Pasco school superintendent denies Roger Lenk misconduct claims

Franklin County resident Roger Lenk is again alleging misconduct by Pasco’s school superintendent.

Lenk filed a 56-page complaint this week with the State Auditor’s Office and Public Disclosure Commission accusing Superintendent Saundra Hill of writing a white paper opposing charter school legislation in 2012 and saying it was authored by her husband.

He contends that Hill and William Pennell are partners in Columbia Research and Education Associates LLC. And he alleges Hill committed fraud, abuse, misappropriation and theft of public resources.

This is another example of Hill having no one looking over her shoulder, Lenk told the Herald.

“If you worked at a private business and did this, you’d get fired,” he said.

Hill called Lenk’s charges “completely false.”

Lenk claims metadata he received in a public records request shows Hill was logged into her Pasco School District account in 2012 when she wrote “The ‘Charter Schools’ Bills Playing Russian Roulette with Taxpayers’ Dollars and Children’s Lives.”

Four minutes later, Lenk said Hill emailed the document from her school district account to Bruce Hawkins, the superintendent of Education Service District 123 in Pasco, who forwarded the paper to every education services district superintendent in the state.

“(Hill) personally opposed utilizing public funds for charter schools, and availed herself of the vast array of public resources available to her to overtly and covertly seek similar opposition, and influence the outcome of any and all votes related to the matter,” Lenk wrote.

Hill said her husband, a former director of the Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, wrote the paper in question and runs the company by himself.

“My husband is interested in policy on many levels,” she said. “He wrote it on his computer. He sent it to me to review because the board wanted to talk about the issue.”

Len’s complaint goes on to claim that Columbia Education and Research Associates “appears to be a shell corporation, established under a deceptive name and ownership.”

Hill counters that Pennell regularly argued for atmospheric science and climate change research and Columbia Education and Research Associates is a “real company that did real work.”

She said the law Lenk cites in his complaint is also incorrect, since Pennell’s paper only opposed legislation that would authorize charter schools. An initiative vote on charter schools was not held until November 2012.

“The board and I are allowed to take positions on legislation,” she said.

Lenk contends the school board and the public did not have an equal opportunity to give an opposing view, so a resolution opposing the charter school initiative approved by the board in October 2012 was improper. Hill said the board considered the resolution in open session and the public was welcome to comment on it.

Hill also denies another Lenk allegation, that she signed annexation agreements for four school district parcels outside Pasco without board approval.

She said the documents she signed to get sewer service at two schools, which require users to agree to waive fighting annexation, already were approved by the board.

Lenk has been a vocal opponent of annexation by the city of the “doughnut hole” area where he lives, which is surrounded by west Pasco.

Already, the state Public Disclosure Commission is reviewing a complaint Lenk filed in 2013 alleging that Hill misused public resources to promote a $46.8 million bond earlier that year, said PDC spokeswoman Lori Anderson.

“We’re still working on that complaint,” she said.

Lenk, a prolific public records requester, also has filed complaints with the state related to Pasco and the Franklin Fire District 3.

A 2013 complaint Lenk made with the state against two Pasco city council members, alleging they used city email for personal reasons, resulted in no findings against them.

He also alleged in 2014 that a Franklin Fire District 3 board member improperly used his email, while accusing a firefighter of using a district truck on a visit to a yard sale.

The Auditor’s Office gave the fire district recommendations in March 2014 on its vehicle use, spokesman Thomas Shapley said. Results of the other parts of the investigation into Lenk’s complaint will be included in the district’s regular accountability audit, which is expected to be released later this year.

Hill said Lenk’s public records request have likely cost the Pasco School District tens of thousands of dollars, and he also has made requests of all the school districts in the state.

“It’s really costly for the public entities,” she said. “It seems to serve no purpose other than to be a nuisance.”

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 8:08 PM with the headline "Pasco school superintendent denies Roger Lenk misconduct claims."