Matt Ready

Reprinted here with Vernon’s permission.

To: Commissioners Rienstra, McComas, Dressler, and Kolff
From: Vernon Lauridsen, 141 Pine Dr, Port Townsend, WA 98368
Re: Open Public Meetings

As a member of the public—and more particularly, a patient of Jefferson Healthcare—I think we deserve better. You are commissioners of a public entity. You took an oath swearing to adhere to the laws of Washington State. Certainly now the facts and law are clear. Are you so full of hubris and vindictiveness that you will not simply acknowledge your mistakes? Rather, your response is to attack the messenger. Censure him. Really, in this day and age?

The Open Public Meetings Act declares:

“Public agencies… exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of this chapter that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.” 

“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed and informing the people’s public servants of their views so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
(RCW 42.30.010)

“All meetings of the governing body of a public agency shall be open and public…” (RCW 42.30.030).

A meeting takes place when a majority of the members of a governing body gather, either in the presence of one another or electronically, with the collective intent of transacting the official business of the public agency. A series of gatherings among less than a majority of the governing body that eventually turns into a majority qualifies as a meeting.
(Open Public Meetings Act, Municipal Research and Service Center, pages 6–7, July 2024).

Importantly, every member must complete training on the requirements of the Act within 90 days of taking their oath of office and at least once every four years thereafter (RCW 42.30.205). Ignorance or inadvertence is really not a viable excuse (online training is available through the MRSC). Members who attend meetings where action is taken in violation of the Act are subject to consequences. Violations, although not criminal, may result in a $500 monetary penalty (RCW 42.30.120).

But the critical consequence is that any ordinance, resolution, rule, order, or directive adopted in violation of the Act is simply null and void (RCW 42.30.060).

The events described in Commissioner Kolff’s opinion piece published in the October 22nd edition of The Leader constitute a meeting in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act. A proposal was drafted with the participation of a minority of the commissioners. The proposal was then distributed to the remaining members. Commissioner Kolff had concerns with the proposed organizational chart. He sent his own organizational chart to the entire board and CEO, which was then collectively discussed and agreed upon with the exception of one member.

You held a plainly illegal meeting in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act. The non-disclosure agreement signed by your CEO did not take precedence over state law. If that were the case, state law would be meaningless. Your effort to ratify the proposal through an admittedly illegally convened executive session grounded upon a “real estate purchase” exception hardly changes the outcome.

The whole process was folly from the outset. Olympic Medical Center’s demand for a non-disclosure agreement should have been a nonstarter. You were required to violate the Act in order to participate. Censuring the one commissioner who had the good sense to object just compounds the senselessness of the entire process.Vernon Lauridsen
cc: Matt Ready
Editor of The Leader