Harrington council discusses budget, newspaper article

Council’s final meeting of 2021 chiefly featured discussions surrounding a previous article in The Times, approval of the city budget and swearing in a new city mayor and councilmember.

Councilmember Justin Slack brought up an article in the Dec. 23 issue of The Times.

“The title says ‘DOE (Department of Ecology) visits Harrington Council, says records are falsified,’” Slack said. “I think this is detrimental to the city... It says something about we're back in trouble again with the (DOE), and that, Andy O'Neill was here, he came to educate us and to attempt to provide sound recommendations for the city to follow in order to avoid future fines and penalties.

“Then it says...some records recently had been falsified by the newer public works employees,” Slack continued. “It’s just not factual and I think that I just want it in the minutes that that's not what was said.”

Councilmember David Buddrius, attending the meeting virtually, responded to Slack’s statement. “Listen to the tape. I did last night and on there at 42 minutes and 15 seconds into it, is that and the statement came from Casey Monge, at that time in attendance it was said during the meeting, it's on record, taped, for clarification," Buddrius said. “The records were falsified... she (said) she was not getting the correct information and further investigation on her part (found) that she's been getting falsified records."

Slack and Buddrius’s full comments are available on the city’s YouTube channel.

Luck then opened the public meeting to discuss the city budget. The city’s audit from the state was chief amongst discussion topics. 26 complaints

were filed with the auditor’s office against the city in 2021, according the council discussion.

"We have 26 complaints against Harrington?” councilmember Peter Davenport asked, which Luck and Slack confirmed.

"Do we have any idea what those complaints are about yet?" Davenport also asked.

Luck said he didn’t know if the auditor’s office would present each complaint individually or make recommendations to the city for general fixes.

Buddrius discussed his phone call with Sunshine and that there are proposed changes in fees for late in 2022.

A few comments were made regarding additional COVID-19 money that was involved in the budget. Slack made the motion to adopt the amended budget, Hardy made the second and the motion passed unanimously.

Luck concluded the meeting with the Oath of Office for new mayor Jess Silhan and new councilmember Joe Armand.

"Before we get to that, I'd like to make a mention and say and also to remind anyone that we were at a position where it wasn't clear that Harrington was going to have a mayor that wasn't appointed by County Commissioners, and Nathan (Luck) was willing to step in and I wanted to recognize that and say thank you," Hardy interjected with applause from those present.

At Slack's suggestion, Luck handed Armand a piece of paper with the Oath of Office on it, and Armand was instructed to just read it out loud. Similarly, Silhan was handed the paper with his oath on it to read, and he read his own as well.

Editor’s note: This article was significantly pared down and slightly rewritten by editor Drew Lawson for print space and clarity.