Letter creates rift between PUD commissioners

'You're not my friend anymore,' Conley tells Bjork

In an unusual public statement, Grant County PUD Commissioner Mike Conley blasted fellow Commissioner Bill Bjork during the Monday business meeting for a letter written by Bjork's 2002 campaign manager.

During the public comment period before the meeting, Conley walked around the commissioners' table to sit in the chairs normally reserved for members of the public who speak before the commission.

"Bill, are you so damned desperate to get rid of me that you'll condone anything to get folks to vote against me?" Conley said.

Conley is running for his third term as PUD commissioner. He faces two challengers, Greg Hansen and Lee Blackwell, in the Sept. 14 primary.

Conley called Bjork a "micro-manager" and said he was supplanting the PUD's needs in favor of his own.

"You're not my friend anymore," Conley said to Bjork. "You're not looking out for the best interests of the district. You're looking out for your own self-satisfaction."

Conley then returned to his seat next to Bjork for the duration of the meeting.

In an interview during break in the meeting, Conley said his comments were a response to a letter to the editor of the Columbia Basin Herald written by Mike Brown that was published last Thursday.

Brown served as Bjork's campaign manager during his 2002 election, and Conley blamed Bjork for the content of the letter, which he said contained inaccuracies.

During a break in the meeting, Bjork said he had seen the letter prior to publication, and he feels as though Brown can speak for himself.

"That's Mike Brown's letter, not Bill Bjork's," Bjork said.

Conley also criticized Bjork's support of a pair of accountability motions for change orders that were tabled at last week's commission meeting.

The vote resulted in a 2-2 tie, with Conley and Bjork on opposite sides and Commission President Tom Flint absent.

"It's just a prime example of micro-management," Conley said of the two motions. "It's not accountability."

Bjork said he stands by what he said in the Aug. 31 edition of the Herald: "We (the PUD) don't want to do things accountable, and that's what gets us into trouble."

Bjork also said that he and Commissioner Randy Allred have been pushing for these accountability motions for more than a year.

Brown's letter posed a series of questions to Conley and Flint (who is also running for re-election this year) that he said needed to be explained to rate payers.

Two of those questions involved the Port of Mattawa — why the PUD extended fiber to that office at a cost of $2 million and why the PUD's boathouse at the port is leased at a cost of $25,000 per years for five years, which comes under the PUD's $100,000 limit that requires commission control.

Conley is employed as the manager of the Port of Mattawa.

Conley has submitted a letter to editor in response, where he wrote that fiber came to the port because it shared a hub with the Wahluke School District, Mattawa City Hall and Saddle Mountain Wireless.

The total cost of fiber for the Port of Mattawa hookup was $220,752, Conley wrote.

The port built a new boat launch between the PUD's Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams, which it has rented from the PUD for $10,164 per year, Conley wrote.