Jeffrey Daily v. South Kitsap School Board [3]

The Notice of Appeal has been filed and the Board's attorney has responded with a Notice of Appearance.  No further motions or documents have been filed since then.  There is no date set for any hearing nor, as of February 15, 2023, further actions in this case.  The case is basically dormant.  When there are no filings on a case for a year, the County Clerk will initiate a dismissal process.

On April 15, 2022, Director Daily initiated a third legal action in the Superior Court of Kitsap County for an Administrative Law Review appealing a decision of the South Kitsap School Board.

This was in response to the Board's adoption of Governance Culture Policies on March 16, 2022, 

The suit takes issue with policy GC-7, the Board Members' Code of Conduct, which was adopted by the Board as recommended by the Aspen Group, and policy  GC-9, the Process for Addressing Board Member Violations, which was readopted without change from the former GP-12.  That GP-12 was previously challenged in Director Daily's first appeal, which is still pending.

The suit also "strongly suggests" (p. 11, ll. 12-14) or raises the question (p. 3, ll. 23-24) as to whether the other members of the Board violated the Open Public Meetings, or OPMA (RCW 42.30) by conferring among themselves outside of a public meeting regarding the action to be taken at the March 16, 2022 meeting.

The suit asks the court to extend the scope of RCW 42.52 (Ethics in Public Service) from state officials and state employees to school district officials and employees, even though the school district is not a state agency but a quasi-municipal corporation, with the ethics of its officers governed by a different statute (RCW 42.23).  This is the same issue that was raised in Director Daily's first appeal.

The suit asks the court to require the Board to submit its ethics rules to "the appropriate board of ethics" under RCW 42.52.  RCW 42.52 provides for three ethics boards, one for the legislative branch, one for the judicial branch, and one for the executive branch.  The legislative ethics board has jurisdiction over "members and employees of the legislature" (RCW 42.52.320).  The executive ethics board has jurisdiction over "statewide elected officers and all other officers and employees in the executive branch, boards and commissions, and institutions of higher education" (RCW 42.52.360).  The school district is not a state board, therefor there is no "appropriate board of ethics" to which the court could order the school board to submit its proposed ethics rules.

The Board, through its attorney, filed a Notice of Appearance May 11, 2022, but did not respond directly to any of the claims raised in the Notice of Appeal.

More documents will be added below as they become publicly available.