Two candidates for two seats on the Island County Board of Commissioners worked in the county’s planning department, but had very different experiences.

Angie Homola’s employment at the Island County Planning Department was marked by friction between her and her bosses that eventually led to a negotiated layoff in 2004. A personnel file from her three-year employment includes a letter of reprimand later changed to a letter of warning, and a series of letters and email exchanges that tell a complex tale with two distinct — and contradictory — storylines.

In contrast, Phil Bakke worked in the same department for many more years — and was Homola’s boss — but his small file is mostly filled with formality paperwork, such as a certificate that he passed anti-harassment training. There’s no discipline, but several complimentary letters and notices of promotions.

The files, obtained by the News-Times through a public disclosure request, offer some insight into two candidates for Island County Commissioner. Homola is running against Commissioner Mac McDowell in District 2. Former planning director Phil Bakke, who was appointed to the commission last year, is running against Helen Price Johnson to keep his seat as District 1 commissioner.

Homola’s file became a campaign issue after a story in another newspaper described her as a discipline problem. It spawned a couple of protests and compelled Homola to take out large ads in newspapers to tell her side of the story.

Homola, a licensed architect, worked as a plans examiner / inspector trainee for the county planning department. Her immediate boss was Building Official Robert McCaughan, while Bakke was the head of the entire office.

The bulk of the file is paperwork placed there by Homola herself. During her employment, Homola wrote lengthy letters defending herself in detail to just about every complaint leveled at her, from criticisms of her work to a claim that she was sullen.

McCaughan, for example, blamed the licensed architect for designing projects instead of checking for code compliance, as was her job. He wrote that a customer came to the counter and said that Homola had been helping design a project.

But Homola claimed that she was acting appropriately and that “designing” was just a lay-person’s term for code review. The customer even wrote a letter stating that Homola did not help design the project.

Still, Homola wasn’t exactly politic in her correspondences with her superiors.

“This is ridiculous,” she wrote to McCaughan on Jan. 26, 2004. “How do you expect me to work under these conditions? Are the rest of our staff getting written reports for the errors they make?”

She described the office as unorganized.

“There is no training program,” she complained in one letter. “I have the same title as my co-worker yet my field training opportunities are few and far between. There is no record of what or how many inspections we have performed.”

In the last year of her employment, Homola didn’t refrain from doling out allegations herself.

“You have spent untold hours of taxpayer and permit applicants’ time fabricating or misconstruing evidence to create a fraudulent paper trail supporting my dismissal,” she wrote in a Dec. 10, 2003 letter to McCaughan.

Homola claims she was subjected to an increasingly hostile work environment and was unfairly criticized by her bosses. It got so bad at the end, she said, she had to ask permission from a coworker just to go the the restroom.

“I was written up for walking a contractor out of the office,” she said in an interview. “I was accused of giving a tour of the office without permission.”

Homola pointed out that her file also contains many letters, including ones from McCaughan and Bakke, expressing satisfaction with her work.

On the other side, the paperwork includes many letters and messages from McCaughan and Bakke expressing concerns about her performance and attitude.

“Unfortunately, I do not feel you are meeting our expectations for a person in this position,” Bakke wrote in a Nov. 13, 2003 warning letter, that lists such areas of concern as code knowledge, speed, code interpretation and professionalism.

“You argue about simple instructions, and question directions from the director and me; you bring challenges to me regarding staff training of co-workers instead of your own professional development,” Bakke wrote.

In a follow up to the warning, Bakke gave Homola a confidential memorandum Dec. 29, 2003 that accuses her of refusing to meet with a supervisor, though Homola claimed she needed to leave to pick up her son.

“Since our counseling meeting of Nov. 17, 2003, your work performance and attitude have suffered considerably,” Bakke wrote. He wrote a list of seven corrective actions for her to follow, including ceasing all insubordinate behavior and accepting direction from supervisors.

In an interview, Bakke denies that Homola was singled out or that there was a hostile work environment. He said there was plenty of training available, including weekly sessions. The biggest problem with Homola, he said, was her production.

“When it gets down to the end of the day, she wasn’t reviewing the same volume of plans as her colleagues were and it was substantial,” he said of the difference.

Homola admitted that she may have been slower, but explained that she was very thorough and saved the customers money in the long run.

Homola believes that the “real reason” Bakke wanted to get rid of her was because of her work on the county’s Historic Review Committee, which reviews proposed projects in Ebey’s Landing Historical Reserve. She said she pushed Bakke to complete new guidelines for the frustrated group, but he didn’t want it to get done since it might be a barrier to development in the area.

Bakke, however, said that’s just not true. He said he initiated the review of the guidelines and the result was a vast improvement. But he agrees that he didn’t like Homola expressing her opinions to the committee as a county representative.

“A building inspector trainee should not be avidly disagreeing with the direction being given by her superiors,” he said. “Looking back, she was probably trying to be an activist.”

After Homola left, Bakke said he fired McCaughan because he wouldn’t go along with a directive to streamline the permitting process for smaller projects.

In the end, Homola worked with the union to bring a hostile work environment action against the department, but ended up negotiating a layoff.

Homola, a proponent of open government, admits that she tried to have her file sealed not long before filing for the election. She said county officials promised her it would be destroyed three years after she left. She points out there were no production reports in the file.

She said she wanted it sealed so that critics wouldn’t misuse it and pick out only the negative portions to use against her.

“I have nothing to hide,” she said. “I just didn’t want people to think I was running for office as a vendetta.”

Bakke’s file is pretty boring by comparison. It contains nothing negative.

“You can’t go from volunteer to planning director in five years if you are a troublemaker,” Bakke said.

Former Commissioner Mike Shelton wrote a letter of recommendation for Bakke when he applied to a master’s program.

“Phil has taken a very difficult department and formed them into an effective team,” Shelton wrote. “He has stressed service to the public in a difficult regulatory environment. He requires a responsiveness on the part of his staff. He has stressed the importance of getting to the answer and minimized the sometimes never-ending bureaucracy.”