Letters to the Editor

Letter to the editor | PenMet’s legal expenses skyrocketing

Recent articles about PenMet and Madrona Links create significant concerns — along with a strong sense of déjà vu.  Legal entanglements, difficulty in working cooperatively with other parties, resistance to effective communication, deferred maintenance, procrastination on issues until the situation becomes dire — all of these have been consistent themes with PenMet for years.

LEGAL COSTS:  PenMet’s legal budget has increased from $70,000 in 2022, to $95,000 in 2023, to $111,250 in 2024 to a proposed $136,000 for 2025.  An average increase of 24% annually, this is a doubling of PenMet legal spending over only 4 years.  Why??  As a relatively small agency whose primary mission is to provide parks and recreation programs (with a stable number of properties), why is PenMet continually in the news for disputes of all types — with the legal bills to show for it?

Parts of it the public knows:  the disagreement with the Phase 1 contractor for the Community Recreation Center, the alleged unlawful termination of disabled employee, preparation of non-disclosure agreements for departing employees, personnel dissatisfaction which culminated in a unionization vote.  Other parts are less publicized — the settlement case involving a prior Executive Director, a citizen suit for non-compliance with the Public Records Request statutes — likely there are several more.

As early as 2021, citizens requested legal expense details.  Three years later, that public records request is yet to be completed.  Just last month a July 2022 legal invoice for $67,400 covering an 8 month period was released.  BUT all details of parties involved and topic were redacted.  With a PenMet invoice, describing public employee(s) meeting to discuss public matters, what would be the confidential nature of saying “Executive Director met with attorney to discuss personnel matters”?  This is an example of PenMet’s lack of transparency, particularly when challenged about their actions with public properties and/or monies.

And now we have the Madrona Parks kerfuffle, where PenMet has decided to declare Eminent Domain. Eminent domain is the power of the government to take away someone’s private property, intended to be applied narrowly and has been called a “despotic” power given its vast potential for abuse. The Fifth Amendment places strict limits on eminent domain.  Private property can be taken only for “public use”, or public works projects such as roads, to achieve a greater good for the public.  Even if a property is taken for a public use, the owner must be paid “just compensation”.

Evidently PenMet is asserting that preserving Madrona Links in its current layout is for the ‘greater good’, and the district attorney believes he can defend that in court.  At the very least, applying Eminent Domain to a golf course is controversial legally.  Perhaps golfers think differently, but Madrona is not a ‘destination course’ in the golf community and central to Gig Harbor commerce.

So what will happen here?  PenMet might win, in which case ZTM will still need to be paid ‘just compensation’, which takes it back to the ‘war of the appraisals’.  PenMet Met could lose, which returns us where we are now but with a less cooperative seller.  Or the parties could settle, where no one exactly ‘wins’.  Regardless, money will be paid for the parcel AND legal expenses are accrued.

In our private lives, we all have known people who seem to continually be in court for one reason or the other.  Over time we generally observe that these persons are poor communicators and have not learned to ‘play well with others’.  PenMet’s attorney has been their primary legal counsel for over a decade and intrinsically involved in multiple decisions. One would hope that PenMet would receive advice to help avoid disagreements, versus just paying ever-increasing amounts for legal fees.  From the outside, it appears that the attorney has no incentive for preventive counsel—the firm gets paid either way.

DIFFICULTY IN WORKING WITH OUTSIDE PARTIES:  I am sympathetic to the property owners in the Madrona case, as in their words Pen Met has ‘not negotiated in good faith’.  Having watched PenMet for years, this claim by ZTM is likely to be valid.  Now PenMet is resorting in essence to a ‘bully’ position through Eminent Domain.

Remember that this agency asked the voters just last year for a levy lid lift that would have resulted in a~30% tax increase, claiming their existing budget was inadequate.  The ~60% NO vote presumably sent the message that constituents wanted better management and return to the fundamentals of quality programs and facilities.  Instead, what we have seen since the NO vote is an agency who shows no sign of cutting back, instead pursuing ambitious expansion.

It is only a matter of time before PenMet asks taxpayers again for more.  Informed reader, examine closely PenMet’s actions with Madrona and other current/future projects with that in mind.

Respectfully submitted,

Peggy Power

Fox Island   

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