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City seeks answers after King County’s aquatic grant skips higher-ranked Snoqualmie project
Summary
City officials say Snoqualmie ranked seventh for a King County aquatics grant but were passed over while lower-ranked applicants received funding; the city raised conflict-of-interest and rubric-adherence concerns with county leaders and the county legal office is now reviewing the matter.
City Administrator told the committee the city learned in August that it would not receive King County aquatics grant funding and later discovered it had been ranked seventh in the selection process.
“We were ranked number 7 in the grant process,” the City Administrator said. The administrator said county staff reported that when they reached the point in the ranking where Snoqualmie stood, approximately $3 million remained to be allocated, but the committee recommended skipping Snoqualmie and funding lower-ranked applicants.
City officials reviewed award decisions and found that about $15.9 million in grants had been awarded and that $15.6 million of that total went to agencies associated with people on the grant ranking committee, the administrator said. The city asked for further explanations and identified what it believes to be a conflict of interest: an employee of an applicant organization (SciView) participated on the ranking committee while that organization held contracts with the city.
“We identified a concern with that,” the administrator said, adding that King County trains committee members on conflict-of-interest rules, and those rules include considerations such as whether a committee member has a contractual relationship with an applicant. City leaders raised the concern with Councilperson Perry and the King County Executive’s office and met with King County staff, including the parks director and the executive’s chief of staff.
The administrator said the matter was referred to King County legal. “Yesterday morning, I got a call from the governor government affairs liaison, and she informed me that they have now kicked this to King County legal on what happened,” the administrator said.
Committee members pressed for clarity about whether funds had already been disbursed; the City Administrator replied awards were announced Sept. 23 and that actual disbursement typically occurs later as projects are designed and built.
Ending: City officials said they will continue to pursue answers from King County and await the county legal review. The administrator described the next step as monitoring King County’s response and pursuing any remedies advised by legal review.
