LYNNWOOD
Simmering resentment by a majority of the City Council with what it perceived as Mayor Don Gough’s intrusion on the council during a two-day retreat last December in La Conner came up again during the council’s Feb. 25 business meeting.
In separate letters from the council to Gough and city staff, which were included in the Feb. 19 meeting packet, the council thanked both for their time but criticized Gough for ignoring a council request for time to itself as the retreat commenced.
Councilman Ted Hikel had publicly criticized his colleagues for asking Gough and his staff to leave the room for two hours during the retreat and for refusing to allow the session to be recorded on audio.
The following month, after the council rebuffed his request to record a planned special meeting at a Lynnwood hotel, Hikel on Jan. 17 used a city-owned tape recorder to record that special meeting, which angered his colleagues further.
State law requires public meetings to be recorded in writing but has no such requirement for audio or video recordings, though many municipalities, including Lynnwood, make audio and video recordings of business meetings.
In the council’s undated letter to Gough, it thanked him and his staff for the Dec. 7 and 8 work sessions in La Conner, and stated, “Unfortunately, we got off to a shaky start. As you are well aware, the needs and desires of the Council had been relayed to you at various times and from various sources. The request to have you and the staff exit the room was clearly prompted by a perceived disrespect on your part for the Council in light of the earlier requests. Your insistence on pressing the issue was truly offensive to us. It was by the slimmest of margins that the decision was made to not abort the summit meeting. Hopefully, such will not happen again.”
On Feb. 25, Hikel read a prepared statement clarifying his position and explaining why he refused to sign off on the council’s letter to Gough.
“I objected to anyone being asked to leave an open public meeting and to the termination of the taping of an open public meeting of the council especially since it was being held far outside the city,” he said. “The council controls the budget and the salaries of the administration. That puts the council in a powerful position when asking them to leave the room and turn off the recording.”
Hikel went on to say, “as I read the law, council members give up certain rights when they are elected or appointed as public officers. My right to meet with three or more other members of my council in private is limited to authorized executive sessions. I give up the right to serial communication. I am only allowed to conduct pubic business in an open public meeting.”
In response, Councilman Jim Smith said “we tried to deal with this quietly amongst ourselves. Regardless of what happened in December, we tried to do this in a responsible and courteous way.”
Smith also said the “real problem here is a member of the council who lacks respect for other council members. When we get attacks on the council that we were trying to have secret meetings, that is not the case.”
Gough said, “I’m reserving the opportunity to respond,” and, with that, debate on the subject ended.
After the meeting, Councilwoman Lisa Utter said in an interview the squabble had “nothing to do with open public meetings.” She said the real issue was about broken agreements. The council, she said, had simply requested time to itself with the understanding that Gough had agreed to the request.
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