Vancouver mayor pro tem acknowledges the mayor ‘set the trap’ for Michelle Belkot

Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle. Photo courtesy City of Vancouver

Clark County Council Member Michelle Belkot. Photo courtesy Clark County

Vancouver Mayor Pro Tem Erik Paulsen. Photo courtesy City of Vancouver

In an audio recording posted by Reform Clark County, Vancouver mayor pro tem appears to be bragging about Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle’s strategy to ‘set the trap’ for Michelle Belkot to ‘spill her guts’ at the March C-TRAN board meeting

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

Just a few days after the C-TRAN Board of Directors tabled a vote regarding language about paying for operations and maintenance costs for the expansion of Oregon’s light rail transit into Vancouver, Vancouver’s mayor pro tem appeared to brag about how the mayor set a trap for Clark County Councilor Michelle Belkot.

In an audio recording from a labor roundtable meeting on March 14, Erik Paulsen, the mayor pro tem, can be heard praising Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle for her strategy in getting Belkot to explain her position during the C-TRAN board meeting on March 11. After Belkot noted she would be voting to revert to language that would prevent C-TRAN (and Clark County taxpayers) from paying for light rail, another board member — Sue Marshall — asked to table the vote. McEnerny-Ogle seconded, and a vote did not take place that night.

The next day, Marshall, the chair of the Clark County Council, and three fellow council members voted to remove Belkot from the C-TRAN Board.

Marshall and Belkot, Clark County Council members, and McEnerny-Ogle and Paulsen, were four of the nine members of C-TRAN Board of Directors for the March 11 meeting.

At the labor roundtable on March 14, the mayor can be heard explaining what happened at the C-TRAN meeting. She described the events of the evening in a passive voice, according to Paulsen.

Paulsen, though, wanted to make sure the audience knew that it was the mayor who put everything in motion.

“She described what had unfolded as if she were witnessing it. And I want you all to know that she was not at all passive,” Paulsen said. “All you have to do is go and watch that hearing because it was the mayor who asked all of the cities to say what direction have you been given and how will you be voting, which set the trap for Councilor Belkot to spill her guts, which then laid the framework for us to make the tabling motion.”

It should be noted that the mayor’s description of the events also noted that it became clear to her that Belkot was not going to vote with her colleagues on the Clark County council but instead she was going to “vote with the small cities.”

The audio was posted on social media by Reform Clark County.

“The most interesting point about that audio is the whole C-TRAN situation is not about Michelle Belkot,” said Rob Anderson, founder of Reform Clark County. “It’s about the ‘small cities.’ The Vancouver mayor wants a train and she wants the rest of the small cities in the county to pay for it.”

Anderson said Reform Clark County confirmed the audio is authentic. In fact, Anderson said Reform Clark County will post more audio from that roundtable in the near future.

As far as “setting the trap,” however one describes it, that March 11 C-TRAN meeting set off a series of events.

The next day, the Clark County Council removed Belkot from the C-TRAN board and installed Councilor Wil Fuentes into that position. The assumption is that Fuentes would vote in favor of C-TRAN (and Clark County taxpayers) paying for future operations and maintenance costs for light rail into Vancouver.

That led to Reform Clark County suing the four members of the Clark County Council who voted to remove Belkot from the C-TRAN board.

Belkot herself would also file her own suit, alleging civil rights violations.