Tom Bangasser, a member of the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council’s board, said the former board has not engaged in an orderly transition of power and has withheld documents and records from the new nine-member panel.

He’s also filed a handful of requests for information under the Public Disclosure Act, seeking, among other things, e-mail addresses maintained by the council’s Outreach Committee and e-mail correspondence by former board member Hilary Emmer that he says are intentionally being withheld from him.

Carl Sells, the board president, also said he’s stymied by a lack of records. “After the board resigned in disarray, we’ve not been able to locate anything,” Sells said.

But former board members say they have handed over all the documents they have. Emmer, the board’s former treasurer, for instance, gave Doug Skove, the board’s new treasurer, all the financial records she had compiled. She also turned over to AnnaLisa LaFayette, the new secretary, the correspondence book maintained by former board secretary Joe Ulatoski.

Jean Bosch, the council’s former president, said she, too, has answered all questions directed her way.

“I’ve talked to Carl numerous times. I’m happy to help in any way I can,” she said.

The back-and-forth is just one of the many signs of the turbulence that has dogged the community council ever since nine new board members took office in December. In that short period of time, the board has experienced three resignations. Sells, the board’s new acting president, has found himself challenged by other board members several times; the agendas he’s crafted, even meeting notices he has sent to The Beachcomber, have been questioned by other members of the board. And Bangasser and Emmer have exchanged countless e-mails — some testy in tone — over whether she has complied with his public disclosure requests for documents and e-mail addresses.

Some say the problems are largely being caused by Bangasser, a semi-retired commercial property developer known for his tenacious and sometimes combative style.

“I voted for Tom Bangasser because I thought it would be better to have him on the council than not. … But in observing the way he is operating, I think I made a real mistake,” said CC Stone, a retired business-owner.

On Sunday, at Stone’s invitation, a dozen Islanders met in Burton to discuss the issue. The meeting’s purpose, Stone said, was to address what she called “the unpleasantness” of the last couple of months as well as her desire to put forward a motion to try to remove Bangasser from the board.

“I don’t like how this guy is treating Hilary; I don’t like how he’s treating Carl. I’ve been to these board meetings and seen this guy in action. And because of his mastery of the rules, people are intimidated … They don’t want to confront him or are afraid to confront him,” Stone said.

After a lively give-and-take at Sunday’s gathering, however, others convinced Stone not to file such a motion. Instead, they decided to take a wait-and-see approach.

Said Ulatoski, who attended the meeting: “They’ve got a whole bunch of new folks (on the board) who’ve never had a chance to work together. And they ought to be given that chance, before we start looking at any other alternatives.”

Bangasser, for his part, is unapologetic for his role on the board. He said he’s filed three Public Disclosure requests for information in the last few months — two directed towards Emmer and one toward the council’s Elections Committee — because of what he sees as illegal actions on the part of the council’s board and general membership.

Initially, he wanted the current board to take on a review of the last six months of board activity — when the previous board resigned and Emmer agreed to remain in a housekeeping capacity. When his colleagues voted down the motion, Bangasser said, “I chose to do it as an individual.”

Bangasser is seeking Emmer’s e-mail correspondence during her brief tenure as the sole member of the council’s board, he said, because he wants to see what kind of actions she took when she was serving “without any checks or balances.” Calling her tenure as the sole board member illegal, he added, “The people who elected her to run this thing by herself did her a great disservice.”

His other request — to obtain the Outreach Committee’s e-mail list — stems from his desire to ensure that the board, and not just one of the council’s committees, has access to those names and addresses.

Bangasser, sounding frus-

trated, said Emmer has yet to fully comply with his requests. She’s not given him any e-mail correspondence yet, he said, even though he made that request more than a month ago. And while she’s given him the e-mail list, she put it into a PDF file, which he says is inadequate; before he can use such a list, he’ll have to retype all the names into another format, he said.

“Either she’s ignorant about how to do it, or someone said to her, ‘Make him work.’ And if that is the case, we’re going to have some words about it,” Bangasser said.

Bangasser has filed public disclosure requests of county officials, all of whom responded promptly, he said. “The only one who doesn’t seem to comply with the law is Hilary … It raises the issue as to why not,” he said.

But Emmer said she’s done her best with the e-mail list. “I feel I have copied them in the best form that I can and the only way I know how,” she said.

As for her correspondence, she said she has fully complied with the law, which allows officials time to respond as long as they’re doing so in good faith. The process is time-consuming, she added, in large part because of the breadth of his request. “This seems huge to me,” she said.

Emmer believes Bangasser has another agenda. “I see this as a form of harassment,” she said.

Stone agreed.

“He seems to be using (the Public Disclosure Act) to punish and harass Hilary,” she said. “I think that’s bullying, and I don’t like it.”