Oak Harbor Mayor Jim Slowik delivered a jaw-dropper last week when he said no one is to blame for the city adopting a subcommittee policy that violated the State Open Public Meetings Act.

In short, other council members were welcomed to attend the three-member subcommittee gatherings. This violated the law, as a quorum was present, but the meetings weren’t advertised that way.

The Washington State Attorney General’s top expert in this area of law warned them about it. The Whidbey News-Times did the same then pursued the matter through the Attorney General’s Office when the city obstinately refused to change. Only city council members Jim Campbell and Scott Dudley understood the city was doing the wrong thing and voted against the proceedings.

Who to blame? City Attorney Margery Hite gave Mayor Slowik and the council some poor advice on how the subcommittee committee meetings could proceed. She’s a smart attorney and adopted a legally arguable position, but didn’t back down even in the face of expert opinion from the Attorney General’s office. When that happened, she should have immediately recommended changes. Instead, the Attorney General’s Office had to spend a lot of time writing a formal opinion that the city was acting improperly before Mayor Slowik would listen.

Slowik is to blame for listening to Hite’s original opinion, which he knew by reading the newspaper was a controversial one. He’s a politician, not a lawyer. A good politician smells trouble before anyone else sees it coming around the bend. He should have known Hite’s opinion would cause him nothing but a political black eye, but instead he followed her scholarly but politically harmful advice.

Slowik at least is showing respect for the Attorney General’s opinion and is leading the effort to reform the city’s subcommittee rules. Finally, he’s on the right side of the issue, but it took him too long to get there.