality of the city ethics ordinance under which the complaints were filed.
“An issue in my mind is how the ordinance is constitutional if it is interpreted to allow the continual fling of complaints against a public official for the same offenses over and over again even after they are decided [upon],” Williams said.
“I think that runs into due process considerations.”
The board meeting today that is composed of Frank Prince Jr., Danetta Rutten and Grant Meiner decided April 1 that Kidd violated the ethics code by reflecting “discredit” on the council and, as Meiner said in a later interview, on herself as well, by abruptly adjourning a meeting when less onerous options were available.
Kidd cut short an anti-fluoridation speaker during a public comment session Feb. 2 and tried restoring order as the commotion grew before adjourning the session with a half-dozen speakers waiting to have their say.
Mike Libera, a vice president of Our Water, Our Choice!, said Monday he is worried the first board will reverse itself.
“We don’t have a lawyer and lawyers always get more respect,” he said.
“If they do change their minds, it will be a black eye for Our Water, Our Choice!.”
Meiner said Monday the board will discuss making a recommendation to the City Council on a full range of options for Kidd that include doing nothing further to removing her from her deputy mayor position.
Options also include the council issuing a written or verbal admonition or censuring Kidd.
Kidd on Monday was looking beyond today’s meeting.
“I think it’s really important that we don’t set a tone that will discourage people from running for the City Council,” she said.
Reconsideration
In his motion for reconsideration, Kenyon said Kidd’s actions were consistent with City Council procedures and Robert’s Rules of Order.
Kenyon said Kidd could have removed out-of-order speakers, cleared the council chambers or stopped the meeting to reconvene elsewhere, as suggested by Meiner on April 1.
“The deputy mayor declined to take any of those drastic actions and instead chose absolutely the least intrusive means to restore order — declare a short recess and try again,” Kenyon said.
“Certain audience members ignored this olive branch, and continued to disrupt the meeting.
“In that circumstance, Deputy Mayor Kidd correctly determined to avoid a situation where members of the audience had effectively taken over and controlled the City Council meeting, rather than the City Council controlling its own meeting in the person of the presiding officer.”
The Our Water, Our Choice! complaint that Kenyon is challenging, as summarized by Williams last Thursday, still alleges that Kidd did not give proper notice about political signs at the Feb. 2 meeting, chaired the meeting while Mayor Patrick Downie was available by speakerphone and gavelled Councilman Lee Whetham out of order when he had asked for a legal opinion.
Williams said last Thursday that the results of today’s meeting might reveal if those issues already have been resolved by the Prince-Rutten-Meiner panel.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.