ISLAND COUNTY: Prosecutor asks for sanctions in Elections Office mask case
Jessie Stensland reports from Island County Superior Court for the Whidbey News-Times. Read the whole story.
A high-profile legal dispute over the validity of the Island County auditor’s decision to impose a mask mandate in the Elections Office has grown even more heated and potentially costly.
In the latest court filings in a civil case, Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks asked a judge to dismiss the complaint and to impose at least $20,000 in sanctions against the plaintiffs for filing an alleged frivolous action.
The attorney for the plaintiffs, Austin Hatcher, countered with a motion that includes political screenshots from Banks’ personal social media page. He described Banks’ posts criticizing Trump supporters and people who refuse to wear masks during the pandemic as “vitriolic” and “a necessary backdrop to the dispute at issue.”
They Said It
On March 13, Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor Paul Brachvogel and Banks filed a motion to dismiss the civil case and to impose sanctions against the plaintiffs. The motion argues that the underlying purpose of the civil action is to improperly thwart the criminal cases against the two defendants.
“Plaintiffs request the Court to bully public officials under the weight of a judicial order which would prohibit them from serving the public,” the motions states.
The prosecutors argue that the plaintiffs lack standing, the auditor has the authority to manage her office and the plaintiffs have not shown a clear right that was violated.
“Plaintiffs do not have a right to disrupt ballot processing, which they claim to cherish, by intentionally causing a confrontation during that process,” Banks wrote. “They do not have a right to refuse reasonable rules of the Auditor or supplant their discretion for hers on an ad hoc basis while in the canvassing center that she manages.”
On March 19, Hatcher filed a reply in support of the motion for preliminary injunction. In a rare move, the motion includes screenshots of Banks’ personal social media posts, including a link to a Washington Post story about a crowd of unmasked people at a government meeting about masks at schools during the pandemic. Banks apparently wrote “FREEDUMB” with the post. Hatcher also references other posts in which Banks criticized Republicans and posted a cartoon that equates MAGA supporters with the Ku Klux Klan.
“As briefed ante in the introduction, this issue is a deeply emotional one for Defendant Banks,” Hatcher wrote. “His animosity and vitriol toward people who are opposed to masking, and those who support President Trump, is well established.”
Hatcher accuses the prosecutors of debasing the sanctions process and asks the judge to sanction them for making baseless accusations. In another filing, he included a March 13 email from Brachvogel that states that the office will seek sanctions of $42,000, which will likely be increased if prosecutors are forced to devote more time to a frivolous lawsuit.
In an email, [plaintiff and former Island County Republican Party chair Tim] Hazelo wrote that the only question that should be asked is in regard to what authority a politician has to make such decisions.
‘The craziness that Greg Banks is trying to pull is just to deflect from that question,” he wrote in an email. “There is no crime to press charges on Tracy [Abuhl] and I, and the ridiculous motion from Banks is 100% nonsensical. All we want is for the courts to help us all, by making sure not just the office holders know their boundaries, but to ensure the people know too. Is that too much to ask? Apparently Banks thinks it is.”
Ed. Note: See also our previous posts. Mr. Hazelo is currently the state committeeman for the Island County Republican Party.
- ISLAND COUNTY: Hazelo pleads ‘innocent’ to disturbing Elections Office (Mar. 7, 2025)
- ISLAND COUNTY: Election room mask mandate faces challenges (Feb. 25, 2025)
- ISLAND COUNTY: Felony charged in Elections Office mask case (Feb. 7, 2025)
- ISLAND COUNTY: New charges filed in Elections Office mask case (Jan. 3, 2025)
- ISLAND COUNTY: Motion to unmask Elections Office fails (Nov. 8, 2024)
- ISLAND COUNTY: Police escort unmasked observer from elections office (Oct. 29, 2024)
