A sustainability leader for the city of Spokane has resigned, effectively cutting short a review of an ethics complaint against her.
City code states that ethics complaints will be dismissed if the accused is no longer a city employee. Kara Odegard’s last day as the City Council’s manager of sustainability initiatives was Friday, but her attorney said the timing of her departure was a coincidence.
“It is disappointing that Odegard didn’t respect the volunteer citizens Ethics Commission’s directive that she reach a stipulation on the complaint and instead chose to run out the clock,” wrote Larry Andrews, who filed the complaint in September alleging Odegard had unethically commingled her work for the city and her private consulting company, Measure Meant.
“The opportunity for transparency in the resolution of the Odegard case, as well as the chance to inform and educate current and future City Council employees, has been lost,” Andrews continued.
Jeffry Finer, who provided private legal counsel to Odegard while the complaint was reviewed by the city’s Ethics Commission, said Odegard already intended to return to the private sector. Though she extended her tenure once in an attempt to see the complaint through, she was unwilling to do so again, Finer said.
“The complaint is hollow, poorly placed, and was not a factor in her separation,” he added.
Odegard was hired part time in 2019 to help the City Council update the city’s Sustainability Action Plan, a road map that recommends how the city should address climate change and its impacts in the years to come. In 2017, she founded Measure Meant, a social impact consulting firm that, among other topics, works on climate issues, and continued to juggle that work with her part-time job with the City Council.
In 2020, Odegard began working full time for the City Council by managing sustainability initiatives, with updating the city’s multiyear sustainability plan as her primary project. At that time, she handed over operations of Measure Meant to her partner and spouse, Mark Odegard.
By late 2021, the City Council had approved the road map Odegard helped put together but then asked Odegard to draft a plan for implementing the sustainability initiatives it proposed.
Andrews was appointed in early 2022 as a volunteer member of one of the various work groups working on fleshing out the sustainability implementation plans.
Andrews filed a complaint in September with the city’s volunteer-run Ethics Commission, alleging Odegard had not mitigated possible conflicts of interest between her job for the city and her involvement with Measure Meant. Odegard seemed to be promoting her consulting firm while representing herself as a city official and lauded her work with the city to highlight her business, Andrews alleged.
He said a now-deleted reference on the Measure Meant website claimed the firm worked with “the City of Spokane itself, where we built a framework for citizen-led climate action planning,” apparently referring to Odegard’s work for the City Council. Andrews also pointed to an article written by Odegard and a podcast featuring her, alleging that she had improperly promoted her private company while speaking in her official capacity.
Andrews alleged Odegard abused her power in her role overseeing the work groups. She made unilateral decisions that prevented the public from being able to review the work group’s deliberations; she told members of those groups to talk with her directly rather than raising concerns with the City Council or attorney; and she warned that she would ask for the resignation of those who did not comply.
Odegard did not respond to a request for comment.
Finer told The Spokesman-Review Odegard denied any wrongdoing. Finer wrote Odegard never improperly promoted her personal business, and her connections to Measure Meant were well-known when she was hired.
Finer characterized Andrews, who owns HVAC company Andrews Mechanical, as a climate change skeptic who used his role on the work group to disrupt meetings and disparage other members.
“When the entire workgroup was reminded of our rules of engagement and told that anyone violating those rules would be asked to leave, Mr. Andrews sent an email to the City attorney claiming Ms. Odegard and the workgroup violated the Open Public Meetings Act,” Finer wrote.
After the city attorney told Andrews the rules for open meetings did not apply to the work groups, Andrews filed his complaint, Finer continued. Odegard, through Finer, referred to the complaint as harassment and frivolous.
The complaint made its way through the Ethics Commission process, and the commission had been working with Odegard on a resolution, said Salvatore Faggiano, assistant Spokane city attorney and Ethics Commission staff director.
While complaints are reserved for current city employees, Faggiano said the case would not be formally closed without a decision by the commission chairs. Until then, he said he was not able to comment on the case or respond to Odegard’s characterization of the complaint as frivolous.
Finer insisted Odegard always planned to resign once the sustainability road map and implementation plans were completed. She attempted to delay her end date to allow the complaint process to come to a conclusion, Finer wrote, but after six weeks , declined to extend it again.
Council President Breean Beggs, who supervised Odegard, praised the work she did for the City Council and said he “didn’t think there was anything to” the complaint.
“In the times that we live in, people are personally attacking and harassing staff members as part of their political tactics,” Beggs said.
In an email, Andrews wrote that he was disappointed by the assertion that his complaint was politically motivated, and argued that the Ethics Commission would not have taken the time to review the complaint if it was frivolous.
“The ethics complaint process is laid out in the code, complaints that are harassing or frivolous don’t get past the Commission,” Andrews wrote. “I thank the Ethics Commission for their volunteer work.”
