Al Merkel under new investigation for alleged misconduct

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Spokane Valley City Councilman Al Merkel is under another investigation for alleged misconduct and violation of city regulations.

City Council member Jessica Yaeger formally filed a complaint against Merkel's behavior, accusing her of using a private Nextdoor account for city business, which is a violation of Washington's Public Records Act.

Yaeger also accuses Merkel of blocking users and deleting posts on social media, which Yaeger says hinders transparency and public engagement.

“It is our duty to ensure that ALL citizens have access to their account and that records are maintained appropriately in accordance with state law. Mr. Merkel touts government transparency, but chooses not to “comply with it,” Yaeger said in a press release Thursday afternoon. “I am tired of all his excuses. We are trained for this and our oath of office requires following the law in this manner. This blatant disregard for the rules is setting Spokane Valley up for trial and we cannot afford to do so. allow, especially with the financial difficulties we are facing The citizens of Spokane Valley deserve better than this We have problems that need to be solved for the public his behavior and tactics are putting us behind and costing the public money. citizens.

Yaeger also said that the use of the Nextdoor account “raises concerns about possible misuse of Advisor Merkel's account (if he complies) for political campaign purposes, further highlighting the urgency to resolve these problems”.

Merkel issued the following response to Yaeger's press release below:

“Councillor Yaeger has revealed nothing except that this is a continuation of a politically motivated attempt by city staff and council to distract the public from the issues that really matter.

This week, staff presented a budget proposal in which they suggested giving themselves raises, so that the average take-home pay across all departments is now over $100,000 per year per FTE. At the same time, they proposed closing all of the city's swimming pools and stopping maintenance of local roads. Interestingly, the total amount of staff increases was about the same as the cost of running the pools. The pools and local street maintenance combined were less than the cost of the costly “Sprague Road Diet” currently underway in front of City Hall. I proposed a separate budget that would reduce the city budget by $6 million to use for pools, police and local road maintenance, which the city manager refused to distribute at the meeting. It is clear that this is an attempt to distract public attention from these important developments.

For the record, nothing has changed on my Nextdoor account since January. During all the reporting on my Nextdoor account and the city council meetings in which my account was discussed, council members and the city insisted that no one was trying to silence me or attack my Nextdoor account. The only change since then is that I added the required disclaimer since this is a personal account. The same cannot be said for Councilman Yaeger's account or Mayor Haley's account, both of which they used to comment on my posts or initiate their own posts on what CM Yaeger seems to call city business. This is another clear case of council members using the rules they created to target me, a city administration that is clearly biased against my participation in this targeting, and the city and council that are wasting your tax money attacking me. Instead of wasting time and tax dollars on these ridiculous and frivolous investigations, other council members should consider using these funds to keep the pools open. It's hard to claim poverty when the City is burning taxes on Sprague and conducting frivolous investigations.

Another important note: Despite the addition of a detailed section in the Governance Manual requiring board members to be truthful in their postings, board member Yaeger's “complaint” does not allege that I lied about anything on my account, which must indicate that CM Yaeger agrees with me that everything I posted is the truth.

All this comes more than a month after Merkel was cleared of any wrongdoing in a separate investigation.

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