In a rather strange Kennewick City Council executive session that newly appointed Kennewick Councilmember Jason McShane left, councilmembers “considered the qualifications of applicants for city manager.”
Mayor Gret’l Crawford announced the executive session at the end of the Feb. 6 regular meeting that all seven councilmembers attended and read the exemption to the Open Public Meetings Act that allowed the discussion behind closed doors, RCW 42.30.110(1)(g).
Crawford began the private session at 7:19 p.m. The council meeting video shows her returning multiple times to extend the session by an additional 30 minutes. The meeting concluded after about two- and one-half hours at 9:47 p.m.
“Councilmember McShane left the meeting at 7:20 p.m. and did not return,” according to a timeline of the session written by Kennewick City Clerk Krystal Townsend and sent to the Observer by Acting City Manager Lisa Beaton in response to questions about the executive session extensions.
Why McShane left the meeting is unclear. The Observer emailed McShane, Beaton and Crawford to ask why he did not participate in the executive session. None of them has responded.
McShane was selected on Dec. 15 to replace Mayor Bill McKay until the 2025 elections. McKay resigned after he admitted that he had “happy endings” during his personal “investigations” of illicit massage parlors.
The Tri-City Herald reported in a Dec. 12 article about the 19 applicants for the Kennewick open seat, “McShane said he brings skills related to long-term planning, financial and strategic leadership and local government governance.”
McShane is the assistant district manager for the Kennewick Irrigation District (KID). According to the KID website, he received his B.S. from Brigham Young University, joined KID in 2005 and was licensed as a professional engineer in 2010.
If McShane wanted to apply for the city manager position, he might be eligible since he was appointed and not elected to the council position. Washington state law, RCW 35A.13.050, reads, “No person elected to membership on the council shall be eligible for appointment as city manager until one year has elapsed following the expiration of the term for which he or she was elected.”
Inmates to continue collecting escaped garbage at the Richland landfill
At their Feb. 6 meeting, the Richland City Council approved continuing a program that uses state prison inmates to capture escaped garbage at the landfill. After voting for the program, Councilmember Kurt Maier asked City Manager Jon Amundson for follow-up information that assured that low-cost, “non-consensual,” inmate labor wasn’t replacing jobs.
In an email to the Observer outlining what he had collected for the councilmembers, Amundson cited the Department of Corrections website which states, “Incarcerated individuals who work in off-site work crews do so at their own choice and receive a gratuity which does not exceed the wage paid for work of a similar nature in the locality in which the industry is located.”
Amundson reported that the city paid $6,996.79 for the services in 2023. That sum included $1.25 an hour gratuity to each of the inmates, workers compensation paid to the Washington Department of Labor and Industry and vehicle mileage reimbursement.