<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Washougal mayor: Council may have violated public meetings law

By , Columbian Small Cities Reporter
Published:

Washougal Mayor Sean Guard went public this week with concerns that the City Council may have violated state open public meetings law.

On Monday, Guard took to Facebook to ask Washougal residents and other local community members if they feel comfortable with the councilors discussing just about anything they want at meetings that hardly anyone attends. The beginning of Guard’s post reads: “Would it concern you if your city council was holding regular ‘special meetings,’ sometimes away from city hall, where a majority of them could talk about anything they wanted to, basically in private?”

Guard was referring to the council’s ad hoc budget committee, a relatively new committee consisting of all seven councilors. They created the committee early this year, to hold meetings about budget-related issues.

And according to the committee’s rules, its discussions must only focus on the budget. But Guard says talks at a recent meeting strayed beyond those boundaries when the councilors discussed shifting committee appointments after the city recently welcomed new Councilor Michelle Wagner to the mix.

Guard says he and Councilor Paul Greenlee disagree over whether the discussion crossed the line. Greenlee didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Public notice

The budget committee meets on Friday mornings at the Port of Camas-Washougal offices. It doesn’t always have a quorum — four councilors — but when it does, the committee is subject to the state’s open public meetings law.

That means the committee must put out prior public notice of all such meetings and submit notes from the meetings to the city clerk afterward. Guard says it appears the committee has held at least two meetings without any notice and the city’s still waiting on Greenlee to provide notes from the most recent one.

Not everyone on the council was happy with Guard’s decision to take his concerns to the public. But Guard said efforts to keep the issue in-house went nowhere.

“If I really thought that another email or phone call that went unanswered would have solved this problem, I probably would’ve gone that direction, but obviously those things aren’t happening,” he said.

If the committee did violate the law, Guard said he will have to consider reporting it to the State Auditor’s Office. What happened at the meeting should be clearer early next week, he said.

“Right now, we’re kind of trying to figure out what all has happened,” Guard said. “We’re not sure that we truly have a good picture, since this is a committee that wants to meet without the mayor present and without staff present.”

Loading...
Columbian Small Cities Reporter