Air agency faces questions of fairness
Local attorneys and business owners took jabs at the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority, alleging the use of strong-arm tactics, unfair levying of fines and the falsification of documents.
Allegations that the agency has become lawmaker, judge and jury were made Thursday during a lengthy SCAPCA board meeting. The meeting packed a Spokane Regional Health District conference room and drew testimony from a half-dozen attorneys and business people.
The dialogue resulted in county Commissioner Phil Harris calling for a prosecutor’s review of documents, and private attorney Stanley Schwartz suggesting that SCAPCA be dismantled. But Dr. Kim Thorburn, head of the Spokane Regional Health District, said the meeting was an unfair attack on an agency that guards public health.
Northwest Renovators Inc., a company that renovates buildings, showed two copies of lab results provided to SCAPCA by Mountain Laboratories. Owners Michael Lee and Doug Gore contend that one copy of the report, regarding the asbestos contamination inside a burned-out building, were doctored by SCAPCA.
Northwest Renovators bought the eyesore building on the 8700 block of East Sprague at a county tax auction for $23,000. Now, the company is threatened with daily fines from SCAPCA for not dealing with the asbestos inside. The board voted Thursday to postpone the fines for a month.
Lee and Gore complained that SCAPCA is demanding a more extensive cleanup than tests indicate is necessary.
Harris, a SCAPCA board member, said he’ll present both documents to the county Prosecutor’s Office for review. If any wrongdoing is suspected, an investigation could follow, he said.
“It could be cause for invoking a grand jury investigation,” Harris told the room.
In a phone interview after the meeting, SCAPCA Director Eric Skelton, said the discrepancy between the two documents was not improper and is easy to explain. One document was amended by a staffer based on phoned-in lab results, he said. The column has a notation that says “verbal on 2/2.” He said fax transmission records show the other, more comprehensive record was faxed to SCAPCA by the lab a day later.
Skelton, who has been at SCAPCA for 14 years, said the agency has made strides in improving air quality. The city hasn’t violated carbon monoxide standards since 1996 or standards for particle pollution since 1993.
Schwartz spoke about experience he had while working for Inland Asphalt. He complained the agency sent conflicting messages about allowing the company to build a permanent asphalt plant in the Wandermere area of North Spokane. He said SCAPCA should have ruled on the plant within 60 days but instead took five months.
Charging that the agency exceeded its scope of authority in digging into zoning issues, Schwartz at one point asked board members if they really wanted SCAPCA to be the “super-planning cop on the street.”
After more than two hours of testimony, SCAPCA attorney Michelle Wolkey took the podium. She said the Inland Asphalt project was contentious and created a host of problems for the agency, which had to address concerns from a homeowners’ association and development changes in the six years since a temporary plant was located on that site.
Additionally, Spokane County declined to take a lead agency status to help resolve zoning issues and waffled about whether the area was zoned for an asphalt plant, Wolkey said.
“Let me assure you, we made every attempt not to be involved in zoning,” Wolkey said.
Timothy Lawlor, another Spokane attorney, said he tells clients not to appeal SCAPCA’s fines, regardless of innocence or guilt, because negotiations never result in reduced fines. Paying the fine is cheaper than paying attorneys’ fees, he said.
“The idea here is to protect the public welfare, it’s not to be cute and write tickets,” Lawlor said.
While Skelton quietly sat through the meeting, he wasn’t sure how to address the many charges, which the board plans to revisit in September.
“How do you adequately respond to two-and-a half hours of comment?”