PORT TOWNSEND — A lawsuit has been filed against most of Jefferson Healthcare’s board of commissioners as well as its CEO, Mike Glenn, for allegedly violating the Open Public Meetings Act.
The suit was filed with the Jefferson County Superior Court. No hearings have been scheduled.
An initial complaint was filed Oct. 23 by Arthur West of Olympia, an Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) advocate. In an amended complaint filed Nov. 3, he named hospital board chair Jill Buhler Rienstra, commissioners Kees Kolff, Bruce McComas and Marie Dressler, along with Glenn, as defendants.
West alleged that in a Feb. 5 meeting, the defendants discussed a Peninsula Health Alliance (PHA) proposal in executive session, without a valid exemption from OPMA. No pending litigation, threatened litigation or real-estate transaction existed to justify the executive session, according to the complaint.
Recently reelected Commissioner Matt Ready, the only commissioner omitted as a defendant in the suit, wrote a blog post on his website addressing what was discussed in the meeting, which he said had been called under the guise of the real-estate exemption.
“Once in this ‘real estate’ meeting, instead of real estate, we were shown a proposal to create a new nonprofit — the Peninsula Health Alliance — that would oversee both Jefferson Healthcare and Olympic Medical Center in significant and extensive ways,” he wrote. “The plan called for a ‘super-board’ of 12 commissioners: seven from OMC and five from Jefferson, giving Clallam County a permanent majority. When I asked the CEO if he was seeking board approval, he said, ‘Yes.’ Then, one by one, the other commissioners voiced support for proceeding with this proposal. Even if the proposal had been a good idea — which it was not — the way it was introduced broke the law.”
In a March 26 meeting, Ready attempted to raise concerns regarding undisclosed negotiations with Olympic Medical Center, the filing states.
The discussion was silenced when Buhler Rienstra adjourned into executive session, citing legal grounds. The complaint asserts that emails later showed that drafts of merger proposals were circulated privately among a subset of commissioners, as well as with Jefferson Healthcare legal counsel Brad Berg.
The complaint alleges that one-on-one unrecorded telephone meetings between consultant Karma Bass and each of the commissioners were organized by Glenn and Buhler Rienstra in April. The meetings were not recorded, noticed or otherwise documented and occurred outside of public view, West claimed.
Those meetings constituted unlawful serial meetings, the suit alleged, citing Wood v. Battle Ground School District and Egan v. The City of Seattle.
West’s complaint also alleged that an executive assistant, following Glenn’s direction, scheduled private one-on-one meetings between each commissioner and attorneys from Ogden Murphy Wallace PLLC, concerning the PHA. Those meetings constituted prohibited serial meetings, West alleged.
Commissioners and staff represented that the discussions of PHA were bound by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), according to West’s complaint. The NDA was not voted for or approved by the full board of commissioners, some of whom were denied access to the document. Use of such an NDA goes contrary to public officers’ fiduciary obligations and is in violation of the OPMA, according to the complaint.
West included in the complaint the legal opinion of attorney Michele Earl-Hubbard of Allied Law Group, ascertained by journalist Alison Arthur.
“The agency absolutely cannot legally use the ‘real estate’ or ‘potential litigation’ executive session grounds to discuss the creation of this new entity,” Earl-Hubbard concluded. “They are breaking the law meeting in secret under either of those two exemptions.”
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Derek Allen investigated and reported that the actions likely violated OPMA and could constitute official misconduct if intent is proven, according to the complaint, which included a quote from Allen.
The report was sent to Jefferson and Clallam County Sheriff’s Offices as well as the State Auditor’s Office and the state Attorney General’s Office, according to the filing.
West requested that the court declare the defendants were in violation of the OPMA in using executive sessions to discuss PHA and conducting unlawful serial meetings, enjoin them from conducting further such meetings, nullify any actions taken while in violation, impose penalties of $500 per defendant, grant costs and fees to the plaintiff and grant further relief as justice requires.
West has been involved as the plaintiff in multiple lawsuits around the violation of the OPMA.
Ready, who was censured by a board-passed resolution on Oct. 22, addressed the lawsuit on his blog.
“This lawsuit echoes many of the concerns I’ve raised over the past months,” Ready wrote. “It’s disappointing that it has come to this — legal action against our own district — but it underscores how far we’ve strayed from the principles of open governance. The involvement of OMC commissioners in the PHA discussions without proper transparency only compounds the issue, as it affects communities across the peninsula. ”
Ready wrote that he did not know about the lawsuit before it was filed.
During deliberation, before passing the resolution to censure Ready, Kolff and Dressler expressed regret in taking action against a fellow board member.
“I’ve already stated in public that I’ve not been involved in any secret meetings,” Dressler said. “Any secret meetings that he has accused us of I think are totally a figment of his imagination.”
She said in her deliberation that censure was the least the board could do, calling Ready inexperienced in business transactions and saying that his behavior was despicable and reprehensible.
Buhler Rienstra said in her 30 years of experience with the hospital, she never imagined a commissioner could take a tangent so far.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
