Two consultant contracts triggered a year-long investigation into Port of Bellingham practices. Also read Part 2: “Behind closed doors: Port of Bellingham and its contractors.”
Ed.: This article was first published in The Northern Light on Nov. 26, 2025, and is reposted with permission.
In August and October 2024, Port of Bellingham commissioners approved two consultant contracts costing $99,396 and $99,425 — each just below the $100,000 threshold triggering formal bidding procedures. The first passed under the consent agenda without discussion; the second as an action item.
These contracts triggered a year-long investigation involving multiple public records requests into the Port’s purchasing and governance practices.
What emerged was a portrait of an institution conducting public business increasingly out of view, with practices raising serious questions about state procurement compliance.
The $50,000 to $100,000 gap
Under Port Policy 1106, approved each January, the executive director can sign contracts up to $100,000 without commission action. This streamlines routine purchasing – but doesn’t waive other legal requirements.
For professional services contracts between $50,000 and $100,000, state law (RCW 53.19) and Port policy require documented evidence of competitive solicitation — not just posting an advertisement, but soliciting proposals from multiple firms, evaluating them against stated criteria, and selecting based on qualifications. That documentation makes the selection defensible and the process transparent.
The Northern Light focused on this range: contracts large enough to require competitive documentation but small enough to escape commission scrutiny.
When The Northern Light requested documentation for 40 professional services contracts in this range (2020–2024), the Port provided evidence of the required evaluation process for just one.
The Port has pointed to advertisements as evidence of competition. But posting an ad is only the first step. Absent from 39 of 40 files was documentation that proposals were evaluated, qualifications compared, and selection justified.
A pattern beyond procurement
In July 2024, the Washington State Auditor found the Port improperly awarded a $906,006 contract without competitive evaluation required by federal grant rules and Port policy. Records obtained by The Northern Light reveal that contract has since grown to $3.23 million through eight amendments — more than triple the amount auditors examined.
Analysis of Port contracting data reveals patterns extending beyond that finding: contracts often clustering just below competitive thresholds and dramatic cost growth through amendments. Professional services contracts that began below $100,000 grew by an average of 139%; public works contracts grew just 5.3%.
These practices coincide with another pattern: commissioners spending far more time in executive session than comparable Washington ports. The Washington Public Ports Association advises that “executive sessions should be held sparingly” and ports should “not hold one at every regular port commission meeting.”
At the Port of Bellingham, that guidance has gone unheeded. From 2018 through 2025, commissioners held executive sessions in more than 76% of meetings and spent 38.5% of meeting time behind closed doors — rates dwarfing comparable ports.
Public records requests also uncovered details behind the departure of former executive director Rob Fix, which occurred with minimal public explanation after months of negotiations conducted entirely behind closed doors.
Executive sessions: a seven-year pattern
The Port’s heavy reliance on executive sessions isn’t recent — it’s a deeply entrenched practice spanning the current commission’s entire tenure.
Meeting agendas, including executive sessions, are determined by the board president and executive director.
The analysis begins in 2018, when the current three-commissioner team came together. Bobby Briscoe joined the commission in 2016; Ken Bell and Michael Shepard were elected in 2018.
From their first year together through 2024, the Port held executive sessions in nearly three of four meetings — 74.4% overall. Commissioners spent 37% of meeting time behind closed doors. This pattern remained consistent regardless of who held the gavel, suggesting it reflects collective culture rather than individual preference.
Briscoe pulling ahead
The data reveals differences in how individual commissioners used executive sessions. Ken Bell, president in 2018, 2021, and 2024, held executive sessions in nearly 80% of meetings (47 of 59). His 2021 presidency was notable: executive sessions in 89% of meetings, consuming 43% of commission time.
Bobby Briscoe (2019, 2022) held executive sessions in 73% of meetings during those years. Michael Shepard (2020, 2023) did so in 68%. All three spent between 37 and 39% of meeting time in executive session.
Executive session use has increased this year. Through 2025 under Briscoe’s presidency, 16 of 17 meetings — 94.1% — have included executive sessions. Nearly 48% of meeting time has been spent behind closed doors, the highest level yet for this group of commissioners.
An outlier among ports
Compared to similar ports under identical legal frameworks, Bellingham stands apart. In 2024, Bellingham held executive sessions in 77% of meetings; Olympia held them in 23%. Bellingham spent 36% of meeting time in executive session; Everett spent 18%.
Only Anacortes approached Bellingham’s closed door frequency at 37% — but still spent significantly less time in them (23%).
What gets discussed behind closed doors
Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act permits executive sessions only for specific purposes: pending or potential litigation, real estate transactions, employee performance reviews, and a few other narrowly defined circumstances. For commissioners who champion the Port as a model of transparency, the numbers tell a starkly different story. And when that pattern coincides with an audit finding of an improper contract award, contracts apparently structured just below competitive or formal bid trigger thresholds, and potential contract splitting, the public is entitled to ask: What else are we not seeing?
State auditor finds “material weakness”
On July 28, 2025, the Washington State Auditor released a finding of material noncompliance against the Port of Bellingham for failing to follow competitive procurement requirements when selecting Moffatt & Nichol for a federal infrastructure project.
According to the audit, Port policy “conforms to the most restrictive requirements for procuring architectural and engineering services and requires professional services to be procured using competitive proposals.” Governments must also keep documentation supporting the procurement method they used.
The Port advertised the opportunity and received proposals from two firms: Moffatt & Nichol and WSP USA, Inc. But auditors found no documentation that the Port evaluated the qualifications of either firm or performed any scoring process. Instead, the Port “incorrectly concluded that receiving only two proposals meant that competition was inadequate” and awarded the contract without documented evaluation, according to the finding’s brief. Auditors declared this “a material weakness that led to material noncompliance.”
The audit reported that the Port paid Moffatt & Nichol $906,006 in federal funds without performing a competitive process. The actual cost to taxpayers is far higher: the contract for Bellingham Shipping Terminal infrastructure and dredging has grown to $3,236,702 through eight amendments, with the largest single amendment adding $1,798,537. The end date has been extended to Dec. 31, 2026.
This single contract drew scrutiny only because federal funds triggered federal oversight requirements. Auditors did not examine other contracts to determine whether this was an isolated incident or represented standard practice.
Deena Garza, the State Auditor’s Office local audit manager who oversees Port audits, said procurement compliance is reviewed through sampling, not comprehensive examination. When auditors do review professional services contracts, they verify three things: that firms submitted proposals, that the Port scored those proposals, and that the highest-scoring firm was selected.
That documentation was absent in 39 of the 40 professional services contracts The Northern Light reviewed.
Garza confirmed the Port has received only one audit finding since 2007. But procurement isn’t examined every year — auditors reviewed it seven times between 2009 and 2022. And each review examines a sample of contracts, not the full portfolio.
The Northern Light review of 59 contracts in the $50,000 to $100,000 range — the threshold at which Port policy requires competitive solicitation but not formal sealed bidding — suggests it is not isolated. Of 40 professional services contracts, only one contained documentation of competitive solicitation. Of 19 public works contracts, only one showed such evidence. Most files contained only internal authorization forms.
In response to earlier questions about missing documentation, the Port provided a legal memorandum from attorneys Holly Stafford and Jesslin Ochoa outlining the requirements of Port policy. The memo confirmed that for contracts between $50,000 and $100,000, the Port must maintain “a documented process showing that the Port solicited responses from the appropriate number of firms” — at least three consultants from the Municipal Research and Services Center roster.
The memo did not explain why that documentation was absent from 39 of the 40 contract files reviewed.
In response to pre-publication questions from The Northern Light, Port spokesperson Mike Hogan stated that an internal review found “no areas of noncompliance.”
Port’s response
The Northern Light sent 41 detailed questions to the Port on Nov. 3, covering procurement documentation, contract structuring patterns, executive session frequency, and executive director Rob Fix’s termination. The original deadline for response was Nov. 10.
The Port did not respond by that deadline. On Nov. 11, The Northern Light extended the deadline to 5 p.m. on Nov. 15. Spokesperson Mike Hogan responded on Nov. 14 at 3:43 p.m. with a four-paragraph general statement.
“The Port has an experienced and capable executive leadership team managing its diverse portfolio of operations,” Hogan wrote regarding questions about executive turnover and Fix’s termination.
On procurement, Hogan cited the Port’s audit history: “In the past 18 years, the Port has received only one audit finding, which occurred last year. New protocols were immediately put into place to address this issue moving forward.”
He concluded: “After a thorough review of each of your concerns by our team of engineering, accounting, and grant professionals, we did not identify any areas of noncompliance.”
The Port did not explain the clustering of contracts just below bidding thresholds. It did not address why Reid Middleton received three separate harbor assessment contracts totaling $241,900 within three months rather than one comprehensive contract. It did not respond to questions about specific contractors, the 26-fold difference in growth rates between professional services and public works contracts, or why the Port of Bellingham’s executive session use exceeds comparable ports by wide margins. The Port did not answer any of the 41 questions.
Contract structuring — what is it and why does it matter?
There are various forms of contract structuring prohibited by state law. It reduces competition between potential bidders and can result in increased prices for the Port and by extension, taxpayers.
Contract threshold structuring is where a project’s scope or a cost is structured to be just below the $100,000 level that would trigger a formal bid process, as seen in the chart below.
Contract splitting is when individual project elements that logically should be grouped under the same contract are split up so that each element will be under the trigger level.
For example, on June 20, 2024, Reid Middleton was awarded an $82,500 contract to assess the Squalicum Harbor sawtooth dock. On Sept. 18, it received two separate contracts to do bulkhead assessments at Squalicum for $77,900 and $81,500, respectively. The three contracts totaled $241,900. Logically, all three assessments should have been bundled together and put out in a formal bid process.
Artificial phasing or “salami slicing” is when multiyear projects are split up into annual time periods, each of which are under the limit. An example of that could be the Conflux Associates contract which was proposed as a three-year project. The proposal accepted by the commissioners showed a three-year timeline while the contract itself was amended to a one-year term with a renewal clause.
Finally, an initial contract can be under the limit but grow over time through amendments that far out-run the trigger amount. Whether such contracts represent legitimate scope expansion or strategic ‘lowballing,’ intentionally starting below thresholds to avoid competitive bidding, remains unclear.
One concern about contracts that grow through amendments is how they are approved by commissioners. Many amendments are typically approved using the consent agenda and thus receive little or no public attention or scrutiny. This is particularly evident when it comes to professional or personal service contracts.
The table below shows that these types of contracts have a much higher rate of growth than public works contracts.
‘Sole source’ contract sidesteps competition requirement
Jennifer Noveck, a former Port employee, has received four consecutive annual contracts totaling $293,518 since 2022 – all awarded without competition under the “sole source” designation.
It is the largest non-competitive professional services contract in recent Port history. Port records show only 12 sole source contracts total, most for relatively small amounts. Noveck’s 2022 contract of $100,716 is more than six times larger than any other.
Noveck worked as the Port’s Research & Communications Coordinator until early 2022. When the pandemic ended and the Port required employees to return to the office, Noveck – who had relocated to Hoodsport – converted to contractor status rather than return.
Washington law permits sole source contracts only when a consultant is “clearly and justifiably the only practicable source to provide the service.” The statute limits justification to three criteria: uniqueness of the service, sole availability at the location required, or warranty/defect correction.
Then-executive director Rob Fix’s December 2024 memo justifying Noveck’s contract cites her qualifications but also states that her “reasonable hourly rate and monthly retainer … make replacement difficult, time consuming and therefore competitive solicitation for a similar firm’s services not appropriate or cost effective.”
Cost and convenience do not appear among the three permitted statutory justifications. And Noveck’s work, research, data analysis, economic development consulting, is provided by numerous qualified consultants throughout Washington.
Payment records raise additional questions. In 2023, the Port paid Noveck $72,808 on a contract valued at $60,000, a 21% overage. Records provided to The Northern Light contain no amendment authorizing payments beyond the contract amount.
The cumulative value of Noveck’s four contracts – $293,518 – is nearly three times the $100,000 threshold at which Port policy requires formal bid procedures. RCW 53.19.020 explicitly prohibits ports from structuring “contracts to evade these requirements.”
Under the contract, Noveck must be given 30 days’ notice to appear in person and has the option of refusing. If she chooses to meet in person, all travel costs will be borne by the Port. A Port computer is provided at no cost to Noveck.
The Port did not respond to questions about the Noveck contracts.
They wrote the rules
Contract structuring – breaking up work to avoid competitive bidding thresholds – is prohibited by state law.
A project can be priced just below the bidding threshold. Work that belongs under one contract can be split into pieces. An initial contract can be set below the limit, then grow through amendments that far exceed it.
The penalties are real: $300 per occurrence for employees, 30% of project cost for participating companies.
The state legislature directed the Washington Public Ports Association and Municipal Research and Services Center in 2008 to publish guidance helping ports avoid these violations. The latest version of the Port Governance and Management Guide appeared in June 2022.
Its primary author was Jim Darling, former Port of Bellingham executive director.
Other contributors included Frank Chmelik, then WPPA corporate counsel and partner at Bellingham law firm Chmelik Sitkin & Davis – now CSD Attorneys at Law, the Port of Bellingham’s outside counsel.
Others include Abbi Russell, a senior specialist with Maul Foster & Alongi, a firm that has received numerous Port contracts. Former Port chief financial officer John Carter. Former economic development director Don Goldberg. Former real estate director Bill Hager.
And Jennifer Noveck, the research consultant whose $293,518 in sole source contracts is detailed in this report.
They didn’t write the law. But they wrote the guide explaining how to follow it.
Behind closed doors — the slow-motion firing of Rob Fix
Former executive director Rob Fix received a year’s severance when he was fired at the commission’s June 3 meeting. His dismissal came as a surprise to the public because up to that point, the commissioners had not expressed dissatisfaction with his performance, at least not publicly.
It turns out that his firing had been in the works for months — an open public records request by the newspaper has revealed that commissioners and the Port’s attorney had been working behind the scenes since February to ease Fix out of his job.
In fact, the Port’s first offer would have kept Fix on as executive director until a replacement was hired and then he would have been made an executive consultant until Feb. 28, 2027, to help with onboarding the new director.
His annual rate of pay would have been $235,000 along with standard benefits available to employees; had the Port terminated him before the end date, he would have received the same amount in severance pay. If he made it to the end, he would have received six month’s salary.
In the end, Fix accepted one year’s severance pay and left.
The wheels were set in motion not long after executive administrator Carey Hansen, a longtime Port employee, gave her notice. Fix’s performance review, dated Jan. 7, 2025, may offer a clue: he was graded outstanding or excellent on most measures but was marked “below standard” on working well with coworkers and demonstrating respect for staff, colleagues, and community members.
(Ed. note: As originally published, Fix’s performance review was described as self-evaluated; further review makes it unclear as to whether he evaluated himself or was evaluated by the commission.)
Hansen wasn’t alone as Fix’s tenure saw a pattern of high-level departures. Airport director Kip Turner’s short tenure ended in 2024 when he was dismissed with one month’s severance pay. He was followed one month later by deputy airport director Emily Phillipe who, after 15 years with the Port, left to take a position at Paine Field.
Economic development specialist Gina Stark left in Dec. 2024 to join Habitat for Humanity while her former boss, economic development director Don Goldberg, was let go with three month’s pay in 2023.
At least three other employees were forced out with the Port agreeing to describe their departures as a mutual agreement to separate, one of whom was accused of misconduct but received three month’s severance. Another was given six week’s severance upon agreeing to resign while a third was given a year’s severance and full benefits for 12 months.
Commissioners were asked what their specific grounds were for terminating Fix and, if there were performance deficiencies justifying termination, why was he provided with full severance rather than being terminated for cause.
The Port did not response to any of these questions.
The extended timeline to replace Fix stands in stark contrast to his removal. Commissioners spent four months negotiating Fix’s departure behind closed doors, then terminated him within minutes of emerging from executive session. Yet six months after his departure, they have yet to post the position for his replacement.
The commission tabled the decision on approving the executive director job description, wage range, and recruitment brochure until the next meeting on December 16.
New commission, new mandate
The investigation that produced this report began with a question about a single contract: $99,396 to Conflux Associates for a “strategic communications campaign” – essentially, a public relations effort to improve the Port’s image.
The contract appeared as Item G along with 13 other routine items on the Aug. 13, 2024 consent agenda and passed without discussion. No commissioner asked what the campaign would entail. No one questioned whether nearly $100,000 — priced just $604 below the threshold requiring formal bids — represented the best use of public funds. The vote was unanimous, the meeting moved on, and the public learned nothing about why their port needed a PR campaign or what it would look like.
In the 16 months since, the Conflux contract has not been mentioned in a public Port meeting. The contract specified deliverables: research, messaging strategy, media outreach, stakeholder engagement. Whether those milestones were reached, whether the campaign succeeded or failed, whether the Port received value for its investment — none of this has been discussed in public view.
Port executive director Rob Fix maintained a practice of distributing weekly briefings to commissioners and speaking individually with each commissioner on a regular basis. These communications are legal. Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act prohibits “serial meetings” only when they result in a quorum taking action outside public view. Private briefings and one-on-one conversations fall short of that threshold.
Yet the cumulative effect raises questions about where Port governance actually happens. When commissioners receive detailed briefings privately, discuss concerns with the executive director individually, and then gather for meetings where 76% include executive sessions closed to the public, the open meeting can become less a forum for deliberation than a ceremony confirming decisions already reached.
There is no evidence commissioners violated the law. Serial meeting violations require proof that a quorum coordinated action through sequential communications, and nothing in the public record establishes that occurred.
But open government requires more than technical compliance. It requires that the public can witness not just the votes but the reasoning behind them – the questions asked, the concerns raised, the tradeoffs weighed. When that deliberation migrates to weekly calls, private briefings, and closed sessions, the public loses the ability to evaluate whether their elected officials are exercising judgment or simply ratifying staff recommendations.
A new commission
Whatcom County voters signaled they want change. In November, Carly James defeated incumbent Ken Bell, and the electorate approved expanding the commission from three members to five — the most significant structural reform in the Port’s recent history.
Proponents of expanding the commission have said it should improve transparency. With five commissioners instead of three, a quorum rises from two to three. Private one-on-one conversations between the executive director and individual commissioners can no longer constitute a majority. The geometry of serial meetings becomes harder to achieve.
At his third to last meeting, outgoing commissioner Bell raised questions the new commission should answer.
“I know we probably spent $2–3 million dollars on attorney fees this year,” Bell said. “How much do we spend on legal fees, and what are they being spent on, and how are they being used? I feel the same way about consultants. How much of that should be in-house?”
The 2025 operating budget shows approximately $885,000 in legal expenses spread across departments — less than half Bell’s estimate. The discrepancy suggests either significant spending beyond budgeted amounts or legal costs embedded in other line items. The new commission should find out which.
Recommendations
The patterns documented in this report — threshold clustering, contract amendments that bypass competitive requirements, executive session usage far exceeding comparable ports, and procurement files missing required documentation — did not arise from any single decision. They accumulated over years, normalized through repetition, invisible until examined systematically.
The incoming commission has an opportunity to reverse that trajectory. We recommend:
On procurement:
- Conduct a comprehensive audit of professional services contracts, with particular attention to sole source justifications, threshold structuring, and amendment patterns
- Require staff to present any contract above $75,000 with documentation of competitive solicitation — not on consent agenda, but as a discussion item
- Establish a policy requiring commission approval before any contract amendment that would push total value above $100,000
- Review the Jennifer Noveck consulting arrangement and determine whether continued sole source designation is legally justified
On executive sessions:
- Set a target to reduce executive session frequency to levels comparable with peer ports – below 50% of meetings
- Require the executive director to provide written justification for each executive session, to be retained as public record
- Publish quarterly reports on executive session usage, including duration and stated purpose
On transparency:
- End the practice of weekly individual briefings between the executive director and commissioners; replace with written briefings distributed to all commissioners simultaneously and made available to the public
- Remove routine contracts from consent agendas; reserve consent for genuinely ministerial matters
- Require public progress reports on contracts involving public communications, strategic planning, or policy development – including the Conflux contract, retroactively
On legal spending:
- Reconcile budgeted legal expenses with actual payments to outside counsel
- Evaluate whether the volume of legal work justifies in-house counsel, as Commissioner Bell suggested
- Publish an annual report detailing legal expenses by category and matter
The Port of Bellingham is a public institution managing public assets on behalf of Whatcom County residents. Its commissioners are elected to deliberate in public, to question expenditures openly, and to ensure that competitive processes, not relationships, determine who receives public contracts.
The patterns documented here suggest those principles have eroded. The new commission has the authority, and now the mandate, to restore them.
— By Pat Grubb
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Views conflict around best use for Port real estate,” March 12, 2025
• “Is the future of Bellingham’s Port five or three commissioners?” Jan. 14, 2025
• “Tyler Schroeder to lead Port of Bellingham economic development,” Feb. 29, 2024
• “Developer Harcourt in contract default on Bellingham waterfront,” Nov. 2, 2023
• “More than a marina: Port of Bellingham drives economic recovery, growth,” Nov. 13, 2020