What other contracts has the county not posted on its website?
Earlier this week, I was on a podcast explaining (babbling) at you all the things happening in Clark County government.
During the course of the podcast I mentioned one area where former county Councilor David Madore is indeed winning. That area is making the county post sensitive contracts on the internet.
Over the last year, Madore has complained that County Manager Mark McCauley has repeatedly violated a provision in the county code that requires contracts to be publicized on the county website. Part of the reason Madore has been so worked up about this is because the county has twice entered contracts with outside lawyers to investigate Madore in response to staff complaints.
Two different Superior Court Judges have determined that the county violated its code on this issue. Most recently, Clark County Superior Court Judge Daniel Stahnke reached this conclusion after Madore brought a lawsuit against the county. Madore has also collected enough signatures to suspend, for now, a county ordinance that changes the requirement that the county manager to not post sensitive HR contracts.
So it seems like the county is averse (and with good reason) to posting sensitive contracts related to investigations on its website. So I got to wondering what other contracts for HR investigations the county hasn’t been posting on its website and filed a records request.
It turns out, there wasn’t really anything new. My records request turned up the two contracts for investigations regarding Madore. I also came across one for Mary Blanchette, the executive director of the Children’s Justice Center, who was ousted with a $146,587 payment after she was found to be generally horrible to work for. That contract wasn’t posted on the county’s website, but we found out about it anyway.
After Madore prevailed (partially) in his lawsuit, McCauley told The Columbian that the county will comply with the judge’s order regarding contracts. But Madore’s battle isn’t over. While Madore has suspended the ordinance altering the county code to no longer publicize sensitive contracts, he has until March to collect 19,530 valid signatures to trigger a referendum on it.
