SOUTH BEND — Pacific County is the target of a lawsuit filed by an employee of the Pacific County Sheriff’s Office. The lawsuit was filed in the Pacific County Superior Court on April 30, alleging the county has improperly withheld a portion of a wage study Deputy Cory Nacnac sought in a public records request.

The study reportedly examined all county positions except for the deputies because their wages were studied in a previous study during their last contract negotiations.

Nacnac filed the lawsuit regarding a public records request he submitted on April 12. The request did not elicit all the study’s findings. One of the appendices was withheld due to a “deliberative process exemption” provided by the state law on public records.

Nacnac challenged the exemption in a “legal argument letter” submitted to the county’s public records division on April 20. In it, he outlines several case laws, including the 1990 case Progressive Animal Welfare Society v. University of Washington.

In that case the court decided that “while the records requested by PAWS were in large part protected from disclosure, [another important part] did not come within an exemption that authorized withholding it in its entirety,” according to an analysis of the decision..

According to the local lawsuit, Nacnac further challenged the ‘unlawfully withheld records’ by contacting the Pacific County Prosecutor’s Office on April 25 to determine if the county had complied with its own policy outlined in Pacific County Public Records Policy Resolution 2023-089.

“Upon receipt of the petition, the public records officer shall promptly provide the petition and any other relevant information to the Prosecutor’s Office,” the resolution states.

“The Prosecutor, or designee, will immediately consider the petition and either affirm or reverse the denial within five business days following the receipt of the petition, or within such other time as the Prosecutor and the requestor mutually agree,” the resolution added.

Nacnac was reportedly told during the conversation with the unnamed civil prosecutor that “his office had not been consulted,” approximately five days after the challenge.

The driving force behind the fight, as asserted by several sources, is its potential significance in ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations between the County and sheriff’s office deputies who are represented by the Washington Fraternal Order of Police.

According to the lawsuit filed by Nacnac, he is requesting the county pay $100 per day from April 23 through whenever the missing appendices are released, as well as reimbursement of a filing fee of $240 and full coverage of “attorney fees,” for his time working on the case.

“I respectfully request an hourly rate of $150 per hour,” Nacnac states in court documents. “This rate is reasonable based on prevailing market rates as I understand them for public sector paralegals and junior attorneys in Pacific County and surrounding areas, which typically range between $100 and $175 per hour, depending on experience and complexity.”

“The requested rate reflects the skill, training, and experience required to litigate this Public Records Act matter,” Nacnac added.

Thus far, Nacnac is seeking $2,812.50 for the reported 18.75 hours he has worked preparing his lawsuit against the County.

The county declined to comment on the matter, citing the ongoing legal process.