A Port Townsend woman has settled her open records lawsuit against the city of Port Townsend for $25,000 outside of court, and copies of the records she sought, according to the settlement agreement obtained by The Leader. 

Andrea Hegland filed an open records suit in Jefferson County Superior Court in March 2025, alleging a series of unfulfilled promises from the city for documents, document delivery dates that were never met, emails that were not responded to and extensions from the city that stretched the delivery date out to seven months after her original records request was made. 

“The city is pleased to reach this no-fault agreement with Ms. Hegland to avoid unnecessary litigation costs and to resolve her public records requests,” said City Manager John Mauro. 

Most of the emails Hegland obtained involved exchanges between city officials as they managed an incident at the YMCA in early August 2022 involving Julie Jaman, who was banned after confronting a transgender employee in the women’s locker room. 

The Hegland lawsuit said there were 56 emails of particular interest, none of which she received. Her request specifically targeted a heavily-redacted email dated Aug. 10, 2022 which Hegland had seen referenced in a story published by the Port Townsend Free Press. 

As part of the settlement Hegland recieved the emails she requested, with all redactions removed.

One email thread, provided without redactions, shows that pool staff was not certain whether Jaman had repeatedly violated the pool’s code of conduct as was alleged in the immediate aftermath of Jaman’s confrontation with a transgender pool employee there on July 26, 2022.

YMCA management at the time desrcibed Jaman as a “repeat offender.

“Not sure if those things happened,” the email states, adding that documentation of alleged previous code of conduct violations was “unclear.”

An email in that thread written by City Manager John Mauro, sent at 1:35 p.m. on Aug. 10 2022, is significant in the timeline of events. It reads, “I spoke with Wendy [Bart] and updated the FAQ based on our conversation. That said, there are elements that are not knowable (particularly whether previous code of conduct issues were addressed directly with Ms. Jaman) since key staff are out.”

Shortly thereafter the city posted a Q&A on its website that stated there was a “documented previous pattern of disrespect” from Jaman. The Q&A was meant to answer questions from anyone interested in the conflict, which by then was garnering national attention, and limit communication with media. 

Emails obtained through a different open records request show that Jaman wrote Mauro on Aug. 11 at 3:30 p.m. referencing the Q&A and stating she had never been informed of such conduct: “Since you are speaking about me please send me the documents you are referring to.” Jaman similarly wrote Bart, CEO of the Olympic Peninsula YMCA requesting the information. Bart replied that it was “confidential.” 

Jaman, who sued the city and the pool in June 2024, recently settled the case.  

Hegland’s lawsuit sought an explanation from the city to explain as to why it denied her request and to explain the justification for the redactions. The lawsuit also sought an award of $100 per day for each record unlawfully withheld, per the state’s open records laws, in additon to all costs and reasonable attorneys fees for a total of $28,100.

Hegland initially submitted a request to the city on March 24, 2024 for all emails from Mauro regarding the Mountain View Pool and Julie Jaman. 

According to court documents, Hegland worked with Jaman on an unrelated civic controversy — the removal of poplar trees along Sims Way — and she sought emails related to the Mountain View Pool incident because she was concerned “that the city was not being transparent.”

Hegland’s initial request yielded 8,789 emails, however, and according to the city’s records officer Haylie Truesdel, only 56 of those emails were dated Aug. 10, 2022.

On the email in question, the city’s redactions were stamped with “RCW 42.56.290.” That is a section in the Washington Public Records Act which exempts certain records from public disclosure. In this case, the exemption listed is not due to attorney client privilege, but to an exemption that limits access to certain records during litigation but does not permanently shield them from disclosure once the case is resolved.

Hegland lawsuit countered the attorney-client privilege argument because Mauro copied a third party in the email — an employee with the Seattle-based public relations firm, the Fearey Group. The email also went to two city staffers and the city attorney at the time, Heidi Greenwood. 

Separately, Greenwood had counseled restraint in an Aug. 4, 2022 email reply to Mauro and the Leadership Team. That was in response to Mauro’s forwarding correspondence from Mayor David Faber which included a draft of what Faber planned for the September Utility Newsletter.  Mauro said he sought out their views because of “conversations and your recent reflections and how much I value you them (and you!)...” He also said he wanted to be discreet about forwarding it, because Faber was “looking for advice and probably doesn’t think it will travel beyond Deputy Mayor Howard and me at this point.”

Greenwood replied that she didn’t “want to say ‘very fine people on both sides’ becaue I do not believe that, but I would want to emphasize that both sides displayed poor behavior by calling names and labeling people with sweeping generalities.” Her advice to the mayor, she continued, was that his message be “future focused. Now is not the time to naval-gaze but to say what we expect in the future. We expect our public discourse to be civil. We can disagree without being disagreeable. We will engage in a dialogue and exchange of ideas and will not label people and call names. In short, we will follow Michelle Obama’s advice, ‘When the go low, we go high.’ “ 

Jaman settled her suit with the city in May 2025.