Over the past couple of years since becoming the majority on the Black Diamond City Council, Councilmembers Erika Morgan, who was already seated on the Council, Brian Weber and Pat Pepper, while stating that they were watching out for the welfare of the City, were racking up quite a large bill for the City that taxpayers watching the situation became quite concerned about.
One of the monetary areas hit was in the grant funding lost by the City due to Majority Councilmembers Morgan, Weber and Pepper refusing to act on agenda bills before them. When bills were presented with funding sources that would help pay in part or in full projects needing to be taken care of within the City, Majority Councilmembers would call out that the bills were for first reading only and then assigned to a “committee.” Despite calls over the weeks/months by Councilmembers Tamie Deady and Janie Edelman to bring the bills out of committee to vote on as deadlines were looming, the Majority, for the most part, kept the bills tied up by sometimes moving them from one “committee” to another.
One such bill was for stormwater work to be done that had been worth a possible Department of Ecology Grant of $50,000. In the end, the City was only granted $25,000. That amount was nearly lost due to “committee” work and “unanswered questions” that staff had attempted to answer and show proof to their questions a number of times.
Yet another grant funding loss came from the $1.2 million TIB (Transportation Improvement Board) grant that would have finished improvements to Roberts Drive and the Rock Creek bridge. Loss of funding on that project was $200,000 due to not making the bridge safety improvements. Only due to some last-minute scrambling by the staff was the City able to not lose the entire $1.2 million.
Disruption and confusion was caused by vouchers pulled by Majority Councilmembers on a routine basis, which included Kenyon Disend law firm for the City Attorney and many consultants including RH2, Perteet, AHBL, Parametrix, and BHC. Over the course of nearly 2 years, the Majority pulled, withheld, tabled or denied approval for over $1.2 million. Many of the vouchers were related to the City’s MDRT (Master Development Review Team) contract with Oakpointe, which were reimbursed 100% by Oakpointe.
With regards to all the lawyers Majority Councilmembers involved themselves with whatever and whenever the purposes arose, 8 different firms were hired for personal and public business by the Majority over the two-year period the Majority attempted to run City business. Pepper stated time and again that the “Council” had the authority to sign contracts, and sign she did.
Attorney contracts signed by Pepper in the name of the “Council” that the City was expected to pay their billings included Talmage & Fitzpatrick, Jane Koler, Dan Glenn, and Ann Bremner. There were also the attorneys that Pepper requested the City pay for legal defenses for herself, Morgan, and Weber, which included Jeff Taraday in the OPMA lawsuit, and then Dennis Reynolds for Pepper’s Recall effort.
During her end of the year 2017 financial reports, Finance Director May Miller let Council know that normally the City budgets $10,000 for Legal Services specifically for law suits, along with approximately $10,000 specifically for legal review of public disclosure responses. As a result, $20,000 was budgeted for the items in the 2017 Budget. However, due to the OPMA (Open Public Meetings Act) lawsuit brought by Oakpointe alone, the cost to the City was $205,478 for 2017 and for Legal Public Disclosure review the cost to the city was $25,471. Then there was the $5,600 the City agreed to pay for Koler to represent Majority members in the mediation process of the OPMA lawsuit.
Miller went on to state that as she estimated for just these two areas of the 2017 Budget while getting ready for the amended budget, the amount expended over the year would be approximately $263,000. Of that amount, $20,000 was covered by 2017 Budget. Then due to all the extra growth and construction activity in Black Diamond, an extra $175,000 was received in sales tax that had not been budgeted for 2017.This brought the City within $68,000 of the expenditures for the lawsuits over the year. To cover this remaining amount, the City had to draw the fund balance down and re-appropriate the $68,000 to the lawsuits.
There were also the untold amounts of staff time above and beyond normal City business that the Majority cost the City. These all came in the form of public records requests from 2016-17 as well as the many discovery requests regarding lawsuits in 2017.
Then during the Thursday, January 4, Council meeting, community member Robbin Taylor reported during Public Comment that she had received Pepper’s invoices for Reynolds Law firm for Pepper’s Recall defense. According to Taylor, the invoices included charges involving Kristen Bryant amounting to $10,545. Also included were charges for other law firms including Jane Koler amounting to $26,428. The subtotal of these two items amounted to $36,973.
While the whole bill was for $45,433, Pepper’s responsibility out of that total was only $8,460. However, Pepper – with the help of Morgan and Weber – voted for a resolution that would fund her legal defense regarding the Recall charges. If upheld, the City would have been responsible for the whole $45,433 to Reynolds. However, the newly seated Council voted to rescind that resolution thereby relieving tax payers of that burden.
Also, according to Taylor, the City finally received Ann Bremner’s billing from Frey Buck that ran from the end of August to December. Taylor pointed out that Bremner broke her contract by not billing the City every month, but rather sent in one big billing. The billing for $24,722 was originally voted on by Majority Councilmembers for tax payers to pay before once again being rescinded by the newly seated Council. Speaking to the invoices she received and was reporting on, Taylor said, “…which I’m also going to turn in for attachment to the minutes [of the Council meeting], because the public needs to know what Pat Pepper and friends wanted the citizens to pay for.”
At the end of the meeting during her final comments, Taylor stated, “It is also my belief that Pepper is possibly attempting to commit fraud upon the taxpayers…”
Pepper quickly interrupted Taylor’s comment by stating, “I appeal the decision of the Chair to allow this person to speak to an individual Councilmember in such a negative way.” Mayor Carol Benson reminded Pepper that Pepper herself had already talked about her position and that Taylor was merely refuting what Pepper had said. Continuing with her arguments to try and stop Taylor’s comments, Pepper did not receive any support from the rest of the Councilmembers and Taylor was permitted to continue with her comments.
“It is also my belief that Pepper is possibly attempting to commit fraud upon the taxpayers by voting for the taxpayers to pay $45,433 of which $18,412 has no detail and could have possibly nothing to do with the recall at all. But Pepper wanted us to pay it anyway.” Taylor went on to state that she put in a Public Disclosure Request for the detailed invoices that had not been provided to the City. She made it clear that Pepper was also requested to turn in the details from the other law firms for the missing details of the $18,412.
Meanwhile, the Recall of Pepper marches on and is quickly approaching with ballots being mailed out on Wednesday, January 24, 2018 to registered Black Diamond voters. Ballots need to be turned in by Election Day, Tuesday, February 13, 2018. Voters will be considering the following measure regarding Pepper’s Recall:
Shall Councilmember Patricia Pepper be recalled from office for misfeasance, malfeasance, and violation of the oath of office, based on the following charges:
- Pepper, as part of a council majority, violated the Washington State Open Public Meetings Act, chapter 42.30 RCW, by convening and conducting closed meetings without public notice and by entering into private agreements to prepare and approve legislation.
- Pepper, as part of a council majority, refused to attend council meetings and failed to approve minutes.
- Pepper, as part of a council majority, failed to enact a 2017 budget in violation of state law and instead enacted a temporary budget containing illegal provisions, impairing the city’s ability to provide essential services.
