Exclusive | Allegations fly in Kennewick. Mayor threatens to sue 2 councilmen

The political and personal divisions on the Kennewick City Council appear to be as bitter as ever.

If anything, they’ve been heating up as the August primary approaches.

The sides have been trading barbs for the last two years, including filing formal ethics complaints and, more recently, asking for state Public Disclosure Commission investigations into allegations of campaign finance violations.

The latest accusation filed with the state accuses businessman Bill McKay of failing to disclose all his income and assets, including $400,000 in real estate holdings.

Exchanges have become so tense at times, that Kennewick Mayor Don Britain hired a lawyer to send warning letters to two fellow councilmen. He threatened them with lawsuits if they defame him, according to the letters obtained by the Tri-City Herald.

Four members of the all male council — Britain, McKay, John Trumbo and Steve Lee — are up for re-election this year, which could shift the dynamics of the council.

Now, when councilmembers disagree, one faction sometimes includes Britain, Mayor Pro-Tem Lee, and councilmen Chuck Torelli and Jim Millbauer, and on the other McKay and Trumbo and often Councilman Brad Beauchamp.

Britain, Trumbo and McKay all face contested primary challenges and Lee will have one opponent in the November election.

Still, many of the council members contend the board is not dysfunctional and is accomplishing much of what it believes is important.

Money has been saved, jobs created and new businesses attracted, Britain said on his campaign Facebook page.

But the continuing claims made against fellow council members illustrate the sharpness of the divide.

Conflict of interest alleged

In one of the most recent disagreements, McKay accused Britain of a conflict of interest, saying Britain removed him as the city’s representative on the Ben Franklin Transit’s governing board while Britain was applying for a job with the agency.

McKay said that he approached the Prosser mayor about getting what he thought would be more effective representation from Prosser on the board and the Prosser mayor called Britain about it.

Britain, who makes appointments to city committees and to city seats on other governing boards, responded by removing McKay and replacing him with Millbauer, McKay said.

Britain said Trumbo also discussed the issue of Prosser representation with the Prosser mayor.

Britain said, as a city representative, McKay should have brought any concerns he had to Britain or the Kennewick city manager.

Instead, McKay went behind his back in an attempt to get a Prosser member on the board replaced, Britain said. Britain called it “sneaky.”

Pulling McKay off the board was not a conflict of interest, but the mayor’s responsibility, Britain contends.

Finance complaints

Also, McKay is facing a state Public Disclosure Commission complaint filed April 28 by Kennewick Councilman Chuck Torelli.

He claims McKay failed to disclose all his real estate holdings, as required by Washington state law. Britain said McKay failed to disclose almost $400,000 in income and assets.

As a result, voters in the community cannot discern when city policy issues might be impacted by McKay’s business decisions, according to the complaint.

The commission has not ruled on the complaint, but McKay contends he has filed in good faith with the PDC.

In one case a state computer issue resulted in a failure to transfer filing information correctly from year to year, he said.

In another instance, a family-owned property was transferred only on paper from McKay to Udderly Williams LLC. McKay said he has consulted with the PDC on how to list the ownership change.

The animosity among council members first became evident in 2019 when two ethics complaints were made against Trumbo, and he was sanctioned by the majority of the council.

Then McKay filed an ethics complaint against Britain, which was also signed by Trumbo and Beauchamp.

An attorney hired to act as ethics officer dismissed the complaint against Britain in June 2020, after he decided the mayor’s firing from his Washington state job had no direct bearing on his city leadership role.

But Britain maintains that was not the end of the matter.

He claims he was still hearing “made-up allegations” about him in February 2021, so he hired attorney Joshua Bam of Richland to send the warning letters to Trumbo and McKay.

‘Nasty politics’

The letters demanded the councilmen stop defaming Britain, including by making false criminal claims.

Britain argued the intent of Trumbo, McKay and a few other community members who received the letter was to publicly destroy his reputation as an election looms.

He called the rumors being circulated about him the sort of “nasty politics” seen at the federal level, and that when residents see that it discourages them from running for local offices.

Both Trumbo and McKay say they have not defamed Britain.

Britain was fired from his Washington state Department of Social and Health Services job after an administrative review by the Washington State Patrol.

But in the ethics complaint, Trumbo and McKay alleged that Britain “apparently committed theft, possessed stolen property and committed 14 other violations of law,” the letter said. “In fact, no charges have been filed against Mr. Britain.”

Statements made by Trumbo and McKay are based not on evidence but “rumors or wishes,” the letter said.

It accused them of a political campaign that damaged Britain’s reputation as an elected official and his job interests.

Trumbo said that the ethics complaint by its nature is an allegation, which legally may be made against a public official.

Among his concerns was that Britain was involved in the process of getting benefits for his client, including 12 pairs of welding gloves the state paid for as her supplies for a welding class she was taking.

McKay said he has not said anything that was not included in the WSP’s final report after its review.

“He has told me to ‘shut up’,” McKay said. “As long as it is in the police report, I don’t think I need to shut up.”

McKay said that if he had done what Britain did, he would have resigned both from the job and from the city council.

“He knowingly had a relationship with a client that was not appropriate and not reported to superiors,” he said.

Britain allegedly shared an apartment with a female welfare client, which he did not reveal to his superiors, and both vacationed in Hawaii at the same time.

Britain has said he was sympathetic to his client’s problems but there was no romantic relationship to report to his DSHS supervisor.

In his order for dismissal a regional administrator wrote that his “ blatant disregard for the policies in place to assure our citizens and communities that we administer state programs equitably, correctly and fairly is a condition that I cannot ignore.”

PAC targets council members

Britain also filed a PDC complaint against the We Want Accountability Political Action Committee, which targeted Britain for removal from the council last year, according to a widely distributed email from Jerry Martin, a co-founder of the Tri-Cities Tea Party.

Britain blames the PAC for spreading rumors he says falsely accuse him of criminal activities in his former state job.

The complaint, filed in November, was closed in December with a finding that the political committee incorrectly combined monthly financial reports but that the violation did not warrant further investigation.

The PAC remains active and is gearing up for the 2021 council election, after successfully backing Beauchamp and unsuccessfully backing a candidate who ran against Torelli in 2019.

It is throwing its support behind candidate Gretl Crawford, a Kennewick builder running for Britain’s seat.

The PAC, which typically puts its money into radio ads, is concerned that the ethics complaint against Britain was dismissed. The behavior that resulted in his being dismissed from a state job brought bad publicity to the city, Martin said.

The committee also will support Kennewick dentist Loren Anderson for Lee’s seat in the November election.

In the other two races, the PAC plans to support Trumbo against two challengers in the primary, and McKay against three challengers.

Martin also received a letter from Britain’s attorney, ordering him to stop defaming him.

“Regardless of what a small group of people — who consider themselves as arbiters of who is good and who is bad — try to perform public character assassination, the truth always prevails,” Britain posted on his campaign Facebook page.

Council divided

There is clearly a 4-3 split on the council, with Trumbo, McKay and Beauchamp “not able to influence much of anything in the city,” Martin said.

The majority of Britain, Lee, Torelli and Millbauer “drives the decisions made by the council that also drives all of the city business,” he argues.

He characterizes Trumbo, McKay and Beauchamp as more conservative than the other four.

But Britain says he considers himself “a true conservative,” though council seats are nonpartisan positions.

“If you do not like how I vote on policy that I have supported or how I have represented the city of Kennewick or citizens of Kennewick, then run against me based on that rather than trying to perform a character assassination to obtain votes to defeat me,” he said.

Lee sees the council split as more of a matter of Trumbo and McKay moving in lockstep on many of the council votes that are not unanimous, and Britain agreed. About 92% of council votes are unanimous, Lee noted.

Usually their votes against measures that the rest of the council supports are philosophically based, as the rest of the council tries to effectively manage the city, keep it safe and advocate for its citizens, Lee said.

Lee characterized the remaining council members as a mix of Republicans and progressives, calling himself an independent.

This story was originally published June 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM.