Letter from the Editor-Ethics Complaint Update

I received an email today from the city attorney, Adam Nelson and the mayor, Bruce Bailey stating the council had decided they want Bailey, Nelson and city councilman Newton Gunter to have a meeting with me to discuss the ethics complaint I filed against Gunter, councilman Andy Anderson and Bailey. My response was to ask for evidence the council as a whole had decided to not follow their ethics complaint policy and instead have a meeting with two of the people the complaint was filed against and the city attorney. The city attorney replied that the meeting didn’t mean the ethics complaint wouldn’t move forward but it was to discuss the complaint and “communication moving forward.” 

I went back and listened to the special city council meeting that was held last week on July 3^rd and recorded by Richard Crabbe and it was quite enlightening. You can listen to audio of the meeting here. Councilman Nathaniel Cullars Sr. brought my complaint up in an effort, he said, to make sure it was being handled properly. In the meeting, councilman Maceo Mahoney suggested the mayor, Gunter and the city attorney try to meet with me and stated that the city had important things to deal with. He did also say that he didn’t mean that the complaint I filed wasn’t important but, it was clear to me, it isn’t important enough to simply follow the policy on handling ethics complaints that is in the city municipal code. Councilman Anderson agreed with Mahoney to try and have a meeting but didn't agree to attend even though he is named in my complaint as well. There was input from Nelson stating that former Washington citizen and candidate for mayor, Angela Booker’s complaint in February of 2023 which was made against the former mayor Bill deGolian and councilman Anderson, former councilmen Charles Wagner and Matt Denard, was divided into separate complaints and dismissed by the investigative committees.  This complaint decision was never discussed publicly. It was never made public who was assigned to investigate these complaints and when I made an open records request for this information, I was told I would be charged for it. Charged for information that should have been public and instead was swept under the rug. Booker said she was never made aware that her complaint had been dismissed. You can view the complaint by scrolling down to the February 2023 articles on the Top Stories page of the Informer. 

Mahoney said several times in the meeting that the city was putting out “many fires” yet, the citizens aren’t made aware of what these fires are. The mayor is sharing information on his public Facebook page but most of it is about records requests I make and he appears to get some glee out of posting and driving a narrative before the records I request, are provided to me. The mayor seems to believe he has some special privilege where open records are concerned but that is not the case.

Not everyone in Washington is on Facebook and if they are, just over 1000 follow his page. The majority of citizens are in the dark.

Councilman Larry Hill went a step further in the meeting to bring up the fact that he just found out they, as city councilman, don’t have any insurance provided in the event they might be “targeted” with an ethics complaint. He also thought it would be a good idea to talk to me rather than follow their ethics complaint procedure.

I can't help but recall prior ethics complaints made against councilman Cullars Sr. and Mahoney and how differently they were handled. Swift action was taken by then mayor deGolian.  He set up investigative committees pronto and something appearing much like a trial ensued. Heck, Mahoney had only been on the telephone when Cullars and the mayor had a yelling match where nobody was threatened I might add, and it was deemed enough to warrant a full ethics hearing. Mahoney hadn't even said anything during the altercation between Cullars and former mayor deGolian. It is clear to me there is a double standard and nobody even tries to pretend that isn't the case. 

Bailey said that the portion of the complaint I made against him for conducting a meeting in private and discussing city business would have to include all members of council and that city business wasn’t discussed other than the severance package of the city administrator. In fact, the whole of the text chat was city business. The mayor was instructing the council on how to avoid talking to the media and that it wasn’t appropriate for Gunter to talk to Richard Crabbe about considering rescinding his vote regarding former city administrator Jerry deBin’s resignation. He talked about the council being a united front and wrongly told them they couldn't be recorded unless they were told by a reporter. All of it was city business aside from councilman Newt Gunter stating he was going to my home  and may need to be bailed out of jail as a result. You can see the text exchange for yourself here. 

I will not participate in a meeting with an individual who made a threat against me and another who continually maligns my character on his mayoral Facebook page because I make records requests that I have every right to make, by law.  Who states publicly that he instructs the city clerk to provide documents to me that if he instructed her not to, they both would be breaking the law and facing fines and jail time.

If the city is putting out so many fires and my ethics complaint is such a pointless distraction, maybe the mayor should stop spending so much time focused on what records requests I make and make sure he is actually getting information out to the citizens. Most don’t know Jerry deBin hasn’t accepted the severance package or that there is an urgent need to do a forensic audit that will cost the city at least $20,000. There was vague mention in the meeting of some contracts the city is obligated to pay that they didn’t know about but no details were provided.

People still want to know what deBin did that warranted such swift action. It brings up many questions such as why the mayor and council seemed to be in the dark on these things. I know for a fact they all knew deBin wasn’t providing me the records he should have for six months because I copied them all on my responses to deBin. I implored them to share the information I was requesting about the utility deposits if they had it because they too were bound by open records law but not one of them even responded until Cullars decided to go to city hall and ask for what I had been requesting, days before the June city council meeting.

In less than three days after this, city clerk Debbie Bazemore provided her resignation stating a significant reason was how the utility deposits had been handled.  She and city employees wanted to talk to mayor and council about other issues with deBin. It’s good action was finally taken but what has been the cost of the inaction for so long?

Now the city council and mayor are so busy managing the fallout that an ethics complaint made by a woman who a city councilman indicated he may harm and the mayor and other councilman encouraged, is just not important enough to deal with right now. The mayor, in fact, continues to rile up the 100 or so haters on his Facebook page and apparently gets off on the ever more creative names I am called and ways I can be harmed or run out of town. It's getting old for everyone else.

The council is right, this could have been resolved without an ethics complaint. I didn’t rush to that action. I waited for apologies but none came.

A simple “I was angry but that was unprofessional and I’m sorry” would have gone a long way, not only for me but to the thousands of citizens who think this behavior does matter. Who see the mayor continue to use his Facebook page as a public vendetta for someone who back in October dared to write about two lawsuits he faced in the past .  There are citizens who actually worry about what the 10,000+ people outside of Washington who read what I write, and what they think about their town.

The council can do what they will with my ethics complaint, I and others will watch and see how it unfolds.

Written by Michelle Chaffee