Reviewing Our Coverage From Last Week

Over the last week, our articles followed public money to the penny, tracked a school board fight all the way into a courtroom, documented precedent-setting rulings from the state Court of Appeals, and watched public comment vanish overnight from a judge's Facebook page after our article was published. 

Here is a look at the journalism we produced last week and the truths we brought to light.

Port Angeles School District: An Arbitrator's Rebuke and a Director's Lawsuit

The week opened with an independent arbitrator ruling that the Port Angeles School District should have bargained with its office professionals' union before cutting secretarial hours as part of its 2025 budget reductions.

"I cannot find meaningful bargaining in this case," arbitrator Kenneth James Latsch wrote in an award dated July 11, sustaining the grievance filed by the Port Angeles Educational Office Professionals. 

While the award does not undo the cuts, it orders the district to negotiate before any more bargaining unit work is moved out of the unit, and Latsch retained jurisdiction for 60 days in case disputes arise over the remedy.

Then, on Tuesday, July 14, Director Nancy Hamilton took her fight with the board majority to court.

Her 16-page complaint, filed in Clallam County Superior Court by Seattle education-law firm Cedar Law LLP, asks a judge to declare the board's June 18 censure resolution "arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law" and to find that the board violated the Washington Open Public Meetings Act. 

The suit brings six causes of action, including federal First Amendment retaliation and prior-restraint claims, and takes direct aim at the new protocol allowing Superintendent Michelle Olsen to route an individual director's information requests through full board approval.

The complaint also offers Hamilton's most detailed account yet of the May 26 executive session, which it calls an "ambush disguised as an executive session," and alleges the board conducted private "serial meetings" beyond what its public notices disclosed.

The board's censure resolution tells a very different story, accusing Hamilton of burdensome information requests and of disclosing executive-session details. 

Hamilton denies wrongdoing and says she received legal guidance that she broke no laws. As of our reporting, the district had not yet responded to the lawsuit in court. We will be watching when it does.

QVSD: The Larson Case Closes at $765,834.77

The financial reckoning we have tracked for months in the Quillayute Valley School District is now final. 

A Satisfaction of Judgment filed July 2 in U.S. District Court confirms the district has paid $765,834.77 in full to former assistant cross-country coach Kari Larson, closing the federal lawsuit in which a jury found the district liable for subjecting her to a hostile work environment.

The jury's award was $250,000. Attorneys' fees, litigation costs, and interest more than tripled the district's total obligation. 

Whether the money flows from a risk pool, insurance, or reserves, the cost of the district's failures is ultimately borne by the public that funds it.

The payment resolves the district's legal debt. It does not answer the questions parents have been asking since the verdict: what has changed, and who has been held responsible.

Days after that filing, the QVSD board called a midday special meeting for Wednesday, with nearly the entire session set for executive session under the published agenda to discuss litigation and evaluate job applicants. 

The agenda included no public comment period, and the noon start time fell during hours when many working parents cannot attend.

Judge Ferguson-Brown: Disclosures, Outrage, and a Silenced Page

Our most consequential accountability work of the week centered on Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Cadine Ferguson-Brown, a regular visiting judge in the Clallam County courthouse.

On Thursday, we published our investigation into her campaign finance history, built on Public Disclosure Commission records spanning two campaigns, two counties, and two years. 

In 2023, PDC staff issued Ferguson-Brown a formal written warning over the failure to timely and accurately disclose in-kind contributions. 

Within a year, her next campaign left another in-kind contribution, her own $2,173.91 candidate filing fee, off its public reports, disclosing it only after a citizen complaint. The PDC dismissed both matters without fines, but the warning remains on file, to be considered if there is a next time.

The same day, we published a commentary examining the community outrage building across Kitsap County over the judge's record, including her June 5 decision granting a Special Sexual Offender Sentencing Alternative to a convicted Silverdale child molester, and laid out the statutory tool available to prosecutors: the Notice of Disqualification under RCW 4.12.050.

What happened next made news of its own. On Thursday evening, comments left by members of the public on the "Judge Ferguson-Brown" Facebook page began to disappear. 

By Friday morning, the public could no longer comment at all, on a page that operates under her judicial title, is categorized by Facebook as a "Public & Government Service," and links to her campaign website.

On Friday afternoon, I sent a letter to Judge Ferguson-Brown, copying Kitsap County Superior Court Presiding Judge Jennifer Forbes, asking that the deleted comments be restored, the restrictions removed, and all records of the page's administration preserved in anticipation of potential litigation. 

Both judges were offered the opportunity to comment before publication. Neither had responded by press time.

Precedent From the Court of Appeals

It was a remarkable week at Division Two of the Washington State Court of Appeals, which handed down two published opinions that will bind trial courts statewide.

In a $10.9 million tax fight, the court reversed a Thurston County judgment in favor of Chicago Title Insurance Company, holding that remotely performed title insurance and escrow services are sourced to Washington for tax purposes when purchasers make first use of them here, where the real estate sits. 

As service industries move operations out of state while still selling to Washington customers, the ruling makes clear that what matters is where the purchaser uses the service, not where a company locates its back office.

In a case of first impression out of Pierce County, the court held that a trial judge went too far when he disqualified the entire Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office from a case in which the alleged victim of one charge was a deputy prosecutor in that office. Screening the individual conflicted prosecutor, the panel ruled, was enough.

The court also issued an unpublished decision reversing a Kitsap County man's conviction for violating a domestic violence no-contact order, finding the State failed to prove that a friend's phone call to the man's ex-wife about a truck he had purchased amounted to contact "through a third party." 

The man's remaining convictions stand, and the case returns to Kitsap County Superior Court for resentencing.

The Federal Docket

We followed both ends of a detention fight in the case of Jonathan E. Karns, the man indicted alongside former Clallam County Drug Court Coordinator Johnny Watts Jr.

Early in the week, we detailed the defense motion asking that Karns be released to a 30-to-45-day inpatient drug treatment program, including its pointed comparison to Watts, who was freed on bond despite allegedly being tied to more than 13 times the quantity of drugs attributed to Karns.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright denied the motion after a hearing in Tacoma, remanding the 44-year-old to custody. 

Prosecutors argued that Karns' supervision record showed he was not amenable to court-imposed conditions. 

Karns faces charges of possessing 40 grams or more of a fentanyl mixture with intent to distribute, unlawful possession of a firearm, and possessing a pistol in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. 

He and Watts have both pleaded not guilty, and a jury trial is set for August 17.

Crime and Courts in Clallam County

Our courthouse coverage continued with two felony cases out of Port Angeles.

A 26-year-old Port Angeles man, Elijah D. Creed, pleaded not guilty Tuesday, July 14, to second-degree assault by strangulation, a domestic violence offense, after police arrested him as he exited a Clallam County courtroom on July 6. 

According to the probable cause statement, the alleged victim reported that Creed squeezed her neck until she could not breathe or speak. Creed denied strangling her and told police he was defending himself. He remains jailed in lieu of $20,000 bail, with trial set for September 8.

A 41-year-old Port Angeles woman, Deanna L. Long, faces a felony charge of third-degree assault of a law enforcement officer after a Wednesday evening welfare check ended in a struggle. 

Police reports allege she kicked an officer in the stomach as she was placed in a patrol car; dispatch had confirmed an outstanding felony arrest warrant before she was taken into custody. Judge Elizabeth Stanley found probable cause and set bail at $10,000. 

Following the Federal Money in North Kitsap

Finally, we reported that the Washington State Auditor's Office cited the North Kitsap School District for a material weakness in its internal controls over federal Title I funds, money intended for students at risk of falling behind academically.

Auditors found the district failed to obtain required time-and-effort documentation for 16 employees whose payroll costs totaled $796,079, roughly 72 percent of its Title I spending for the year. 

The district ultimately produced the signed records during the audit, no costs were questioned, and it has reinstated its certification process. But for most of the year, the verification that federal dollars paid for work actually performed simply was not happening.

Keeping the Olympic Herald Independent

Last week also marked a milestone for this publication: our new website is live. Over 300 stories, every investigation, court report, and records fight we have published, are now organized by section. 

Every story remains free to read, and our preparations to launch a physical print edition across Clallam County this August continue.

Independent, reader-supported journalism is the only way this work happens. Operating without corporate backing allows us to follow the paper trails and ask the uncomfortable questions that others ignore.

If you value this level of transparency and investigative rigor, please consider supporting our operational costs by upgrading to a paid subscription or making a one-time contribution of any amount.

Most importantly, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to all of you. We write for our readers, and we could not do this without your unwavering support.

Thank you for reading, thank you for sharing our stories, and thank you for standing with The Olympic Herald. Every contribution ensures that we keep bringing these truths to light.