A proposal to adjust user fees at island athletic facilities and public schools was defeated last week in a sometimes contentious park board meeting, which included allegations that a park board member had acted inappropriately.

Commissioners indicated at the meeting on Dec. 9 that they would consider funding another month at the pool next year as part of their budget process. However, they voted 3-2 against commissioner Scott Harvey’s proposal that would have increased fees to use island athletic facilities and the public schools, decreased fees at Paradise Ridge and allotted $10,000 for Ober Park users and the pool. In all, it would have brought in $25,000 less than the current fee schedule, but Harvey proposed it, saying he believed it would have brought more parity to what user groups pay.

The tension at the meeting centered around Harvey’s wish for using the money he was seeking for the pool and how he had sought support for the idea.

Originally, Harvey wanted to fund additional lessons and discounted pool passes, as he had determined pool users pay a higher percentage of related expenses than other user groups do. However, since last month when he crafted the proposal, he asked to amend it. Instead of $10,000 going to fund pool lessons and passes, he said he wanted to provide $10,000 to fund a request by the Friends of the Vashon Pool  that the pool remain open a month longer next summer.

“The $10,000 actually happened to totally coincide with the $10,000 I had talked to Scott Bonney (the pool manager) about as far as investing another $10,000 in the pool operation,” Harvey said at the meeting.

Others, however, saw the issue differently, including Mark Nassutti, of the pool group, who said fellow group members believe that user fees and extending the pool season are separate issues and should not be lumped together. Commissioners Joe Wald and Bill Ameling agreed. Commissioner Lu-Ann Branch, however, raised the strongest concerns. She believed Harvey had been unethical in his contacts with the Friends of the Pool, alleging that he had tried to arrange a quid pro quo by asking the friends group to support his proposal and convince her to vote for it, or he would not support their pool effort.

“Ethically it just stinks,” she said. “It smells bad.”

Harvey, however, said he was not trying to “buy votes,” as was suggested, and said he would only support giving extra funding to the pool in an agreement such as his that supported all user groups.

In an interview after the meeting, Friends of the Vashon Pool members  Nassutti and Bob McMahon said they believe that it would have been inappropriate for them to support the plan, which involved other park users.

“For us to endorse it made no sense,” McMahon said. “It is not our bailiwick.”

Beyond that, both men said they felt Harvey had overstepped a line and acted unethically.

“I think I can speak for all of us that we were offended and upset by how Scott dealt with us,” Nassutti said. “We refuse to do business that way.”

Several days after the meeting, Branch said she was still angry about what she believed had transpired.  While she took issue with Harvey’s tactics, she said she also disagreed with his proposal, which reduced income to the district. She added that the users he had wanted to support financially had not asked for more money or to pay less.

“That is poor management,” she said. “You do not run a business that way. You do not run a park district that way.”

A few days after the meeting, Harvey reiterated that he had not intended any kind of quid pro quo and that he had also talked about his proposal with Charlie Krimmert, the head of the lacrosse club, and Hans Van Dusen, the president of the Vashon Island Soccer Club, which decided not to take a position on the proposal, according to Van Dusen.

Harvey added that he felt he had let user groups down and that he had been too simplistic in his numbers, changing one $10,000 proposal for another, and he believes that helped doom his initiative.

As of Friday, none of the people involved had reached out to one another to discuss what had transpired, but Nassutti said his group would like to talk with each of the board members individually, including Harvey.

“We would like to sit down and see how we can build this pool community together,” he said.

The board is expected to vote on its 2015 budget on Tuesday, Jan. 13.