By: Pepper Fisher
SEQUIM – The City of Sequim has filed a Motion For Award of Sanctions in Clallam County Superior Court against the non-profit group Save Our Sequim (SOS), and their attorneys, seeking an award of expenses and legal fees after Judge Brent Basden in June dismissed the SOS group’s attempt to get an injunction and restraining order to stop the City of Sequim from processing the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s application to build a medication-assisted treatment clinic (MAT), claiming that Sequim officials violated their own rules in processing the application.
Sequim City Attorney Kristina Nelson-Gross argues that the group, their attorneys and their partner in the suit, Parkwood Manufactured Housing Community,LLC, filed a frivolous lawsuit to avoid legal remedies already in place and at their disposal, including LUPA, the Land Use Protection Act, designed for parties who want to appeal a land use decision.
In the case of the MAT clinic, Judge Basden ruled that a LUPA appeal would have to wait until a hearing examiner, hired by the City to review the City’s approval process of the Tribe’s application, has made a decision and the City issued building permits. Those permits have now been issued, but the hearing examiner will not be reviewing the process until sometime in September.
Nelson-Gross also asserts that SOS and company “launched an all-out assault on the City Council, certain City staff, and even the City’s contracted hearing examiner” and “made unsupported statements at the time of filing, produced no evidence to support those assertions despite extensive discovery, and threatened to destroy respondent (Nelson-Gross) and force her to incur substantial legal costs”.
The City’s motion goes on to say that the SOS group’s “legal counsel sought to inflame the public through sending formal letters to the City Council alleging unfounded accusations of bias and collusion for at least three months before filing this action”.
“Plaintiffs have consistently used their social media platform to allow members to routinely call for firing certain City staff, voting certain elected officials in and others out, and promoting racist and intolerant attitudes”.
“Plaintiffs routinely disrupted City Council meetings, publicly disparaged City staff without evidence or justification at those Council meetings and online, threatened the City Attorney with Bar complaints, pressured the City Council to fire certain City staff, and then used the S.O.S Facebook page to promote certain candidates”.
“Plaintiffs spent a good deal of time outlining their allegations that the Community Development Director was ‘misreading or consciously ignoring’ City code and that the City Manager and Director were “in on” the Tribe’s project in letters to the City Council and in their Complaint and Emergency Motion, yet when given the opportunity to argue their case, they offered nothing legally or factually substantive to support their position”.
Nelson-Gross is seeking full or partial reimbursement of attorney’s fees, meaning her own wages, to the City for the time spent on the lawsuit.
Jamestown S’Klallam CEO Ron Allen told KONP that the Tribe has filed a similar motion with the court seeking reimbursements and possibly other remedies against SOS.
No hard dollar figure being sought was mentioned by either the City or the Tribe.
Judge Basden will consider the City’s motion in Superior Court this Friday.