Yellow Pages
Last week’s La Conner Town Council candidate forum didn’t end with police showing up. That’s what happened four years ago, according two current council members who were there.
But I am told this year’s forum did get lively.
Incumbent Position 4 Councilwoman Marilyn Johnson, who is running against Stuart Welch, told me Tuesday that she faced an unexpected attack not from her opponent, but from La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes.
She said he was “spitting venom.”
Retiring Councilman Dan O’Donnell said: “I was totally disappointed and appalled at our mayor’s behavior.”
Neither O’Donnell or Johnson is known for getting along with Hayes particularly well and the mayor denied their characterizations.
I missed the forum hosted by the La Conner Chamber of Commerce and La Conner Weekly News Oct. 14. Johnson said there were about 30 people at the event, held at the La Conner School District Auditorium.
“This guy was hyped up and ready to tear into me, and he tore into me,” Johnson said of Hayes.
By phone Tuesday, Hayes said he was simply asking Johnson a question, just like other members of the audience. Hayes said he asked what evidence she has that having the town’s Public Works Department run the wastewater treatment plant would save money.
“I asked her what facts she used in coming to that decision,” Hayes said.
On the day of the forum, my story about the La Conner Town Council candidates ran in the Skagit Valley Herald. In an interview for that story, Johnson said the town should start running its wastewater treatment plant.
From the SVH story:
Johnson said the town now contracts with Water & Wastewater Services, LLC to manage the sewer plant. But she wants the town’s Public Works Department to take over.
“I would like to bring that in house,” Johnson said.
“We currently have people in our Public Works Department that would be able to handle our Sewer Department.”
She said the town decided not to run the plant because the savings would be minimal. But Johnson said she expects to realize greater savings by having current employees take on the job.
Johnson has said La Conner would save about $8,000 a year by operating the plant with town staff. O’Donnell has also said there would be savings.
The mayor disagrees.
“It became very evident that the research that we did it would cost the town considerably more in salary and wages,” he said. “I don’t think she did any research on it.”
“Her response was that we looked at it last year and that it looked like we would save some money,” Hayes said. “I dont know where she got that information.”
O’Donnell sent a report about the forum to those on his e-mail distribution list. I asked Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Marci Plank how the e-mail stood up as an account of the forum, and she said it was “pretty accurate.”
Here is what O’Donnell wrote about what Hayes said after Johnson answered his question:
Ramon (Hayes) called her statement “irresponsible,” but he was cautioned by the moderator (Skagit Valley College President Dr. Gary Tollefson) that others wanted to ask questions. In conclusion, Ramon stated that Public Works employees are union members and would cost too much. Marilyn (Johnson) replied that combining sewer operations into Public Works would save money because some (of) the PW employees are already certified to run the sewer plant. Finally, (Position 3 Town Council candidate) Mark (Pederson) pointed out that this was a matter for Council discussion, that Ramon really did not have a question for the panel, and it clearly out of place for Ramon to criticize Marilyn in public.
“We had a panel of five people up there and the mayor did not ask a question,” O’Donnell said Monday. “He made an accusation.”
Asked if he acted inappropriately, Hayes said: “no.”
He also disputed claims, made by Johnson and O’Donnell, that he involved his five-year-old daughter in the exchange.
Johnson called it “weird” that his daughter accompanied him when he came forth to ask the question, and suggested that he may have brought her to soften his image.
Not so, said Hayes.
“My daughter is a very gregarious young lady and she wanted to be up there with her father,” he said of Victoria Hayes, who spoke briefly into the microphone before he started his question. “Her comments had nothing to do with what was going on whatsoever,” he said.
“I would be really remiss if that were to make the headline or the paper,” Hayes said of his daughter’s involvement in the forum.
For all the charges made about Hayes, O’Donnell said the forum was comparatively “tame.”
He said Kwami Taha, husband of former Town Administrator Shani Taha, accused a candidate of racism four years ago. Someone called the cops after that, O’Donnell said and the forum was ended abruptly.
O’Donnell and Johnson, and the town of La Conner, are defendants in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the Tahas. The lawsuit, filed in January in U.S. District Court, alleges that O’Donnell and Johnson have discriminated against and defamed Shani Taha, among other allegations. The suit also says they unfairly criticized Shani Taha during interviews with reporters.
