Retired judge accuses Tri-Cities port of protecting ‘guilty’ commissioner
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- Retired judge says Port of Benton president misled public and helped protect Scott Keller.
- Schwabe law firm report found Keller violated port rules and WA state law on 4 occasions.
- Commission took no action on serious findings but censured Keller for one finding.
A judge for 39 years in the Tri-Cities accused the president of the Port of Benton this week of misrepresenting the content of a letter that allegedly exonerated another port commissioner.
Retired Judge Eugene Pratt delivered his blistering message during this week’s Port of Benton commission meeting, specifically calling out President Bill O’Neil.
“I’m appalled that there has been zero action taken by Commissioner (Lori) Stevens and Commissioner O’Neil to ensure accountability or rectify the misuse of public funds. Rather, the response has been to justify the actions and protect the guilty,” Pratt told them.
Pratt said O’Neil misled the public in January when, along with Stevens, he largely dismissed evidence that Scott Keller violated port policies and broke state laws both as a former port employee and now as one of its elected leaders.
Pratt, who retired in 2009 from the Benton County District Court, spoke out during the public comment session Feb. 11. Until recently, Pratt’s daughter, Ashley Garza, worked as a contractor for the port.
The port commission thanked Pratt but did not respond and moved on to other port business.
Keller allegations investigation
Last fall, the port hired law firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt to investigate 24 allegations contained in two complaints targeting Keller’s conduct.
Keller worked for the port for 30 years until retiring in 2019 as executive director. He returned four years later as an elected commissioner.
The complaints spanned decades and were filed by then-Commissioner Roy Keck, and by Diahann Howard, the now suspended executive director who forwarded a batch of complaints to the commission.
The public port with an annual budget of $26 million is based in Richland and serves western Benton County, including Prosser.
It employs 22, operates numerous business parks and the airports in Richland and Prosser and is funded with a mix of rent payments by tenants, grants and property taxes.
It is led by an executive director who answers to the three-person commission.
No action on most serious findings
The Schwabe report found that Keller violated port policies and Washington state law on four occasions, first as a staff member and then, as a commissioner.
O’Neil, who took office in January, and Stevens voted to censure Keller for violating a port policy by telling an employee things would change after the election.
But the board took no action on the more serious findings that Keller violated state laws concerning misuse of public funds and for tapping into the city water system without a legal connection at his Richland Airport hangar.
This week, Pratt expressed shock the investigation was mostly ignored.
“I am in disbelief at your continued willful disregard of the law, truth and more importantly, your public duty of service,” he told the commission.
The law firm concluded Keller:
- Violated port rules in his dealings with an employee.
- Violated state law against gifts of public resources in how he handled port-owned land when he was the executive director by making a below-market price deal with a relative for a golf course on port land.
- Violated state law in his personal use of Richland water without a legal connection at his personal airport hangar.
- Violated state law when he reduced his own lease payment with the port for his private hangar.
New evidence?
In January, O’Neil claimed a newly-discovered document from 1999 indicated the port had agreed to provide water to private hangars, including Keller’s, at the airport. The hangars are privately owned, but their sites are leased from the port.
The port didn’t release the letter to the public until a week later in response to Washington Public Records Act requests from the Tri-City Herald and others, including Pratt and Garza.
The letter turned out to be a proposal from Herb Brayton, a hangar tenant, to Keller, then a port employee, to split the $21,000 cost of building a water line to serve private hangars, including Brayton’s.
There is no other evidence in the record to indicate the port ever agreed to Brayton’s proposal or that it agreed to provide water to private hangars.
The port did not release any other documents or had no reply in response to the request for documents supporting O’Neil’s claim.
Brayton could not be reached by email by the Herald to confirm he wrote the letter.
“If the letter is in fact valid, even though it was presented months after the (Schwabe) investigation was completed, I would not consider this an agreement,” the retired judge told the commission.
Rather, Pratt said it showed that Keller knew that the water line was being installed decades ago, long before 2017, when he bought one of the affected hangars at 2049 Butler Loop.
“Commissioner Keller was not truthful when he stated multiple times on the public record that he was unaware that his personal hangar had unpermitted connections,” Pratt said.
Richland Airport hangars
The city of Richland discovered the illegal connections in 2025 when it conducted a test of fire hydrants at the airport.
The port brought in ground-penetrating radar to create a map of unpermitted utility lines and connections, finding hangars using water from fire hydrant lines and the city water supply.
The commission agreed to set up a committee to look at the illegal and unpermitted water lines and connections.
Keller’s hangar was one of the hangars connected without a meter.
O’Neil, a Keller ally, defeated Roy Keck, who often sparred with Keller, in the November election and took office in January. At the time, he took over for Keller as the board’s president.
Since the change on the board two months ago, the board has suspended its executive director Diahann Howard who took the allegations against Keller to the full board and the commission fired its new finance director, who was hired by Howard.
Both woman have said the commission is retaliating against them for raising the concerns.