Althea Paulson, who filed a public records lawsuit with Bob Fortner against Bainbridge Island in 2013, says in a blog post that she and Fortner do not agree with Councilman Steve Bonkowski’s version of the lawsuit in a recent letter to the editor.
Paulson and Fortner’s lawsuit said Bonkowski, Councilman David Ward and Councilwoman Debbi Lester violated city policy and the state Public Records Act by using personal email accounts to conduct city business and later withholding the documents.
In May, a Kitsap County Superior Court judge ruled city officials didn’t perform an “adequate” search for documents on Bonkowski’s and Ward’s personal computers.
Paulson and Fortner had requested documents regarding the city’s utilities, Utility Advisory Committee and the performance of employees.
Lester was dropped from the lawsuit as an individual at the beginning of last year after she turned over requested documents. She left the board at the end of her term in 2013.
Ward offered to resign as part of a $500,000 settlement from the city to Paulson and Fortner in December 2014.
Bonkowski is still a council member and is up for reelection in November.
In his letter to the editor, Bonkowski said he did not conduct city business on his personal email account and turned over emails in a timely manner.
“The Paulson/Fortner lawsuit has confused, disappointed, and divided our community, and now is poised to extract over half a million dollars from taxpayers,” he wrote. “I am pained to think that I may carry any responsibility for these circumstances. I want the community to know that I did not conduct city business from my private email account, and I did turn over my emails to the city in a timely manner for the public records request. What I did not do is provide my personal computer hard drive as part of that public records request.
“From the beginning of the records requests, and prior to the lawsuit, the requesters demanded access to council members’ private computer hard drives. Turning over one’s hard drive is not required by state law, nor the Public Records Act; the City did not ask council members to turn over personal computer hard drives.”
Paulson, Fortner and their attorney, Dan Mallove, disagree with multiple points in Bonkowski’s letter.
“Neither Paulson nor Fortner ever made a demand for access to anyone’s computer hard drive, before or after the filing of the lawsuit. Their records requests asked only that the City produce specified public records involving council members, ‘whether those records are on their private email accounts or otherwise,’” the blog post says.
You can read Bonkowski’s letter in full, as well as the reply letter on Paulson’s blog.
You also can read Councilman Val Tollefson’s letter to the editor about the settlement being an expensive lesson for the city.
