Ocean Shores’ city code enforcement officer filed on Sept. 5 a formal complaint against a current city council member and mayoral candidate regarding a phone call interaction between the two that stemmed from a disagreement about campaign sign rules.

In the complaint, Shaun Beebe, the city’s code enforcement and animal control officer, alleges Frank Elduen, who holds Position 3 on the city council and is challenging current Mayor Jon Martin for his position in the November general election, violated the Council Code of Ethics by talking to Beebe in an “aggressive, demanding way, possibly trying to intimidate me with his behavior.”

During Monday’s regular meeting, the city council recessed into a private executive session to evaluate the complaint, and upon returning, Elduen requested the complaint be made public so he could respond, a right granted by the Washington state law surrounding complaints against public officials and employees.

In his 12-minute response, Elduen delivered a host of accusations against Beebe: intimidating a local business, misconstruing city codes, political interference and libel. Elduen also questioned Beebe’s competence and training as a code enforcement officer.

The city council has formed an ad hoc committee to further investigate the accusation, headed by City Councilor Kathryn Sprigg, who read the complaint aloud during Monday’s meeting.

Elduen’s statement and Beebe’s account of their phone conversation on Aug. 9 — the interaction that led to the complaint — are generally similar in nature. Beebe responded to a phone call request by Elduen from the previous day to discuss Beebe’s enforcement of a code regarding political campaign sign placement which he disagreed with.

Before the call, Beebe asked Kyle Watson, a sergeant with the Ocean Shores Police Department, to sit with him while he talked with Elduen.

According to Watson’s account, Elduen “immediately sounded agitated” at the start of the call. Beebe said Elduen raised his voice and argued about Beebe’s interpretation of the code, talking over Beebe as he attempted to cite the code.

According to Watson, Elduen said, “If you want to write me a ticket, then just write it, and you may as well write PJ one, too,” referring to PJ Faria, a candidate for Position 6 on the city council whose campaign signs were also involved in the dispute.

Beebe then asked Elduen if he thought his behavior and demeanor was appropriate for someone running for mayor, and Elduen then said — or yelled, according to Beebe — “this is all political,” which Beebe denied.

By Elduen’s account, Beebe said, “we’ll see how this works out for you,” and then hung up the phone.

In his complaint, Beebe cited a specific section of the Council Code of Ethics, which states the council is committed to “maintaining a professional and respectful environment for all members,” requiring council members to “refrain from hostile, intimidating, or offensive activities which publicly hold city employees or other council members up to ridicule,” and “treat others with respect, dignity and civility.”

In his statement on Monday, Elduen never denied his frustration during his phone conversation with Beebe.

Instead, he claimed Beebe’s code enforcement action, and following complaint, were made for “purely political reasons.”

The day before the two spoke on the phone, Beebe noticed Elduen and Faria’s campaign signs mounted on a marquee board outside of Ocean Shores Soapworks, a business on Point Brown Avenue. Faria, an acquaintance of owner Laurie Kazimir, had asked Kazimir if she and Elduen could display political signs on the marquee, which was approved.

The Ocean Shores Municipal Code specifically addresses political signs: “Such signs shall not exceed a height of five feet nor an area of six square feet.”

That code led Beebe to enter the store and inform an employee that the signs were too high off the ground, and asked that they be lowered.

According to Beebe, it’s the responsibility of the business owner hosting a political sign to comply with all relevant codes.

Beebe declined to comment on the ethics complaint but explained his interpretation of the code. He said he made the request to the business because the signs — standard, lawn-sized, two-by-three-foot — were mounted above five feet in the air. In an interview Tuesday, Beebe said that because it was not realistic for a sign with an area of six square feet to at the same time exceed a height of five feet, he interpreted the “five feet” language in the code generally, referring to something other than the size of the sign.

Elduen disagreed. He argued the “five feet” language of the code was referring to the height of the sign itself, not the height at which it might be mounted to some other object.

“I told officer Beebe that I was not going to remove the political sign, so he could write me a ticket if that’s what he needed to do,” Elduen said Monday. “I felt that a judge could inform officer Beebe that he had no legal basis to address the placement of the signs.”

Beebe said that neither the candidates nor the business were ultimately cited for violating the political sign rules because of the vagueness of the code.

The campaign signs also drew attention from City Councilor Mayor Pro Tempore Eric Noble, who, in an action unrelated to Beebe’s enforcement, entered the business and told employees he didn’t think it was good business to post political signs on a marquee. He explained to the council Monday evening and in a phone call Tuesday that he was acting on personal beliefs as a citizen, not a council member at the time.

Beebe filed the ethics complaint against Elduen nearly one month after the phone call. Elduen claims the timing of the complaint was not a coincidence given it was filed the day before he and current Mayor Martin met at a candidate’s forum.

“Could it be that he was strategically timing this action to negatively impact my political campaign? It appears so,” he said.

The ad hoc committee, which consists of councilors Kathryn Sprigg, Rich Hartman and Lisa Scott, has 30 days to investigate the complaint and make a recommendation to city council about a course of action. Scott said that based on the recommendation, the council has the option to administer warnings or reprimand the council member.

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.