New court filings allege Longview council violated open meetings law multiple times

Plaintiff: Scope of offenses related to March city manager firing "the worst our attorney has ever seen"

New allegations filed in a lawsuit Thursday accuse four Longview City Council members of taking a rash of actions in violation of the state Open Meetings Act.

The filing significantly expands the scope and number of earlier legal complaints against the council foursome, but most still center around the defendants’ consequential March 13 termination of City Manager Kris Swanson without cause.

The filing in Cowlitz Superior Court documents 315 phone calls and scores of emails and text messages among the group that took place in January through March this year, according to the document. There are no transcripts of phone conversations, but the call times coincide with emails and texts showing that the defendants were discussing specific city matters.

In their scope, the foursome’s actions constitute “the most egregious example of Open Meetings Act (OPMA) violations our attorney has ever seen” in more than 20 years of practicing open government law, said John Melink of Longview, one of three plaintiffs in the case.

The new filing includes revealing and sometimes embarrassing disclosures of messages shared among the defendant council members — freshmen members Erik Halvorson, Kalei LaFave and Keith Young and Mayor Spencer Boudreau.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants illegally conspired to:

• Appoint Boudreau as mayor and Kalei LaFave as mayor pro tem in January, in opposition to the minority bloc’s wish to reappoint Mary Alice Wallis

• Shift Longview’s homeless program back to county management, a decision fraught with political motives and future funding implications for the city’s Hope Village homeless project.

• Embarrass Swanson in an executive session over a clerical glitch in a legislative budget request for Hope Village, knowing it was not her fault

• Fire Swanson and hire Jim Duscha, the city’s retired police chief, as interim manager and creating a council subcommittee to negotiate employment terms with Duscha without informing other council members

• Cover up a previous attempt to fire Swanson at the end of a council meeting on Feb. 8, orchestrated by councilors Young and LaFave. This relates to the mysterious resolution Young introduced but almost immediately withdrew before distributing to the entire council. He later said it sought an evaluation of the assistant city manager, but the suit alleges that it called for terminating Swanson and that Young allies knew its contents. “All four Defendants knew of this plan and intended this action,” according to the suit. It notes that Duscha was not a regular attendee at council meetings but told current Police Chicf Robert Huhta at that council meeting that he was there to be appointed as interim manager. Duscha is a longtime ally of LaFave.

• Cancelling an executive session with a city attorney in which they were to be advised of the legal perils of firing Swanson, who was terminated on a 4-3 vote despite the fact that her contract required a five-vote supermajority to terminate her. (However, all the council members had received OPMA compliance training, so they should have known the law they are now accused of flouting.)

• Appointing Councilman Halvorson to both the Cowlitz County Solid Waste Advisory Committee and the Cowlitz County Homeless Housing Task Force.

It is not the controversial actions themselves that are under legal challenge. It is the alleged secretive way the council colluded to make these decisions privately, only rubber-stamping them in public meetings with little or no debate. Most if not all of this council’s conflicted decisions have been made on 4-3 votes, with the defendant members in the majority.

It has been virtually unheard of for members of previous councils to exchange such an abundant number of calls and messages as these defendants have shared.

The foursome have been allied since the run-up to last November’s election. They have been supported and egged-on by the right wing “4-C” group (Concerned Citizens of Cowlitz County). Much of the 4-C leadership — including Larry Crosby of Castle Rock, Tim Shay of Kelso and Cowlitz County Commissioner Arne Mortensen of Kalama — do not live in Longview.

The communications, according to the filing, constituted an illegal “daisy chain” or “serial” group of meetings among a council majority to make de facto decisions. Such actions would violate the state Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA).

Two or even three council members can privately confer on a matter, but it is illegal for a majority of the seven-member council to do so outside a public meeting.

Thursday’s filing is an amendment to the lawsuit that Longview residents Thomas Samuels, former Councilman Mike Wallin and Melink filed in March. They withdrew the action later, in part because it sought Swanson’s re-instatement, which became moot when she took another job as Battle Ground city manager. They announced at the time they would file much more extensive allegations, and they did so Thursday.

They are represented by Seattle Attorney Michele Earl-Hubbard, one of the state’s most experienced open government attorneys.

It is customary for public officials to refer questions about lawsuits to their attorneys. Nick Power, a Friday Harbor lawyer for two of the defending council members, could not immediately be reached for comment after the court filing Thursday afternoon. If he and others comment those remarks will be included in a followup story later on Friday.

The council members have denied wrongdoing, but some of their own statements make it clear they intended to radically shake up City Hall.

As LaFave put it in her own filing in response to the suit when it was filed in March: “Together, the four of us set out to clean up the good ‘ol boy network that had been going on for far too long under Mr. Wallin’s self-serving leadership (Wallin was Mayor pro term but lost his November re-election bid to LaFave). Our first move regarding reorganization as a majority was to fire the then city manager, Ms. Swanson.”

As I reported earlier and as cited in the new court filings, LaFave on January 8 asked former City Manager Bob Gregory if he would agree to be interim city manager.

“They can whine and cry but they don’t have the majority so they can’t do much about what we want to get accomplished.”

— Text message by Longview councilman Keith Young, referring to the three minority members of the Longview City Council

The 27-page filing seeks fines against the four council members. It also asks for the court to order those defendants to obey the law and to pay the plaintiffs’ own legal costs.

Significantly, it also asks the court to order the defendants be held personally liable for their own attorney fees and any penalties the court awards. In addition, it also seeks $500 fines for each of the contacts constituting OPMA violations, a request that could drive any penalties into the tens of thousands of dollars.

The defendants’ vote to make the city pay their legal costs has generated particular vitriol, because multiple attorneys advised them that their actions would lead to legal trouble. OPMA terms also stipulate that officials can be held personally responsible for violations.

Pacific County Superior Court Judge Donald Richter is hearing the case to a preserve the appearance of fairness. All Cowlitz Superior Court judges have recused themselves because many of the defendants and plaintiffs are well-known in the community.

The lawsuit is based on public records requests that the three plaintiffs filed to obtain the council members’ phone, email, messaging and other commuinications records. The sheer volume of material — and the resistance of some council members to disclose it — is one reason it as taken several months to file the amended complaint, Wallin explained.

Wallin said Thursday’s filing only “scratches the surface” of the foursome’s OPMA violations.

He and Samuels said some of the council members — they singled out Boudreau and Young — have not fully complied with state open records laws to disclose all requested records. Boudreau, according to Wallin, has disclosed only 12 written records, whereas he has been involved with at least 130 other exchanges, judging from disclosures from the other defendants, Wallin said.

“This act of concealment of public records is a separate matter and is not part of this suit,” Wallin said.

He said he is certain the plaintiffs will discover more OPMA violations as they review more records. Some evidence — such as breakfast conversations the defendants are said to have shared at Omelettes and More along Washington Way in Longview — may never be discoverable, he said.

“We cannot stand to allow the violations to continue,. This evidence (documented so far) is a snapshot of just the first three months of this year. There will have to be further discovery and work to find out what they have been doing since (March),” he said.

Thursday’s filing contains extensive records of calls, text messages and emails, and some are bound to be embarrassing. One is an exchange between Young and Halvorson as they discussed that evening’s executive session called to upbraid Swanson for the budget request error she did not make.

Young: “Well that was fun.”

Halvorson: Laugh emoji

Young: “Those ladies (an apparent reference to Councilwomen Angie Wean, Ruth Kendall and Mary Alice Wallis) are way too emotional, sheesh.”

Halvorson: “How’s you like MAW (Councilmember MaryAlice Wallis]) finger in your face, LOL.”

Young: “Made me laugh. They can whine and cry but they don’t have the majority so they can’t do much about what we want to get accomplished.”

“We have a small group of committed supporters to help cover our attorney expenses. These people are interested in learning the truth and exposing (the defendants) for the wrongs they have committed, and they want see (the case) through.”

— Plaintiff and former Longview Councilman Mike Wallin

The scope, potential costs and risks of the case could eventually be a big inducement for both sides to settle it before it goes to trial. But that’s not even on the radar now.

Melink, Wallin and Samuels and a group of allies are bankrolling their own legal fees.

“We have a small group of committed supporters to help cover our attorney expenses,” Wallin said. “These people are interested in learning the truth and exposing (the defendants) for the wrongs they have committed, and they want to see (the case) through.”

LaFave, Young and Halvorson were elected last fall and immediately began working with Boudreau to fire Swanson, despite her stellar 2023 job performance and bipartisan appeals from the three other council members, former city managers, former city council members, city workers and the public.

As many of those people predicted, the council actions triggered resignations of much of the city’s top administrative leadership, cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance payments, sowed distrust among council members and created needs for additional contract and permanent staff. Also, the OPMA suit has prevented the city from selling $10 million in bonds for street improvements and making city buildings more energy efficient.

Wallin said the new court filings were not deliberately timed to coincide with the council’s Tuesday discussion about using $5.8 million in general fund reserves to pay for projects already underway.

However, this lawsuit shows that the costs and consequences of the council’s action will continue escalating.