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by Ralph Nichols

A lawsuit filed by a long-time area family against the City of Normandy Park and the Cascade Land Conservancy seeks to block removal of bulkheads they say protect their home and property.

The complaint alleges that attempts by the city and the conservation group to remove the bulkheads are based on “dishonest and misleading representations to state and county funding agencies.”

It was filed in King County Superior Court by Brent Carson with GordonDerr – a Seattle law firm that focuses on land use, real estate and environmental law – on behalf of the Hadley family, which has owned their property for more than 70 years.

The case is scheduled for trial before Judge Cheryl Carey at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent in December 2012. Answers from the city and the Cascade Land Conservancy are due July 5. No discovery by attorneys has yet been schedules.

Carson charges that Normandy Park and the conservancy are improperly acquiring at least 26 parcels of property along the Puget Sound shoreline – known as Beaconsfield on the Sound – that impact the Hadley’s home and land.

“A key requirement of both the Salmon Recovery Funding Board and the King County Conservation Futures programs is that any grant funds used for conservation projects can only be used to acquire property from willing land owners,” he noted in a news release.

But, the complaint contends, the Hadleys are not willing owners.

And, Carson told The B-Town Blog, the conservancy “and the city never communicated to agencies funding the acquisitions” the fact that “the Hadley family owns and has maintained the bulkheads.”

Yet “title reports for the sale of these properties, prepared for [the conservancy], clearly state that the Hadleys are the owners of these bulkheads, and it’s hard to see how [the conservancy] or the City could have missed that,” he added.

Lisa Hadley-Colmenares said in the news release, “This property has been in our family for three generations and we are shocked at the [conservancy] and City’s deceptions to us and to the various public funding agencies.

“Had the public funding agencies been made aware of our position, they might have used these valuable funding resources toward other projects that met their criteria. We absolutely support environmental responsibility, yet not at the expense of putting citizens’ lives at risk.”

Normandy Park City Manager Doug Schulze told The B-Town Blog last week, “I can’t say a whole lot about it.” The city had only recently been served with the lawsuit and “our city attorney is reviewing it and will appear on the city’s behalf.

“I can’t say a whole lot about it” – Normandy Park City Manager Doug Schulze.

“But at this point I have not even received a briefing on what the lawsuit entirely entails,” Schulze said. “Basically it is related to a project the city has been involved in since 2003 or 2004 on an ongoing acquisition” of properties.

“The city had no discussions with the Hadleys of the Colmenares regarding this issue prior to the filing of the suit,” he added. “Had there been discussion, we may have been able to resolve a significant amount of the differences.”

Carson countered, however, that “the city is disingenuous when it says it has not had communication with the Hadleys. The city’s partner in these acquisitions, The Cascade Land Conservancy, communicated frequently with the Hadleys and the city was fully briefed.

He said internal city emails in 2008 “demonstrates that [the conservation group] and the city were fully aware of the Hadley’s intention not to sell.”

Carson added that this April he “communicated directly with Normandy Park City Attorney Jim Haney and general counsel for the conservancy and reiterated the Hadleys’ position. Neither attorney made any further attempts to discuss this matter with the Hadleys.

“Instead, the City continued to press forward with its acquisitions, forcing the Hadleys to take legal action.”

No monetary damages are being sought by the plaintiffs, who, Schulze noted, are looking “to quiet a title and for some prescriptive rights over some property.”

Carson said the owners of the properties in question granted bulkhead easements to the Hadleys in the 1950s, who built approximately 454 feet of concrete bulkheads.

“In the 1980s the City of Normandy Park granted permits to the Hadleys for additional shoreline protection and the Hadleys installed approximately another 371 feet of rock revetments.”

The city and the conservancy allegedly have been using state and King County funds to acquire property on the lower part of the Beaconsfield bluff, just below the Hadley family home.

“To date, over $1.4 million of taxpayer dollars and public funds have been used for the Beaconsfield on the Puget Sound Project,” Carson said.

“In early 2008, the Hadleys unequivocally communicated their decision not to sell their property or permit the removal of the bulkheads, and [the conservancy] informed the Hadleys that they would respect their wishes.”

“Long ago the legislature decided that the public interest is best served when working with the willing property owners,” he noted.

“Despite knowing that the Hadley family owned the bulkheads and were not interested in selling or having their bulkheads removed, the [conservancy] and the city of Normandy Park have represented to funders that acquisition of the properties further down the bluff, known as the ‘piano key,’ would give the city permission to take out the shoreline protection installed to reduce erosion of the hillside below the Hadley property.”

Yet the Cascade Land Conservancy “and the City never communicated the true owners of the bulkheads to Washington state or King County funders.”

by Ralph Nichols

All outstanding claims by contractors for cost overruns during phase one of the 1st Ave. S. improvement project have been settled by Burien for just under $3 million.

City Council members agreed to pay $2.75 million to resolve claims against Burien by general contractor Frank Coluccio Construction Co. and subcontractors Active Construction Inc. and Terra Dynamics (read the settlement here, p. 25 of PDF file).

The June 6 settlement was reached through two days of mediation, said Burien City Attorney Craig Knutson.

Coluccio and its subcontractors earlier filed suit in King County Superior Court to recover claims of more than $8 million for cost overruns resulting from delays, for which they held the city responsible.

An Aug. 1 trial date had been set in this case.

Active Construction did a lot of the trenching for undergrounding utilities. Terra Dynamics did landscaping work.

The city council also settled with Trans Tech Electric Inc. on April 4, agreeing to pay the subcontractor $177,902 and an additional $12,453 to Coluccio for the contractor’s markup for work performed.

Trans Tech, which installed street lighting and traffic signals, had filed a claim for $602,500.

Although “the city had a number of defenses we would have used at trial,” Knutson said Burien “would have been subject to pretrial interest [on the monetary claims] at 12 percent, and possibly [plaintiffs’] attorneys’ fees….

“Given the uncertainties of a jury trying to figure out a very complicated construction case,” coupled with a possibility the city “would have to pay a lot more” than the mediated agreement, settling contractors’ claims was reasonable, he told The B-Town Blog.

“I don’t know why they settled, but they faced the same uncertainties … and contractors don’t like to go to trial over construction claims.” Ninety-five percent of such claims are settled before a trial begins.

“Both sides had put a lot of effort into the case, but had not yet taken depositions” – which cost a lot in attorneys’ fees – “so both sides had a real incentive” to reach a pre-trial settlement through mediation,” Knutson added.

However, Burien expects “to recover a significant amount of this settlement” through payments from Seattle City Light and also Comcast, which are still being negotiated, for problems with their utility lines that contributed to construction delays.

Final cost of the project is approximately $26.4 million.

Phase one of the 1st Ave. S. rebuilding and redesign project between S/SW 162nd St. and S/SW 146th St. got underway on May 15, 2006, with completion scheduled for Nov. 27, 2007.

But repeated delays extended this project by almost a year. Construction finally ended – although utility undergrounding remains to be done, along with additional street lighting and curb, gutter and landscaping work – on Oct. 10, 2008.

Phase one planning took place while Gary Long was still Burien city manager, and Stephen Clark was public works director when the work was done.

As work fell behind schedule in 2007, Clark blamed it on bad weather the previous winter along with a cement processing strike – and utility conflicts and unanticipated problems encountered beneath the surface of 1st Ave.

Many businesses along the street reported heavy financial losses, with some going out of business as the result of construction.

The Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner announced that Allstate Insurance has filed a lawsuit against Auto Glass Express and Premier Auto Glass, located in Burien, alleging that in multiple cases they billed (and were paid for) OEM glass, while actually “purchasing and installing aftermarket windshields.”

Previously, the insurance commissioner’s office had filed criminal charges against owner Michael Alan Perkins, for related allegations involving Allstate, State Farm and MetLife (read our previous coverage of that story here).

Charges against Perkins, 43, were filed Thursday in King County Superior Court. Perkins is the owner of Autoglass Express Inc. and Premier Auto Glass, LLC., which are run out of Perkins’ Burien home. The glass shops are suspected of overbilling State Farm, Allstate and MetLife insurance companies.

An investigation by the state insurance commissioner’s office found 4,840 instances in which the company told insurers that higher-priced Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) glass had been installed, when workers were actually installing lower-cost aftermarket glass.

State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler’s anti-fraud Special Investigations Unit, which spent months combing through more than 10,000 records, found $1,520,234 in deceptive billing by Perkins’ companies between September 2005 and December 2009.

“We found instances in which companies paid full price for car windows that actually came from auto wrecking yards,” said Kreidler. “One company was billed more than $1,000 for a Toyota windshield that actually cost $92.”

State Farm was tipped off to the scheme by Lynx Services, a third-party administrator that handles glass claims. Lynx became suspicious after a random search of their database turned up an unusually high percentage of OEM glass being installed in cars worked on by Autoglass Express. State Farm investigators began contacting policyholders, inspecting the recently-installed glass, and comparing it to the bills. State Farm turned the case over to the insurance commissioner’s Special Investigations Unit, which obtained search warrants and seized more than 50 boxes of invoices and hard drives belonging to Perkins’ companies.

“Insurance fraud is hardly the victimless crime that some people seem to think it is,” said Kreidler. “When someone scams an insurer, it drives up costs for policyholders, the vast majority of whom play by the rules.”

Other examples of overbilling documented by the state insurance commissioner’s office in this case:

• 1998 Saturn station wagon: Insurer was billed $317 for a back window that actually cost $150 at a wrecking yard.
• 2003 Lexus: Insurer was billed $1,082.06 for a windshield that actually cost $144.83.
• 1991 Subaru Legacy: Insurer was billed $199.95 for a front door window that cost $65 from a wrecking yard.
• 1999 Lexus RX300: Insurer was billed $1,167.34 for a windshield that actually cost $56.05.

The Seattle P-I is reporting that a local nursing-home patient who fell in his room and landed on a baseboard heater and subsequently suffered burns so severe that he had to have his leg amputated, is suing Burien Nursing and Rehab for at least $1.4 million dollars.

The story reports that the patient, Patrick Carson, has filed a complaint (download PDF file) that said the home was supposed to equip him with an automatic personal sensor in case he fell. But in October of 2009, when he fell out of his bed, no alarm allegedly sounded.

“The bed had been moved dangerously close to a baseboard heater, about three feet away, and Carson suffered third-degree burns on his left leg and right toes…” the P-I reports.

Carson’s leg was amputated because of the burns, and now his attorneys are suing the company for at least $1.4 million.

Read the full story here.

by Jack Mayne

The Seattle-Tacoma International Taxicab Association (STITA) lost another round in its fight to retain a contract with the Port of Seattle to be the sole provider of cab service leaving the airport, a contract it has held for about 20 years.

The Washington Supreme Court on Thursday (Aug. 5) declined to review an appeals court decision upholding the Port of Seattle’s award of the outbound taxi service contract to Yellow Cab. The Court also dissolved a stay preventing a new contract between Yellow and the Port and, within moments of the high court’s decision being announced Friday morning, the Port signed a new contract with Yellow that will take effect on Nov. 1

Chris Van Dyk, the principal of the Bainbridge Media Group and the person who authored the Yellow Cab bid, issued a news release Friday:

“You will be pleased to know that . . . the Washington State Supreme Court denied certiorari (review) of the STITA appeal of the temporary injunction that had been issued, blocking contract signing between the Port and Yellow, in this case,” Van Dyk wrote. “Accordingly, the Port of Seattle has signed the contract for outbound taxicab services with Puget Sound Dispatch dba Yellow Taxi Association, and Yellow will begin outbound on-demand (curbside pickup) taxicab service at SeaTac on Nov. 1, 2010.”

The original STITA contract was supposed to have ended on August 31, but was extended by the port for 60 days because of the legal battle, plus the fact Yellow would need time to redeploy cabs to the airport and to make other arrangement to take over the service, said Perry Cooper, spokesman for the airport.

Despite the setback, STITA attorney Michael Goldfarb of the Seattle firm of Peterson Young and Putra, said the case was still a long way from being over.

Goldfarb says he plans to file a motion in another suit involving cab service at the airport. STITA will allege the contract signed between Yellow and the Port is illegal because there were “significant changes: made after the contract outlined in Yellow’s original bid.

“Our position is that the Port negotiated wholesale changes to the agreement and any such changes were never approved by the Port Commission (in a public meeting),” said Goldfarb. “We will ask the (King County Superior Court) to nullify the contract,” the attorney said.

“Even though the important issues raised by this first case won’t be heard by the state’s highest court, we still have a strong position in a second case,” said Jesse Buttar, STITA spokesman. “We still look to the Port to restore the public trust in this contract and process.”

by Ralph Nichols

A dark financial cloud that cast a long shadow over Burien’s plans for its future disappeared when City Council members gave unanimous approval Monday night (July 19) to a negotiated insurance settlement.

The lawmakers accepted an agreement with the Washington Cities Insurance Authority (WCIA) that favorably resolves for the city issues of outstanding insurance coverage in the long-running Westmark v. Burien case.

“No longer will we have millions of dollars of liability staring us in the face,” City Manager Mike Martin told the B-Town Blog.

Westmark Development has had plans to build Emerald Pointe on the Sound – a controversial housing development with up to 200 market-rate condominiums at 13401 12th Ave. S.W. – for 20 years.

But the project, opposed by residents of the Seahurst area who have voiced environmental concerns, has been on hold since the city incorporated in 1993 and took over permitting from King County.

The proposed site of Westmark's "Emerald Pointe on the Sound" is at this location at 13401 12th Ave SW, which is essentially a vacant, wooded ravine.

Westmark eventually filed suit against Burien for intentionally interfering with its “business expectations.” In 2007, the state Court of Appeals upheld a $10.7 million judgment against the city, plus interest and other expenses.

While the WCIA paid most of the Westmark award, “Burien paid an additional $510,341.77 to satisfy the Westmark I judgment,” according to the claims settlement agreement.

The city later paid additional “substantial attorneys fees and defense costs” in two subsequent suits related to this case.

City Attorney Craig Knutson said under the agreement, which holds Burien harmless, the WCIA will:

• Reimburse the city for the $510,341.77.
• Reimburse the city for approximately $60,000 it has already paid in the current round of litigation with Westmark.
• Accept responsibility for coverage of the city’s ongoing liability for Westmark’s attorney fees and other defense costs in this suit.

“The agreement with the WCIA resolves insurance coverage issues so the city will not incur any financial liability on what has been incurred to date or will be incurred in the future,” Knutson noted.

“In essence,” Martin said, “the city has come out unscathed after all these years. This is significant because [the liability] has had such immense financial consequences that it clouded our ability to plan for the future.”

When considering city programs and projects, “I always had to ask myself, ‘what happens if we are held liable for part or all of this?’” he added. “This agreement takes away that cloud. This is absolutely the tail of the dog.”

The reimbursements will go “back into the general fund where it come from.”

Knutson said the settlement is the result “of ongoing negotiations and analysis of insurance coverage issues complicated by the fact that the coverage was over so many years.”

As for Westmark’s proposed condo project, “it is alive in the sense that it’s still buildable. But no permits have been issued yet,” Martin said.

While project plans have been revised, “it’s still a major multi-family complex but with major modifications … it’s something that can still be built.”

by Jack Mayne

The Port of Seattle has been accused by a taxicab company of violating the state open meeting act and seeks to have the Port restrained from signing a contract with Yellow Cab for exclusive cab service from the airport.

The legal dispute over the taxi contract for travelers arriving at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport could make finding a taxicab impossible after the August 31 end of the current contract. The Port of Seattle and the Seattle Tacoma International Taxi Association, better known as STITA, say some sort of service will be found but no discussions have been held with any cab provider, say spokesmen for both sides.

Court orders sought by STITA and other cab companies have prevented the Port from signing a new contract with Yellow Cab as recommended by the Port staff. For 20 years, STITA has held the contract to provide all taxi service leaving the airport, but the Port was stung last year by a state auditor’s report dinging the Port for not making enough money on the contract.

The Port and STITA say there were no discussions about increasing income to the Port. Instead, for the first time last year, the Port issued requests for proposals, which resulted in Port staff recommending the contract be awarded to Yellow Cab.

STITA and other area cab companies have gone to court to stop Yellow from getting the contract, claiming various problems with the way the bid were evaluated.

In the latest filing, STITA is asking for the court to issue an injunction restraining the Port from signing a new contract with Yellow Cab because it violated the open meetings act by adopting changes in the provisions of the contract in a closed door meeting and without giving bidders notice of those changes. The changes should have been discussed in a public and open meeting, says attorney Michael A. Goldfarb on behalf of client STITA.

“Everything points to the Port of Seattle to go back to the drawing board, and clean up this mess,” says Jesse Buttar, a STITA spokesman. “We’re not asking for them to give us the contract, but to give us a level playing field. This has been stacked against STITA from the beginning.”

STITA says it also plans to appeal another case to the State Supreme Court to continue an injunction preventing the port from signing the Yellow Taxi contract. If the Court starts its summer recess before acting on the appeal, the injunction against a new contract could result in no contract for cab service being in place after the current one expires.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• STITA Cab Challenges Yellow Taxi Lobbyist Over Role In Taxi Contract
• Court Ruling Prevents Port Of Seattle From Signing Taxi Contract. For Now.
• Taxicab Companies Request State Investigation Into Port Of Seattle
• Port Of Seattle Being Sued By Second Taxi Company
• UPDATE: After Brief Denial, STITA Cab Wins Stay Against Port Of Seattle
• STITA Taxi Files Lawsuit Against Port Of Seattle For Breaking Contract

On Thursday (April 15) STITA Cab announced that it is challenging Chris Van Dyk, lobbyist for Yellow Taxi, to provide documents and answer questions about his role in drafting two rival taxi contract proposals.

Yet, according to documents (download PDF here), Van Dyk has failed to respond to subpoenas in the case and on Wednesday (April 14) filed a motion to plead the Fifth Amendment. The motion will be noted for decision in King County Court this Friday (April 16).

As we’ve previously reported, STITA has filed two lawsuits against the Port for its alleged mishandling of switching cab vendors over from STITA to Yellow Taxi. They have also accused Van Dyk of collusion in the RFP process.

Prior to this, the most recent news was Feb. 22nd, when the Washington state Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the cab company by granting a temporary injunction against the Port of Seattle’s planned contract with Yellow Cab/Puget Sound Dispatch.

According to STITA:

“If Chris Van Dyk has nothing to hide and didn’t do anything wrong, then why is he pleading the Fifth?” said Jesse Buttar, STITA spokesperson. “Clearly, it’s time for the Port of Seattle to do the right thing and re-write the proposal request and re-bid the contract.”

The Port of Seattle faces two lawsuits stemming from its handling of a competitive contract process for the exclusive rights to offer cab service for passengers leaving Sea-Tac Airport. The Seattle-Tacoma International Taxi Association (STITA) filed a lawsuit in January against the Port of Seattle to stop the Port from awarding its airport taxi contract to Yellow Cab.

On Feb. 12, Farwest Taxi (Rainier Dispatch), which was part of a joint venture that submitted a bid to the Port last year, filed a separate lawsuit alleging that Van Dyk had misappropriated the joint venture’s confidential information and had improperly passed it on to the winning bidder, Yellow Taxi. Farwest’s suit requests the court to disqualify Yellow Taxi’s bid, require the Port to start over and reinitiate a new Request for Proposal (RFP) process, and bar Yellow Taxi from bidding on the new RFP.

Van Dyk’s assertion of the Fifth is important because the Port’s RFP states: “One or all responses will be rejected if there is reason for believing that collusion exists among Proposers, and no participant in such collusion will be considered in future proposals for concessions at the Airport.” [RFP, 13.4.1, p. 6]

Last year, the Port opened the contract for on-demand taxi cabs at Sea-Tac and issued a Request for Proposals. In December, the Port awarded a five-year contract to Yellow Cab, to start in September. However, the Port currently is blocked from signing the contract with Yellow while the lawsuits make their way through the legal system.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• Court Ruling Prevents Port Of Seattle From Signing Taxi Contract. For Now.
• Taxicab Companies Request State Investigation Into Port Of Seattle
• Port Of Seattle Being Sued By Second Taxi Company
• UPDATE: After Brief Denial, STITA Cab Wins Stay Against Port Of Seattle
• STITA Taxi Files Lawsuit Against Port Of Seattle For Breaking Contract

The Seattle Times is reporting that a couple from Normandy Park is suing Toyota in federal court, demanding that the company either take back the vehicle they just bought or reimburse them for its loss in value since the automaker’s sudden-acceleration troubles became news.

According to The Times:

The lawsuit alleges that the issues plaguing Toyota violate the state’s Consumer Protection Act and amount to a breach of contract. The lawsuit is a proposed class action and, if certified by a federal judge, could apply to other Toyota owners in Washington with similar issues.

Read the full story here.

In the continuing saga of STITA vs the Port of Seattle, on Monday (Feb. 22nd), the Washington state Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the cab company by granting a temporary injunction against the Port of Seattle’s planned contract with Yellow Cab/Puget Sound Dispatch.

This means the Port cannot sign the planned contract “until further order of the Court” (click here to download/read the order as a PDF file), which could happen in April.

STITA’s request to expedite the appeal was granted by Commissioner Mary Neel. The Commissioner’s order states that this case will be heard by a three-judge panel “toward the end of the April 2010 term,” meaning that this ongoing SeaTac soap opera is far from over.

Members of STITA, who filed the original lawsuit against the Port of Seattle on Jan. 29, were obviously pleased with the decision.

“We are thrilled that the court stopped the Port from proceeding with an illegal contract,” said Jesse Buttar, a STITA member and spokesperson. “We’ve only ever asked for a fair process and a legal contract and now we hope the Port has finally listened and will re-do its flawed bidding process.”

Here’s more info from STITA’s press release, issued late Monday afternoon:

STITA, a non-profit co-op with one of the greenest cab fleet in the country, was created in 1989 by the Port of Seattle to exclusively serve the airport and provide reliable service to airport users. Now, after an unfair proposal process, STITA and its approximately 450 members and drivers will essentially be put out of business. They have the airport contract through August 2010.

STITA’s lawsuit claims that the Port’s bidding process violated state law by requiring bidders to commit to pay an unfair concession fee of at least 10 percent of their airport-based revenues to the Port. This revenue system violates the Airports Act, which says airport concession fees must be based upon the actual cost of operations and be reasonable and uniform. Previously, the Port had charged a per-trip fee to taxis based on the airport’s actual cost of services provided to the cabbies.

Additionally, the lawsuit contends that the Port’s new concession fees violate the King County Code and takes away from the King County Council’s authority to set “just and reasonable” taxi meter rates.

Despite protests from STITA to the Port about these glaring problems with the process and the proposed contract, the Port has so far declined to re-do its flawed contract bid.

A second lawsuit against the Port and Yellow Cab by Farwest Taxi was filed on Feb. 12.

Read our previous coverage of this ongoing legal battle here.