Gravel-pit lawsuit triggers e-mail hunt

By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter

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That search of more than 20 officials' personal computers and computer servers has turned up previously undisclosed e-mails whose significance is disputed by the two sides.

Attorneys for the county last week delivered copies of e-mails discovered after consultant Electronic Evidence Discovery provided step-by-step instructions to county staffers on how to recover deleted e-mails from their personal computers' hard drives.

County officials also searched e-mail servers and file servers — computers that support a network of personal computers.

The 20 to 25 officials whose computers were searched included Sims and Metropolitan King County Councilman Dow Constantine, who advocates a public purchase of the land on Maury Island where Glacier Northwest wants to build a dock to load gravel onto barges.

The county in April denied a shoreline permit for the dock. Glacier Northwest has appealed the decision to the state Shorelines Hearings Board and has claimed in King County Superior Court that county officials have failed to turn over all public records on the case.

A spokeswoman for Sims said in April that Sims and his aides routinely delete many e-mails after responding to them or referring them to other staffers.

Ralph Palumbo, an attorney representing King County, said the county made an "extraordinary" effort to recover deleted e-mails in response to the Glacier Northwest lawsuit and public concern over the documents.

The search showed those e-mails were legitimately deleted and the search for deleted material wasn't legally necessary, Palumbo said. Among the documents found in an earlier search and the more extensive follow-up, he said, were "volumes and volumes of e-mails that I wouldn't characterize as substantive. E-mails came in from Vashon Island citizens who said, 'Don't grant this permit' — no substance at all, just a plea to not grant a permit, without a reason. That in my opinion is not a record that would need to be retained."

Glacier Northwest lawyer William Cronin said those e-mails are significant, however, because the company alleges that the county made a last-minute decision to deny the permit in response to a lobbying campaign by environmentalists and residents of Vashon and Maury islands.

Some of those e-mails were sent to Stephanie Warden, county development director, the weekend she made the decision to deny a shoreline permit to Glacier Northwest, Cronin said. "It raises a real issue: How did residents of Maury Island and Vashon Island have notice that she was making a decision that weekend?"
 
Shorelines Hearings Board member Bill Clarke last week denied a county request to strike from the record a draft of legal arguments for and against the dock permit. County attorneys, who inadvertently gave the document to Glacier Northwest, said it was a private attorney-client communication and thus not subject to public disclosure.

Company lawyers argued that it was a public document and that the county waived any possible attorney-client privilege when the paper was given to the company.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com