Spokane Valley councilmember Jessica Yaeger investigated for social media posts

Al Merkel is not the only Spokane Valley City Council member who will undergo an investigation while on the council.

Councilwoman Jessica Yaeger, who was elected in November 2023, is being investigated by Seattle-based attorney Rebecca Dean, the same person who investigated Merkel last year.

Public records confirmed that Yaeger is being investigated for conducting city business on her personal social media accounts.

“If I did something wrong, I obviously won’t do it again,” Yaeger said during an interview with The Spokesman-Review on Wednesday. “I am in no way trying to hide anything from the public.”

The investigation was kicked off when Bob West, who has been a regular attendee of Valley meetings since his daughter Brandi Peetz served on the council, testified about Yaeger at a meeting on June 24, according to the city. During his three-minute remarks, West asked why the council was enforcing two different sets of rules: one set for Merkel and another for Yaeger.

Yaeger said that the morning after West’s comments, she went through her social media accounts and took a screenshot of everything she thought was relevant to send to the city.

“This is what transparent adults do,” she said. “I’m trying to be very careful.”

In his comments during the meeting, West alleged that Yaeger used her personal Facebook account to repost official city business on March 31 and May 27, and that she shouldn’t post about city business on a personal account that is not easily tracked, disclosed or preserved under the Public Records Act.

“That’s the very thing council member Merkel is being accused of. But unlike council member Merkel, councilwoman Yaeger isn’t being investigated,” West said in June.

The City Council’s Governance Manual says that after a complaint from a council member about another council member violating a social media policy, the city will begin an investigation with a third party. That policy does not stop the city from starting an investigation when any complaint is received.

“Transparency and adherence to state laws is and always has been a priority for the City,” Jill Smith, the city communications manager, said in an email. “As such, the City engaged an independent third-party attorney to review Councilmember Yaeger’s personal social media use to facilitate the City’s compliance with the state Public Records Act.”

Smith said Yaeger is being transparent with the city throughout the ongoing investigation.

That is in contrast to Merkel, who city officials said was not cooperative or transparent with the city during its investigation of him. Merkel also denied the city’s request to provide screenshots to fill the gaps in the information the city had on his social media, The Spokesman-Review previously reported.

City Attorney Kelly Konkright said Merkel was also uncooperative with login attempts and failed to pass on codes that were sent to him as part of a two-factor authentication process.

In February, City Manager John Hohman said the city had received more than 60 public records requests related to Merkel since January 2024, but because of Merkel’s failure to produce his records, the city could not fully respond to any of the requests.

Merkel was sued by the city over violations of the Public Records Act and his use of the social media platform Nextdoor, with the council voting 6-0 in February to take legal action. In his first year on the City Council, Merkel cost the city around $143,000.

In her investigation, Dean found that Merkel’s posts were open records and that they were not being properly logged as required by the Public Records Act.

The suit against Merkel followed the filing of a complaint by Yaeger stating that Merkel had been using the Nextdoor app as a form of city-related communication without the right post-documentation software. In other words, Merkel’s posts that would have been classified as public record were not logged as that.

The Governance Manual says that communication between council members and the public about city business should happen on a council member’s specific social media account. The Governance Manual is specific to council complaints, not citizen complaints, but West cited it several times in his complaints about Yaeger.

Yaeger said she wasn’t aware that reposting things on her personal accounts from her council page was against the rules laid out in the Governance Manual.

“I won’t do it again if it is,” Yaeger said.

Before setting up an account specific to their council role, council members must get approval from the city IT manager to ensure the platform is compatible with the city’s social media archiving platform, the Governance Manual said. That way all content, posts and comments are archived for public records.

The Open Public Meetings Act applies to council members’ social media interactions, so council members should not have any discussions publicly or privately on social media with members of a governing body, because if it requires a minimum number of council members, it may be in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act, according to the Governance Manual.

Council members also cannot post content on an official account that is defamatory to any organization or person, according to the Governance Manual. On private social media accounts, council members are required to include a disclaimer stating that the content on their private social media page is theirs and “does not represent the views of the Spokane Valley City Council or City of Spokane Valley.”

West specifically claims that Yaeger is in violation of some of those rules, including commenting on other council members’ social media accounts and failing to post a public disclaimer on a private account.