Evan Smith: Shoreline Council to discuss next step in Fimia e-mail case

By Evan Smith

ShorelineAreaNews Politics Writer

The Shoreline City Council will discuss a public-records lawsuit at its Monday meeting. The suit is about e-mail information in former Councilwoman Maggie Fimia’s computer.

City Attorney Ian Sievers told me Thursday that he will meet with the Council in executive session. The State public meetings law allows a public body to meet in executive session for discussion with its attorney about current or pending litigation.

Sievers said he would seek guidance from the Council on whether to seek clarification of what the State Supreme Court says it must prove to keep from having to pay a civil penalty plus legal fees. Such clarification would help the City decide whether to keep pursuing the issue in King County Superior Court.

The suit arose when Shoreline resident Beth O’Neill sought information about an e-mail that Fimia cited at a September 2006 Council meeting. The City supplied a copy of the e-mail under the State public records act, but it was a copy that didn’t show who had sent the original e-mail, to whom it was sent and when.

After litigation in the superior court and the court of appeals the Supreme Court decided last week that such “metadata” is subject to the public records act. However, it didn’t order the City to pay civil penalties or pay O’Neill’s legal fees. The Supreme Court left that up to the Superior Court, which would give the City a chance to prove that it has complied with the law.

The Superior Court could charge the City with civil penalties of $5 to $100 per day for more than four years, plus legal fees that have reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The City, not Fimia, would have to pay that money.

During the public-meetings suit a few years ago, the Council passed a resolution that the offending Council members would be responsible if the City lost. That hasn’t happened in this case.

Fimia could be charged with a crime.

Sievers said that fighting the suit has cost the City little or no money because he and Assistant City Attorney Flannary Collins have done all of the legal work. Fimia’s attorney worked for free.