Open the doors and clear the air

The saga of clean-air cop Eric Skelton brims with secrecy, mistrust and wrong turns. But government isn’t supposed to follow the dictates of page-turning mysteries; it’s supposed to be an open book.

The tired trick of public officials who take issues behind closed doors is to label them “personnel matters.” But hashing out important differences in secret only serves to plant seeds of distrust, which inevitably sprout misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Skelton has resigned as director of the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority after a number of run-ins with the board of directors over public policy matters. Each of these conflicts was removed from public view, except for the one that should have remained private.

In April, the board was concerned about Skelton’s work on behalf of a political interest group that was advocating for statewide clean-car legislation. That is a legitimate beef, because it would appear that Skelton was ranging beyond his duties as an enforcer of the county’s air pollution rules.

But the maddening aspect is that board members who are supposed to take sides declined to do so. The board’s official position on mandating cleaner-burning automobiles was neutrality, even though Spokane County Commissioners Phil Harris and Todd Mielke voiced opposition, according to the board’s minutes.

Conversely, the board chose to open up for public discussion an unfounded allegation that Skelton’s staff falsified the results of an asbestos test at a burned-out property. Rather than taking a closer look, Harris referred the matter to prosecutors, who turned it over to police. As it turns out, the allegation was without merit.

Before Skelton announced his resignation, the board was planning another closed-door session on another asbestos controversy.

The board’s actions expose the arbitrary nature of determining what constitutes a closed-door personnel issue and what is open for discussion. What is clear is that in each case Skelton was made the issue, while the issues themselves were forced into the background.

Asbestos abatement and auto emissions are important matters for SCAPCA and all of Spokane County. The tension between enforcement of environmental laws and economic impacts is a vital public policy debate. The mistrust between the board and Skelton stymied those discussions.

Spokane County has made important progress in combating air pollution, but some SCAPCA board members think regulators have gone too far. Let’s have that debate out in the open, without making it personal.