Longview council expected to settle drawn-out open meetings lawsuit for $80,000

Costs in case that originated at time of city manager firing will approach $250,000; defendant councilors will not have to admit they violated state law

The city of Longview will pay $80,000 to settle a two-year old lawsuit that accused three current and one former City Council member of violating the state Open PublicMeetings Act on multiple occasions in early 2024.

Under the deal, the accused councilors would not admit guilt.

A vote on settlement is slated for the council meeting on Tuesday night. The judge in the case also would have to approve, but that likely is a formality.

The $80,000 payment would reimburse the plaintiffs for their legal costs in the case. It would bring the city’s total costs in the lawsuit to $242,000. Most of that amount— $162,000 — is for attorneys’ fees the city already has paid to defend the four councilors and its own lawyer.

Final totals, however, will increase some amount to cover fees not yet billed and for hashing out the settlement.

Also under the agreement, the city would consider reviewing its Public Records Act policies and develop a cell phone issuance policy for elected officials, according to a summary of the deal in Tuesday’s council agenda.

Plaintiffs in the case had no immediate comment. Two previous settlement offers they made would have required the councilors to admit guilt. They have continued to assert their innocence.

The lawsuit did not initially name the city as a defendant, but the municipality was added by the court at the request of the defendants.

Settling the case would save the city — and plaintiffs Mike Wallin, Thomas Samuels and John Melink — many more thousands of dollars needed to take the case to trial. The agreement also removes a conflict that has festered even as council relations and function have otherwise slowly improved since three new members — Mike Claxton, Wayne Nichols and Chris Bryant — came aboard in January.

The suit alleged that Councilors Kalei LaFave, Erik Halvorson, Keith Young and Spencer Boudreau met privately to predetermine decisions to fire City Manager Kris Swanson without cause in March 2024, about two months after three of them came into office. The suit also alleged collusion in other decisions, including appointing Boudreau as mayor and naming retired police chief Jim Duscha as temporary city manager.

The foursome denied guilt.

The council’s actions — made against the advice of a broad group of former city mayors, city managers, citizens and city employees — caused significant staff departures and other upheavals. Ultimately these ended up costing the city about $750,000 for severance payments, consultant fees and legal costs.

This conflict was likely pivotal in last November’s City Council elections, in which voters decisively cast Boudreau out of office and elected Nichols. LaFave, Halvorson, and Young do not need to stand for re-election until next year. Settling the case now spares them ongoing publicity and reminders about the case, which was scheduled for trial this fall.

Melink and Samuels spent thousands of hours using public records requests to document hundreds of phone calls, text messages and emails among the foursome that they contended show a pattern of illegal coordination and consultation. Such copious out-of-session communications among councilors had been unheard of previously.

Under state law, elected officials cannot make decisions in private. Nor are they allowed to confer with one another separately to arrive at a decision. Such “serial” meetings are prohibited under the state Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA).

The plaintiff’s lawyer, Michelle Earl Hubbard, specializes in open government law and took the case at a reduced fee, calling the Longview case one of the most blatant violations of the state open meetings law she’d ever encountered.

However, the case got mired in delays. In particular, LaFave and Boudreau took about 18-months to comply with official information demands and phone records. Thy did so only after a judge threatened them with fines. Some struggles over whether they fully disclosed information has continued up to now.

In addition, LaFave and Boudreau’s lawyer, Eric Carlson of Chehalis, raised procedural objections that caused months of delay.

The plaintiffs were continually frustrated by claims that phone records were not available. Samuels was incensed when state Sen. Jeff Wilson’s admitted that he had destroyed a cell phone in violation of state mandates against destruction of public records.

Samuels had sought Wilson’s records as further evidence that the defendant councilors worked with broad group of fellow conservatives to orchestrate the Swanson and other decisions. A legislative ethics oversight committee did not sanction or chastise Wilson for destroying the phone, but the ethics board’s finding brought condemnation from the Washington Coalition for Open Government.

The plaintiffs recently suffered some other setbacks. A Clark County Sheriff’s Office investigation found that there was no “probable cause” that LaFave, Boudreau, Wilson and Halvorson violated the Open Public Records Act. And the judge in the Open Meetings case lawsuit — Pacific County Superior Court Judge Donald Richter— declined to hold LaFave and Boudreau in contempt of court for delaying response to the plaintiffs requests for information.

The defendants’ vote to have the city pay their legal costs also was a source of controversy. The city’s liability insurance carrier — the Washington Cities Insurance Authority — had declined to pay for legal representation, saying it had warned the defendants of their legal jeopardy in advance and that their own, purposeful actions instigated the OPMA suit.

The defendants would have been personally liable for any damages had a verdict gone against them.

The plaintiffs have complained that voting to have the city bankroll the councilor’s defense was a conflict of interest. They’ve also argued that allowing the councilors to tap the city’s deep pockets made for a badly lopsided playing field. Citizen enforcement of the open meetings law is therefore is impractical and unfair, they argue.