Official accused of misusing power

OLYMPIA – A newspaper investigation alleges that a Richland lawmaker used the power of her office to help direct business to her daughters’ tire baling company.

The Tri-City Herald reported Sunday and Monday that Rep. Shirley Hankins has actively promoted Northwest Tire Recycling for the past five years in Olympia and the Tri-Cities.

A complaint has been filed against the Republican lawmaker with the Legislative Ethics Board. John Sattgast, spokesman for the House Republican Caucus, said Hankins would not comment until the board makes a decision.

Sattgast said Monday that Hankins stands by comments she made in January in which she denied she’s ever used her office to promote the daughters’ business, including helping them win a $230,000 state contract last year and compete for another.

Her daughters, Sherrey and Shelley, formed the business with their husbands in 2000.

The Herald obtained e-mails and letters that indicate Hankins’ involvement caused concern with the state Department of Ecology, including Director Jay Manning, who in a December letter “implied that she is pursuing tire interests on behalf of her kid’s recycling business,” according to an e-mail he later sent fellow staffers.

The newspaper reported that Hankins, 75, has told city regulators the company’s licensing hurdles would be overturned by legislation in Olympia and has told volunteer members of two Richland advisory boards that she could secure grant funding for the city if they used tire bales in their projects.

Hankins, a longtime member of the House Transportation Committee, was firmly behind a measure addressing the problem of unauthorized tire piles accumulating across the state.

She was the first to call for the reinstatement of a $1 fee charged by the state to support a fund that hired contractors to clean up tire piles and sponsored a bill in 1997, three years before Northwest Tire Recycling first registered with the state.

She was a co-sponsor on similar bills in 2003 and 2004, something that made some lawmakers uncomfortable.

“I told her a long time ago to stay neutral about tire stuff,” said Richland’s Jerome Delvin, a Republican who’s now the senator for the district. “I said, ‘Shirley, your name shouldn’t even be on the bill.’ “

The Legislature approved a bill reinstating the $1 per tire fee in 2005, again creating a stream of money to hire contractors for cleanup. Sherrey Hankins’ husband, Jim Penor, who is also the manager of Richland’s municipal landfill, represented Northwest Tire in testifying for the bill.

The measure also created a pilot project to start cleaning up a 2.2-million-tire pile near Goldendale, by far the state’s largest. Northwest Tire’s $230,000 bid was the lowest of three the state received and the company was awarded a contract last June. Work wrapped up in December.

Cullen Stephenson, who manages the Department of Ecology’s solid waste program, said the agency hasn’t been influenced by Hankins’ overtures and that it doesn’t favor Northwest Tire.

Before the tire bill even took effect, a fire broke out in May 2005 in a tire pile at Junior’s Trucking in the south King County town of Skyway. The next afternoon, Hankins’ son-in-law, Jim Penor, offered the Department of Ecology Northwest Tire Recycling’s services.

Stephenson did not respond to the e-mail, and a competing company already had contracted with King County for the work.

Hankins wrote Stephenson a letter and sent a copy to the governor’s office

“The department was offered assistance of cleanup. Your office and the director’s office have not responded as of yesterday, May 17th. I would like to know why,” Hankins wrote. “I’m not sure why I’ve spent the last three-and-a-half years on a tire bill that gives your department authority to help solve this state’s problems, and that would give your department your only legal and permitted company and the only woman-owned recycling company in this state. Frankly, I’m a little tired of this.

In his own letter a day later, also copied to the governor, Stephenson wrote: “NW Tire is not the only legal and permitted company in our state. It certainly is a fully permitted facility, but that does not allow me to promote or recommend the company.”