Hawkins negotiator resigns, county ponders

Whitman County Administrator Gary Petrovich stepped down from his role as lead negotiator in the county’s development agreement with Hawkins Companies last week. That leaves a void commissioners are unsure how to fill.

“We don’t know exactly what it is, but we know we need that contact person,” said Commissioner Greg Partch.

“We need to have a lead. I was the lead up until Pat made a motion to make Gary the lead when the process started going sideways,” said Partch. “It needs to be somebody within the county. Because that’s where it focuses in on.”

Petrovich had been acting as a go-between in negotiations between the county and Hawkins as the two sides work to negotiate an amendment to the $15 million development deal signed in January.

The deal would have the county reimburse Hawkins for infrastructure construction like water and sewer and roads at the 714,000-square-foot shopping center at the state line in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor.

Petrovich said he felt the negotiations required legal expertise he doesn’t have because of the injunction lawsuit filed by the citizen Organization to Void Illegal Conduct, a Colfax based group which has filed a suit contending the process for the agreement was illegal.

“That casts an umbrella over this whole thing in terms of how you proceed,” said Petrovich.

Whatever the role of the point person in negotiations, commissioners Monday morning said they needed to find a replacement for Petrovich quickly.

“We need to have something decided today. Because time is of the essence,” said Partch.

After an afternoon executive session, though, commissioners decided to hold off that decision until next week.

“Anybody could act as a representative of the county,” said Commissioner Michael Largent. “I’m kind of at a lost, quite frankly.”

Partch later Monday said they were waiting for an outside attorney to gather information about the status of the development before the county proceeds with further contract negotiations.

The amendment was pressed, in large part, to address the legal concerns brought by OVIC in the suit.

Commissioners had hired Milton Rowland, a Spokane attorney with the Foster Pepper firm, to craft a deal that would minimize concerns.

They were allowed $10,000 for Rowland’s services by Judge David Frazier. Under state law, commissioners must get judicial approval to hire outside counsel. Frazier’s spending cap was hit last month, and Rowland has since been hired as a special deputy prosecutor by Denis Tracy, county prosecutor.

Commissioner Pat O’Neill Monday morning proposed enlisting Rowland to act as the lead negotiator.

Petrovich, too, said having Rowland negotiate with Hawkins project manager Jeff DeVoe would be good because it would provide “lawyer-on-lawyer contact.”

“Realistically, that’s not going to happen,” said Tracy.

Tracy and Partch noted Rowland may not be the best fit to lead the county’s negotiations because he is a private attorney without vested interest in the county.

“I think it would be nice for someone in the county to coordinate communications coming to the county and going out from the county,” said Tracy.

“He can’t represent us. He’s not the county,” said Partch, who added putting Rowland in the position would be costly.

Partch said one of the commissioners could act as the lead negotiator, but noted the three had different views on the project’s future.

Commissioner Michael Largent cast a “no” vote in January when Partch and O’Neill voted in favor of the $15 million reimbursement figure, an increase from the $9.1 million committed to by the county in 2008.

Tracy said having a commissioner in the negotiator role could potentially lead to problems with the state’s Open Public Meetings Act which forbids a majority of a public governing board from discussing policy outside of an advertised public meeting.

O’Neill noted the January deal has also created uncertainty in the board of commissioners, as he lost a primary election to challenger Dean Kinzer and Partch was ousted in a three-way battle for his seat.

“Who knows how long I’ll be here, and Greg’s out at the end of the year,” said O’Neill. “What if these negotiations go beyond that?”