New job sparks ethics issues

The city of Spokane and one of its top contractors find themselves in an ethical dilemma now that a top city official is taking a new job as Spokane-area manager for the private contracting firm.

Roger Flint, the city’s director of public works and utilities, announced last week that he has accepted a job with CH2M Hill, an international engineering firm that has held more than $8 million in contract work with the city of Spokane.

Flint, in his role at City Hall, has overseen several of those contracts for the city, and his departure sets up the first test of a new ethics policy adopted in January but not yet fully implemented. The council is still seeking appointees for its volunteer ethics committee, which will enforce the code.

The code prohibits former city employees from engaging in business for a period of one year in any matters or actions that they had been involved in while on the city payroll, but Flint said he’s unsure whether it applies to him.

The idea is to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, as well as prevent inflated bids or behind-the-scenes deals that might be contrary to the public interest, said City Councilman Bob Apple, who voted in favor of the ethics code in January.

Flint, in an interview on Wednesday, said he was aware of the provision in the new ethics code and told Mayor Dennis Hession he was considering the job with CH2M Hill before accepting it. He said he advised the mayor and the city attorney’s office of the ethical issue in an effort to comply with the code.

The city attorney is studying the issue and is expected to issue an opinion, he said.

“I brought it to their attention,” Flint said. But he said he believes the code does not require him to keep a hands-off stance with city business for the one-year period. Rather, he said, his expertise on wastewater treatment and other issues may well be an advantage to the city, including efforts to negotiate a new wastewater discharge permit for the Spokane River.

CH2M Hill currently holds a 10-year contract worth $4.7 million to design improvements and expansion of the city’s wastewater plant. Flint is overseeing the plant improvements and would become CH2M Hill’s top manager on the project in his new job.

“I do not feel there are any issues,” Flint said. “I’m not going to voluntarily step aside.”

Hession said he has not taken any action to prevent Flint from working on city contracts once he takes over at CH2M Hill at mid-month. “I am going to have to wait to see what the opinion of the city attorney is,” Hession said Wednesday. “I don’t know it is an issue.”

Hession said, however, he wants to be sensitive to ethical concerns.

“We have a longstanding relationship with CH2M Hill. We don’t want to interfere with that unnecessarily,” he said.

But Hession said he also wants to comply with the ethics code.

The code states: “No former officer or employee shall, within a period of one year after leaving city office or employment, participate in matters involving the city if, while in the course of employment with the city, the former officer or employee was officially involved in the matter, or personally and substantially participated in the matter, or acted in the matter.”

Apple said it appears that Flint falls under the one-year hands-off rule. “In my opinion, he is obligated to (follow) the ethics code,” Apple said.

He said that he won’t be surprised if the city attorney’s office tries to find a way around the prohibition. “If the city attorney can find a way around it, I suppose we’ll have to live with it,” Apple said.

The city’s ethics committee may impose cease-and-desist orders when it finds violations of the code, but any monetary penalties are limited to city employees.

A spokeswoman for CH2M Hill had no comment when contacted by telephone on Wednesday.

CH2M Hill has been one of the city’s top contractors on public works projects for years. Public records show that it obtained a $2.5 million contract to work on closure of the North Side Landfill in the early 1990s. In 1994, it took a $450,000 contract to design a water well head protection program to safeguard drinking water from contamination.

Flint said the firm was hired for design of the abandoned Lincoln Street Bridge project in the 1990s, and that the work was worth about $1 million. A record of the contract was not immediately available this week at City Hall.

Other records show that the firm obtained a $674,000 contract in 2004 for design of a pedestrian bridge to replace the Post Street Bridge, and in 2005 the firm received another contract for $694,000 for work associated with the Post Street project.

Flint has been involved in some of those projects.

He said he decided to take the job with CH2M Hill because he was looking for career advancement and a new opportunity. At age 40, Flint has worked for the city for 20 years, beginning as a temporary employee on grant programs. He holds a master’s degree in public administration and had wanted to eventually seek the city manager’s job at City Hall, but voters in Spokane closed that job path when they voted to change to a strong-mayor form of government beginning in 2001.

He said he was also a finalist to head the Chelan County Public Utility District, but apparently did not have enough experience in the power industry.

Flint recently received an award from the American Public Works Association as one of the top-10 public works leaders of the year. It was one of three awards he has received in the past year, he said.

Apple said, “I would like to think all of the city upper staff is ethical.”