The saga of litigation at the Bainbridge Island Metro Parks and Recreation District has finally ended, and it appears the agency will eat the cost.
On Jan. 8, Washington Supreme Court justices threw out four BI park commissioners’ petition to review an appeal to receive repayment for about $200,000 in legal counsel fees, spent fighting a recall effort led by volunteer youth sports coach Adam Hunt.
In May 2023, Hunt filed a recall petition against commissioners Jay Kinney, Dawn Janow, Tom Swolgaard and Ken Dewitt, alleging they had failed to develop Sakai Park to meet the community’s needs in a timely manner.
Hunt dismissed his recall less than a month later, but the parks commissioners fired back with a motion to receive reimbursement of attorney fees from Hunt, on the basis that his charges were “frivolous.”
Commissioners said that Hunt attempted to pressure parks into complying with his personal priorities for Sakai, constituting an abuse of the recall process. Kinney recalled that Hunt offered to “talk about the recall going away” if the board agreed to move forward with a new fieldhouse and pool, which Hunt had advocated for at Sakai. Kinney said that wasn’t feasible as the price tag at the time was over $50 million.
Commissioners hired a consultant through Seattle law firm Foster Garvey to represent all four defendants, paying $695 per hour from park district coffers — over double the rate of BIMPRD staff attorney Hayes Gori at $300 per hour.
State law shields local elected officials from paying legal fees out of pocket to challenge recalls, but only under specific circumstances. The rationale for recall must be certified in an official hearing in order to exempt elected officials from paying, which did not occur in the Hunt vs. BIMPRD case because Hunt dismissed his complaint before the hearing took place.
Hunt said his only intent was to “help improve the recreational opportunities for kids and the [broad] Bainbridge Island community.”
“Perhaps the only thing more disappointing than the behavior outlined in the recall charges themselves is asking taxpayers to pay for the cost of being held accountable for misfeasance, malfeasance and violations of your respective oaths of office,” Hunt wrote in his recall dismissal notice.
Superior Court denied the commissioners’ motion for attorney fees, and an appeal saw the same verdict. Kinney filed a petition with the state Supreme Court — which unanimously struck down the objection, closing the case for good.