A state Senate committee met to review a Hood Canal land deal between the U.S. Navy and the state Department of Natural Resources.
OLYMPIA — Sen. Mark Miloscia, R-Federal Way, questioned state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials Thursday on a Hood Canal land deal between the agency and the Navy.
Miloscia, who chairs the state Senate’s Accountability and Reform Committee, was one of two lawmakers who this year asked the state Auditor’s Office to investigate the deal between the DNR and the Navy, which restricts shoreline development in the Hood Canal.
The Seattle Times reported in June that DNR accepted a $720,000 offer from the Navy in 2014 for 50-year control of 4,804 acres of Hood Canal seafloor. An earlier, state-approved appraisalvalued the lease at $1.68 million.
The lower price allowed the Navy to avoid congressional scrutiny of the deal.
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Thorndyke Resource, development company of a pier project on the Hood Canal’s western shoreline, sued the state and the Navy to overturn the lease, which halted the pier project.
A federal judge and a Jefferson County Superior Court judge each has dismissed lawsuits challenging the land deal.
But Miloscia, who is also running for state auditor, suggested during Thursday’s committee meeting that the courts got it wrong and the lower easement price could have been a product of corruption.
“You didn’t document how or why you determined the Navy was correct” about the lower offer, Miloscia told DNR officials during the hearing.
But Matthew Randazzo, a senior adviser to Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark, said at the hearing that, “any charge of corruption is invalid, and we repudiate that.”
Randazzo also said that during the contracting process, the agency conferred with the state Attorney General’s office.
After the hearing, Miloscia said his concern centered on a lack of documentation of the review process leading up to the deal’s approval.
The senator added he intends to introduce a bill “improving their contract procedures, so they will do stuff in writing.”
Vicki Orrico, an attorney representing Thorndyke Resource, said the company is appealing the court rulings, and arguments in the Jefferson County case could occur early next year.
In a July letter to Miloscia and another state senator, Acting state Auditor Jan Jutte wrote she had declined to investigate the deal because her office examines compliance based, in part, on case law, and “it is clear this matter will be resolved in the courts.”