Opinion: The PASD Superintendent’s New Contract Unlawfully Conflicts With The Public Records Act
While Thursday night’s raucous, protest-filled meeting of the Port Angeles School District Board of Directors will likely be remembered for the unprecedented and constitutionally dubious censure of newly elected Director Nancy Hamilton, another legal landmine was quietly planted in its immediate aftermath.
Moments after the 4-1 vote to formally reprimand Hamilton for her “voluminous” inquiries into district operations, the board majority approved a new three-year employment contract for Superintendent Michelle Olsen.
During the marathon meeting, Hamilton explicitly warned her colleagues that the 2026-2029 agreement contained restrictive language that illegally limited board oversight and openly conflicted with Washington State transparency mandates.
Her motion to postpone the vote to allow for proper legal review died without a single second from her colleagues. The board swiftly approved the $225,720-a-year agreement over her lone dissenting vote.
Had the board majority paused to evaluate the fine print with a critical legal eye—rather than an apparent appetite for political retribution—they would have realized Hamilton was entirely correct.
On its face, a superintendent’s contract is a routine administrative document detailing salary, vacation days, and managerial duties. But buried in the center of Olsen’s new agreement is a deeply alarming provision that attempts to unilaterally rewrite Washington State law, shield the administration from diligent oversight, and contractually gag an elected official.
The Fatal Flaw
The fatal flaw lies squarely in Section 7 of the contract, which reads:
“If, in her discretion, the Superintendent deems individual board member requests for information or records to be so voluminous, complex, and/or repetitive as to disrupt district operations and/or to require the Superintendent to shift focus or that of staff from current priorities, the Superintendent will forward the request(s) to the Board President. The Board President will place the request(s) on the next board meeting agenda for discussion, consideration, and approval by the full board. If the requests are not approved by collective Board action, the Superintendent will disregard the request(s).”
Let’s be absolutely clear about what this language does: It grants a taxpayer-funded executive the contractual authority to completely ignore requests for public records from the elected officials who oversee her, unless those officials can secure a permission slip from a political majority.
This is not just a breathtaking inversion of democratic governance. It is a blatant violation of the Washington Public Records Act, and it sets the district on a direct collision course with state courts.
A Historic Mandate Born of the People
To understand why Section 7 is so legally offensive, one must look at the historic origins of the public’s right to access information in Washington State. Transparency here is a foundational civil right intertwined with the state’s deepest traditions.
The architects of the Washington State Constitution established the philosophical groundwork for government accountability in Article I, Section 1, declaring: “All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” They followed this in Section 5 with a fiercely protected right to free speech.
But as Washington courts and transparency advocates have long recognized, the constitutional right to govern oneself and speak freely is entirely hollow if the government is allowed to operate in the dark.
In Washington State, the modern statutory right to public records was not graciously handed down by benevolent politicians—it was demanded and forced into law directly by the people.
In 1972, born from a nationwide distrust of government secrecy during the Vietnam and Watergate era, a citizens’ group called the Coalition for Open Government bypassed the state legislature entirely.
They drafted Initiative 276, a sweeping transparency and anti-corruption measure. The battle cry printed in the official voters’ pamphlet was absolute: “The People Have The Right To Know!! Vote For Initiative 276!!”
The political establishment balked, but the citizens of Washington approved the initiative in a staggering 72 percent landslide, cementing what is now the Public Records Act (RCW 42.56) as one of the most robust, fiercely protected sunshine laws in the United States.
The citizen-authors of I-276 were so concerned about the exact brand of bureaucratic gatekeeping currently on display in Port Angeles that they etched a powerful philosophical mandate directly into the preamble of the law itself. RCW 42.56.030 declares:
“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”
This is the fierce, 50-year-old constitutional and statutory legacy that the Port Angeles School Board majority is now attempting to quietly subvert with a private employment contract.
The Historic Roots of Access: Knowledge Governs Ignorance
The board’s attempt to throttle an individual director’s access to records offends the foundational principles of American self-governance. More than 200 years ago, in 1822, James Madison famously warned:
“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
The right to speak out about government waste or policy failures means nothing if the underlying information is choked off by an executive gatekeeper.
By allowing an unelected superintendent to selectively starve an elected board member of operational and financial information, the board is engaging in a form of unconstitutional prior restraint—neutering a representative’s legislative oversight and blinding the very voters who placed her on the dais.
The Public Records Act Belongs to Everyone
Under the PRA, any person has the right to inspect and copy public records.
When Nancy Hamilton—or any other citizen—was elected to the school board last November, she did not magically forfeit her statutory rights as a resident of Washington State.
Individual board directors retain the exact same PRA rights as any other person walking down the street in Port Angeles.
If an everyday taxpayer possesses the unalienable legal right to request records detailing a $23,700 contract change-order, the maintenance history of the district’s bus fleet, or internal communications regarding school staff, so too does an elected school board director.
If a Washington state agency receives a request for public records, it must respond within five business days. The district has strictly limited statutory options: it may provide the records, provide a reasonable timeline for when they will be available, ask for clarification, or legally deny the request by citing a specific, narrow statutory exemption.
What a public agency absolutely cannot do is empower its superintendent to subjectively label a records request “complex” and then toss it in the trash.
Furthermore, state law explicitly forbids the gatekeeping mechanism the board just created. RCW 42.56.080 mandates that agencies “shall not distinguish among persons requesting records.”
By creating a special, highly restrictive process that applies specifically and exclusively to “individual board members,” the school board is formally codifying a discriminatory practice that state law expressly prohibits.
“Inconvenience” is Not a Legal Exemption
The board majority seems to be operating under the catastrophic delusion that a public agency can ignore transparency laws if complying with them becomes administratively annoying.
The language of Section 7 gives Superintendent Olsen the discretion to disregard requests if she feels they are “so voluminous... as to disrupt district operations” or require staff to “shift focus... from current priorities.”
This excuse may sound perfectly reasonable in a corporate boardroom, but in the realm of Washington public records law, it holds zero legal weight. In fact, RCW 42.56.080 explicitly shuts this argument down, stating:
“Agencies shall not deny a request for identifiable public records solely on the basis that the request is overbroad.”
The Washington State Legislature and the state courts have repeatedly addressed the issue of “agency inconvenience,” and their answer is unequivocal: transparency comes first.
RCW 42.56.550(3) explicitly dictates that courts must enforce the free and open examination of public records “even though such examination may cause inconvenience or embarrassment to public officials or others.”
There is no PRA exemption for “the superintendent is too busy.” There is no statutory carve-out for “shifting focus.”
While the Washington Administrative Code (WAC 44-14-040) allows agencies to manage extremely large requests by providing documents in scheduled installments or seeking clarification, an agency can never unilaterally “disregard” an identifiable records request simply because fulfilling it is inconvenient.
If a request is truly so extreme that it threatens to substantially and irreparably damage vital governmental functions, the agency’s only legal recourse under RCW 42.56.540 is to file a motion in Superior Court and ask a judge for a protective injunction.
The PRA vests this power only with the judicial branch—not with a superintendent’s unilateral veto.
The Washington State Court of Appeals made this crystal clear in the landmark, long-running case Zink v. City of Mesa (2007).
In that case, a former city official filed up to 172 records requests over roughly two years.
The City of Mesa attempted to defend withholding and delaying documents by arguing that strict compliance with the PRA was a “practical impossibility” given the sheer volume of her inquiries and the city’s limited manpower. They essentially claimed the requests amounted to unlawful harassment.
The Court of Appeals completely dismissed the city’s defense, reversing a lower court’s ruling.
The precedent established that an agency’s lack of resources, administrative difficulty, and the sheer volume of a citizen’s requests do not excuse an agency from its statutory duty to strictly comply with the PRA.
Over the course of the ensuing litigation, the City of Mesa was ultimately slapped with roughly $245,000 in statutory penalties, attorney fees, and costs for illegally delaying and withholding documents.
Private Contracts Cannot Override State Mandates
By adopting this contract, the Port Angeles School Board is attempting a legal sleight-of-hand: using a private employment agreement to override state transparency mandates.
It will not work. Under Washington State contract law, it is a foundational legal doctrine that agreements cannot contravene public policy or statutory law.
A local employment contract cannot nullify the Revised Code of Washington, and any contractual clause that requires a party to perform an act prohibited by state statute is void ab initio—meaning it is legally invalid and unenforceable from the moment it is signed.
A public agency simply cannot negotiate away the public’s statutory right to information in a backroom contract.
Ironically, Section 1 of Olsen’s new contract requires her to “faithfully perform the duties of the Superintendent... as prescribed by the laws and regulations of the State of Washington.”
Section 7 creates an impossible paradox: If Olsen actually uses her new contractual authority to “disregard” an unapproved records request, she will immediately be breaking state law.
Beyond the strict mechanics of the Public Records Act, Section 7 flips the entire democratic hierarchy on its head. Under Washington law, the school board is the governing body accountable to the voters. The superintendent is an employee accountable to the board.
An individual director cannot fulfill their fiduciary duty to the taxpayers if their access to basic operational and financial records is choked off by the very administrator they are supposed to be overseeing.
Restricting an elected official’s access to the information required to evaluate policy operates as a form of unconstitutional prior restraint, neutering their legislative oversight and nullifying the will of the voters who placed her on the dais.
An Invitation to Costly Litigation
In their zeal to legally insulate Superintendent Olsen from what they view as “micromanagement” by a dissenting board member, the board majority has authored a legally indefensible restraint on legislative inquiry and state transparency rights.
Make no mistake: If Nancy Hamilton submits a written request for identifiable public records, and Superintendent Olsen invokes Section 7 of her new contract to “disregard” it, the Port Angeles School District will be in direct, actionable violation of the Public Records Act.
Washington courts do not look kindly on agencies that play games with public records.
The PRA is a strict liability statute—an agency’s intent or lack of resources does not matter when determining if a violation occurred, only whether the records were wrongfully withheld.
The penalties for withholding public records in Washington are notoriously unforgiving, with fines accruing per day, per request or group of records withheld. Furthermore, if an agency is found to have violated the PRA, state law (RCW 42.56.550(4)) mandates that they pay the prevailing party’s attorney’s fees.
In the landmark case Yousoufian v. Office of Ron Sims, 168 Wn.2d 444 (2010), the Washington State Supreme Court penalized King County exactly $371,340 for delaying the release of public records.
More importantly, the Supreme Court utilized this case to establish the 16 “Yousoufian factors”—the strict legal standard by which trial courts calculate the severity of daily PRA fines.
According to the Supreme Court, judges must heavily weigh “bad faith” and “intentional noncompliance” as aggravating factors when maximizing those daily fines.
Memorializing a policy directly into a legally binding contract that explicitly instructs an executive to illegally “disregard” valid information requests is the very definition of premeditated, bad-faith noncompliance.
It operates as a pre-written confession of a PRA violation and virtually guarantees a judge will send daily penalties skyrocketing toward the statutory maximum.
The Port Angeles School Board cannot suspend the Washington Public Records Act, and they certainly cannot bypass it by burying an illegal clause in a superintendent’s contract.
If they attempt to enforce Section 7, they won’t just be silencing a colleague. They will be writing a blank check for a civil rights and public records lawsuit that the taxpayers of Port Angeles will inevitably have to fund—and one the district is legally destined to lose.
The Olympic Herald’s Commitment to Transparency
The board may believe they have successfully built a bureaucratic wall around the district’s records, but they have severely underestimated the power of the press and the public.
If the Port Angeles School Board intends to use an employment contract to choke off transparency and effectively gag an elected representative, then The Olympic Herald will step in to ensure the community gets the answers it is legally owed.
Starting immediately, I am publicly committing to filing a weekly Public Records Request with the Port Angeles School District. I will be requesting all emails sent from any board member to Superintendent Olsen, as well as the responses from the superintendent.
I will be reading those communications very closely. If my weekly requests reveal that Superintendent Olsen has invoked Section 7 to forward a director’s request to the board president—effectively sidelining it—I will step in.
I will immediately file my own formal PRA request seeking the exact records or information that the board member was originally asking for and I will release those records to the public.
Section 7 of this employment contract states that the superintendent will disregard the requests of “individual board members.” That unconstitutional clause does not apply to me, it does not apply to this publication, and it does not apply to the citizens of Washington.
The public owns these records. If the district attempts to subjectively disregard my requests, or delay the release of these documents under the guise of administrative inconvenience, I will not hesitate to pursue every available legal avenue to compel disclosure.
A school board cannot contract away the public’s right to know.