An Open Letter to Pete Kremen and Ken Mann

To: Ken Mann, Pete Kremen
Cc: County Council, Karen Frakes
Fm: Shane Roth

Re: Lesa Starkenburg-Kroontje's status with the County

Gentlemen,

Ms. Starkenburg's relationship with you, and the rest of the County Council, is now about as clear as mud to me.

I have no idea what capacity Ms. Starkenburg was acting in when she gave you advice to recuse yourselves from the vote on the recent mineral overlay issue.

I take from your individual responses that you both interpreted Ms. Starkenburg's advice as that of an attorney working in the interest of a private client when she gave you this advice.

I couldn't care less what her relationship with other private clients might be. Her relationships with her private sector clients are none of my business.

As a citizen of Whatcom County, it is her relationship to you as the Council that is my only material concern.

When you retain the services of an attorney, what are you supposed to do when given legal advice from that attorney? Are you, as citizen legislators, supposed to know so much about legal ethics and legal relationships that you know how to interpret what advice you get from your legal counsel? And to determine when it is appropriate to ignore or act against such advice?

I am relieved that you both were able to interpret the actions of Ms. Starkenburg accurately. However, I assert you shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place.

This entire episode raises a troubling question in my mind.

Is it reasonable to enter into a contract with an attorney for $40,000 worth of legal services, and then have that same attorney enter into an adversarial relationship with you? While she is still under contract with you?

This is absurd.

You are paying this person to be your attorney. It seems to me that at a bare minimum you are paying her to not advocate against you while she is under contract with you.

This fact doesn't change just because you are a government. As a County Council, you are not expected to receive a lower duty of care from your legal counsel just because that legal counsel is a private contractor and not on staff with the Prosecutor's Office.

I further assert that it is Ms. Starkenburg's burden to balance the needs of her clients, not your burden. You, as the Council, number among her clients. Remember that.

I am respectfully requesting that you gentlemen as individuals, or as a Council, insist on an official written legal opinion from the Prosecutor's Office on this matter. My understanding is that it was the Prosecutor's Office that initiated the decision to retain Ms. Starkenburg.

I request that you ask the Prosecutor's Office something to the effect of the following:

1. How is the decision on the part of the County Prosecutor (whom the County Charter places within the Executive Branch) to enter into a contract for legal services with an attorney who is in a series of persistently adversarial relationships with the County in keeping with Section 1.50 of the County Charter "to work with the other branch for a unified government for the people of Whatcom County"?
2. Does Ms. Starkenburg have any professional obligation, as legal counsel retained by the County, to avoid entering into an adversarial relationship with the County while so retained? If she has such an obligation, what remedies are available to the County if she fails to uphold that obligation? If she does not have such an obligation, why not?
3. Is the Council entitled to rescind, in whole or in part, the decision to enter into a contract with Ms. Starkenburg, on the grounds that she has breached her duty of care to the Council by entering into an adversarial relationship with Members of Council, and in so doing, breached the contract? If not, why not?

Either you are her client, or you're not. Either you are entitled to a duty of care from her, or you're not. Sometimes, it's just that simple. It looks like you aren't getting the duty of care from your attorney that attaches to an attorney/client relationship.

This episode with Ms. Starkenburg isn't government transparency. It isn't even government translucency. What are the taxpayers of Whatcom County getting for their $40,000, exactly?

I believe the actions of Mr. Mann and Mr. Kremen in response to this matter were appropriate and professional, and I thank them for their candor and their service.

Respectfully,



Shane Roth
Bellingham, Washington