EVERETT — A divided Snohomish County Council voted Monday to authorize an outside investigation into comments made against some of its members by Deputy Executive Mark Ericks.
The contract will pay an attorney up to $15,000 to determine what Ericks said and whether it amounted to workplace harassment.
“We are pursuing this action with regret,” council Chairman Dave Somers said Monday. “We welcome further dialogue with the executive to address these issues and to repair the relationship between the council and the executive as it is set forth in the county charter.”
Ericks’ boss, Executive John Lovick, said last week he had performed his own review and found no evidence of harassment.
Ericks reportedly said he would kill Councilman Terry Ryan “if it wasn’t for jail time” and acted amused when another manager offered to draw up death certificates for Ryan and Somers. In a formal complaint last month to Lovick, Somers also accused Ericks of admonishing a council analyst “for doing her job and asking reasonable questions” about next year’s budget.
“If verified, we cannot have people working here who are prone to making these kinds of comments,” Ryan said Monday.
In authorizing the contract with a 3-2 vote, the council split along familiar lines.
Supporting the investigation were Somers, Ryan and Councilman Ken Klein — all subject, to one degree or another, to Ericks’ alleged comments. Council members Brian Sullivan and Stephanie Wright opposed the investigation.
“I think we need to put this behind us and shake hands and move forward,” Sullivan said. “I just don’t see ratcheting this up as being productive.”
Some council members have accused Sullivan of being too cozy with Lovick’s administration. Sullivan, Lovick and Ericks previously served together as Democratic state lawmakers. Ericks’ daughter, Marian Ericks, now works for Sullivan as a legislative aide.
Lovick sat through the council vote but didn’t speak during the meeting. Afterward, however, he made clear his frustration with Somers, whom he accused of trying to bully his administration.
“He chose to go with the investigation and I am saying, ‘Bring it on,’?” Lovick said.
The executive said he took Somers’ complaint seriously. Though he disagrees with spending $15,000 on the new workplace investigation, he said he’s prepared to cooperate.
“Civility goes both ways in this business,” Lovick said. “Dave has shown a lack of civility toward me and toward the office of county executive. I look forward to putting facts on the table.”
Lovick also said, “Grown, adult men should be able to work out issues among themselves.”
During the council meeting Monday, Somers said that Lovick told him last month that Ericks “knew he had to resign.” Lovick later said Somers mischaracterized their private discussion.
The council contract authorizes hiring attorney Tom Fitzpatrick, of the Seattle law firm Talmadge/Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick is a former chief civil deputy prosecutor for Snohomish County. He also worked as one of the county’s top administrators during former Executive Aaron Reardon’s first term in office.
Under the contract, Fitzpatrick is to receive $340 per hour up to a maximum of $15,000. His report is due by the end of January. Based on interviews, it’ll be his job to determine what people remember Ericks and others saying, and how those comments square with county policies.
The contract calls for interviewing up to 30 people present at an October cabinet meeting when some of the comments were made by Ericks and Dan Christman, the deputy director of the Medical Examiner’s Office. Christman was hired in September, but a majority of the council voted to cut his position from next year’s budget. He used to work in the Bothell Police Department, including when Ericks worked as Bothell’s police chief.
Before the dust-up at the county, Ericks had compiled a distinguished record from more than 40 years in law enforcement. When Lovick recruited him in 2013 to be the county’s top administrator, he was running the U.S. Marshals Service that covers Western Washington.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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