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Washougal council censures Sellers

The Columbian
Published: October 31, 2009, 12:00am

Mayor issues an apology, plan to deal with ‘shortcomings’

The Washougal City Council passed a resolution Friday night expressing its disapproval of Mayor Stacee Sellers’ behavior and lack of effective communication.

The censure vote will not result in Sellers being removed from her position; it is only a record of the council’s dissatisfaction. The council unanimously approved the resolution, and Sellers said she agreed with the decision.

“I don’t have a vote, but if I did … I would vote in favor of this,” Sellers said, fighting back tears.

The resolution outlined several areas as justification for the reprimand, including missing funds from city-sponsored events as outlined in an accountability audit done by the state; Sellers’ lack of respect for public trust in her personal use of a city credit card; Sellers’ excessive spending for meals on the city’s credit card; and her failure to provide City Council members with documentation of expenditures and profits for city-sponsored events when they were requested.

Councilman Jon Russell voted for the resolution but said he believed additional action should be taken.

“I don’t think censure is strong enough,” he said.

Councilwoman Molly Coston, who presented the resolution to the council, said she did not want to take tougher action — such as asking for Sellers’ resignation — until the special audit by the Washington State Auditor’s Office is complete and more answers are provided in response to the accountability audit findings released Monday.

Councilman Lou Peterson did not attend the special meeting, and Councilman Paul Greenlee left early to attend another event and did not vote.

More than 50 people crammed into the City Council chambers for a special two-hour meeting of the council.

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The audience listened intently as council members questioned Sellers about charges she made to a city credit card while on a business trip in Las Vegas and about missing revenue from city-sponsored events.

Councilman Michael Delavar asked Sellers to justify spending $50 on a dinner entree and $88 on a bottle of wine while in Las Vegas in May. Sellers told the council that she was there to try and entice businesses to locate in Washougal and had meetings with various business representatives.

“It wasn’t as if I was the only person sitting at the table,” she said. “There were other people sitting there.”

Sellers then admitted she could have ordered less expensive items than what other people were ordering.

When asked about a $120 charge to her city credit card for parking at the Portland airport during her four-day trip, Sellers said she did not know if she parked in a short- or long-term parking lot but did remember taking a shuttle.

In regards to the missing event revenue, Sellers told the council that city staff and state auditors are still gathering documentation from the nonprofit group, Downtown Revitalization Implementation Committee, that operated Washougalfest and Riverfest on behalf of the city. Sellers admitted that the city should have had its own documentation of how DRIC was spending the money.

“Having it in the hands of a nonprofit that is doing work for us was not appropriate,” she said.

The audit also revealed that revenue from the summer 2009 farmers market had not been accounted for. Sellers told the council she was unsure why DRIC’s bank account was being used for the event’s funds since the city took over management of the event.

The farmers market was managed solely by former City Administrator Nabiel Shawa, who recently began a job in Walla Walla, she said.

Sellers declined The Columbian’s request for an interview after the meeting, but earlier in the afternoon she issued a press release to address the accountability audit findings. Sellers’ press release is available at www.columbian.com/docblog.

In the release, Sellers apologized for the negative publicity and offers up a five-point plan to address the city’s shortcomings. The City Council was not involved in creating the plan.

“Clearly, I made mistakes,” she wrote. “Nothing was done intentionally or with malice or to misuse taxpayers dollars. … I will strive to do better.”

After having studied the auditor’s findings and recommendations, Sellers proposed the following plan, which she said the city has already begun to implement:

1. Reduce the number of city-issued credit cards.

2. Each city-sponsored event will become part of the annual budgeting process and open to public discussion.

3. Institute a comprehensive ethics training to improve city leadership’s understanding of per diem, cell phone, travel and personnel policies.

4. Invest more resources and education for employees of the finance department, which has been understaffed the past few years. In doing so, the city’s finance department will be better able to deal with the dynamics of the growing community. Improved financial practices will be the result.

5. Improve documentation to provide better transparency.

“Our city team will improve and be a better city because of this awareness,” she wrote. “We are humans, and we make mistakes. But we can learn and grow from these mistakes.”

Marissa Harshman: 360-735-4546 or marissa.harshman@columbian.com.

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