Term Limits and the Poor Handling of a Conflict in Pierce County, WA

Term limits, the recession, a new kind of governmental district, and a drive to save and manage local parks have all contributed to a fascinating ethics situation in Pierce County, Washington, home of Tacoma. Just last year I stayed in Pierce County and visited some of these parks, so this story is a little more concrete to me than most I write about.

Park Districts
According to an article in the News Tribune, Washington State voters formed seven metro park districts between 2002 to 2005, and then six more since 2009.  They have increasingly become caretakers of public lands as local and state budgets have tightened. This has led local governments to transfer their parks to these districts, which have their own taxing authority (property and sales taxes) and yet also get grants from other governmental units.

These park districts are a way to have your parks and enjoy them, too, without having to raise taxes (the districts do it, not the politicians) or having to take away money from other services in order to pay for them. They are the ultimate solution at a time when politicians are afraid to raise taxes (or promise not to) and unwilling to make their priorities clear.

Term Limits
Term limits are supposed to be a way of preventing politicians from establishing too much power, at least at one level, or becoming professional politicians. Of course, they don't really work, because there are multiple positions at the city, county, and state levels, elected and appointed. But they do require that politicians be creative if they want to stay in the game.

The Struggle to Take Better Care of Parks
Into this situation walks Terry Lee, who became a county council member in 2003 and could not run in 2010. According to an article in the News Tribune this week, when Lee took office, he heard lots of complaints from his constituents that the county was not taking good care of the parks in his area, the Gig Harbor peninsula (which is where I stayed). For five years he struggled to get the county to transfer 141 acres of waterfront parkland to the Peninsula Metropolitan Park District (PenMet), and in December 2010 the county council voted unanimously to make the transfer, with Lee abstaining from the vote.

Yes, on the big day, Lee recused himself from voting. The reason for this is that he had been hired as PenMet's executive director two months before. Talk about being on both sides of a transaction!

Appearance, Reality, and the Public Interest
This is a case where appearance and reality seem to have been pretty far apart. In actuality, the move from council member advocating for better care for the parks to administrator taking better care of the parks was a logical move, and in the public interest. Otherwise, due to term limits, Lee's passion and experience may have been lost, at least for a few years.

The more one reads about this situation, the more considerations pile up on both sides. For example, although Lee applied for the position of executive director last February, he withdrew his name in May, because he wanted to retire and travel. In addition, he did not have the required educational requirements, so it would have been hard for PenMet to give him the job. PenMet hired someone else, but at the last second, in late August, the new director decided to take a job in another part of the country.

Preferential Treatment
It's here that things start looking bad. Suddenly the PenMet board changed what it was looking for in a director from someone with lots of parks training and experience to an administrator with connections in the community. With this new idea in mind, they approached certain people who had applied before, and they contacted Lee. Five of the people they contacted expressed interest, but none of them was interviewed. Only Lee was interviewed, on September 20, and the PenMet board voted unanimously to begin contract negotiations with him. Talk about preferential treatment!

One thing that distinguishes this situation from many others is that it does not appear that Lee was looking for a cushy retirement job. He suggested that he not be paid, but PenMet's attorney said this wasn't possible.  Lee ended up bargaining for 15% less than his predecessor was paid.

Terrible Timing, and the Alternatives
The other big appearance problem is that Lee took the job while he was still a council member and while the transfer of park land had not yet been completed. No one could say he was pushing for the transfer due to the job, or that he had pushed for it to get the job, because he had been pushing for it for years. But the timing was terrible, and it didn't have to be like that. Lee could have either resigned from the council in September or, better, asked to start a couple months later, after his term was over and the transfer vote had been made.

But Lee said he consulted twice with the council’s legal administrator, both when he began negotiations for the PenMet post, and when the parks transfer came to a vote. He said he was told he could hold both jobs and abstain from the vote. He did what he was told, but that was not enough. He should have had a trained ethics officer to talk with.

It also appears that, although Lee did recuse himself from voting on the land transfer, he did not withdraw from participation in the matter. He should have done this at the time he originally applied for the job.

But doing this might have hurt the cause he had fought for. It appears that he had made the difference in getting the county and the PenMet board to compromise on funding, partly by telling PenMet that if the deal didn't go through while he was on the council, it might not go through at all.

Is There Really a Conflict of Interests?
Another consideration here is that although PenMet does get funding from the county, it is not a company or even a nonprofit seeking a contract, but a governmental unit that does part of the county's work. The county's and PenMet's interests are, therefore, pretty much the same. What benefits PenMet benefits the county's residents, who can all enjoy its parks.

But, of course, it most benefits Lee's particular constituents, who live amongst PenMet's parks. What he was pushing for was for his particular constituents more than for the county as a whole. But everyone does benefit, even the handicapped, who have been beneficiaries of improvements to park trails.

Despite the appearance that Lee was wearing two hats, and that the PenMet board went out of its way, even changing what it was looking for in a director, to reward someone who had used his office to help PenMet grow and get county funding, it's not clear how different the county's and PenMet's interests really are. After all, the county council did unanimously approve the compromise Lee helped to achieve.

And Lee does not appear to have been looking for a salary to replace what he was getting as a council member.

If It Had Been Handled Responsibly . . .
The question is, if Lee had handled this matter responsibly by not applying for the job in February (he didn't even have the qualifications) and letting the PenMet board know in September that he could not talk about the position until his term was up, would there still be too serious an appearance of impropriety in his accepting an offer from PenMet in December?

Post-employment rules are intended to prevent officials from giving preferential treatment to potential employers while in office. But there is little doubt that Lee was not giving preferential treatment to PenMet, since he had always supported it, not for himself, but for his constituents, who could better enjoy the local parks. This, I believe, is what makes a difference in this situation.

And then there's the term limits. Term limits force politicians who want to keep working in the community to consider their short-term future outside of electoral politics. Term limits put pressure on elected officials to focus on post-employment opportunities, and most such opportunities are with organizations involved in the community, which means involved with the government in one way or another. Lee said he would have run again if he could, but he couldn't. So he did the next best thing, for himself and for the community. It's hard to fault him for that.

The bare facts of this situation look bad for Lee but, assuming the truth of what has been reported, the more one knows, the better things look. What we can learn from this situation is how important it is to go out of one's way to handle apparent conflicts responsibly, right from the start.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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