The following paragraph is from the WCFF Legislative Update that was circulated on Saturday, January 28th.

"On Wednesday January 25th the LEOFF Plan 2 Board met. Following presentations from LEOFF Plan 2 board staff, Office of the State Actuary (OSA) staff, and public testimony on the HB 2350, a motion to support HB2350 was made and was not successful. On the following day, a board member that was present for the vote voiced concern that the decision was made without full knowledge of important information and asked for an opportunity to reconsider the motion. A special board meeting has been called for on Monday January 30th at 9:00am".

Needless to say, the LEOFF 2 Board voted today (Jan 30th) to reverse itself and support HB2350. The final vote was 6 to 4 with one member, Senator Honeyford, absent. Jeff Holly, a LEOFF 2 law enforcement member, changed his vote from against to for. Ryan Martin, another LEOFF 2 member stood fast in his opposition to the bill and was the only member to strongly state and explain his position. All of the employer members continued in opposition and Rep. Van De Wege, a LEOFF 2 member and sponsor of HB2350 voted to support the bill.

The outcome came as no surprise. They did not permit any public testimony or present any new information to support the call for reconsideration.

Holly complained that the LEOFF 2 Board staff had withheld an important legal opinion from the firm of Ice Miller from the board members. Evidently they discussed this in Executive Session but no further information was provided. Holly complained that he found out about the legal opinion in an email from Ken Crowder. Ken, in speaking to Holly after the meeting discovered that Holly was actually referring to the Ice Miller decision provided by the State Actuary. That opinion is in the OSA Merger Study and is in the public domain. Ken was actually referring the Klausner legal brief that the LEOFF 2 Board was already privy to and the Board has been withholding claiming attorney-client privilege.

The bottom line here was that there was no new information on which to justify a reconsideration but they did it anyway.

The room was filled to standing room only as LEOFF 1 members from across the state came to observe. Many hoped to be able to testify but were not given the opportunity.

We do not know for certain if the LEOFF 2 staff withheld information as Mr. Holly indicated in the meeting. That was not addressed by either the staff or the chair. If the staff did withhold information, then what else are they withholding?