A petition to recall all three Port of Benton commissioners amid allegations they retaliated against top executives and violated ethics laws is moving forward after a Washington state Supreme Court decision July 2.

And proponents have until Aug. 27 to collect thousands of signatures so it will be included on the November ballot.

Port commission President Bill O’Neil called the ruling disappointing during a July 8 commission meeting. 

Bill O’Neil

The court’s decision triggered the resumption of an investigation into employee complaints against Executive Director Diahann Howard, as well as concerns that she was put on paid leave in January as an act of retaliation.

Commissioners have put the law firm defending them in the recall proceedings in charge of the investigation – a move Howard’s attorney, Todd Wyatt, has condemned.

O’Neil also defended the port’s January decision to suspend Howard with pay, blaming her for high employee turnover and a hostile port work environment.

January suspension

O’Neil said commissioners were first informed of employee complaints against Howard on Jan. 3, four days before she was put on paid leave.

O’Neil also mentioned an investigation seven years ago in which port staff filed a complaint against her and then-commissioner Roy Keck, leading to an investigation which found that both took retaliatory actions. 

This was in 2019, a year in which Keck was up for reelection, and Howard, who had been serving as interim executive director, was promoted tot executive director. 

O’Neil said that following Howard’s 2019 promotion, a longtime port employee resigned, citing a hostile and negative work environment due to staff and management. 

The commission president also said that nearly 20 employees have left in the past six years under Howard’s leadership, while in the 20 years prior, few employees retired and “no one quit.”

O’Neil said the port remains “dedicated to cleaning up the mistakes of the past in a transparent and open manner, allowing us to move forward in partnership with our staff, our customers, and the community to whom we serve.” 

He asked staff to stay focused on port business. He also invited the public to make public records requests to confirm what he said. 

Investigation resumes

According to Howard’s contract, the port is allowed to suspend her while investigating whether a cause for termination exists, O’Neil said. 

With a decision made on the recall, that investigation will now resume, and the port hired its recall attorney, Goodstein Law Group, to provide “investigation oversight with respect to the port’s internal complaints, investigation practices and procedures, and related activities directed by the port commission president.” 

Howard’s attorney Wyatt also said the port had already hired investigator Lisa Greenfield in January to investigate employee complaints against Howard and whether her suspension and reduction in duties constituted retaliation.

Greenfield investigated throughout the spring, Wyatt said, reporting to the port’s counsel, John O’Leary. While she had interviewed Howard, who welcomed the “independent review,” Wyatt said, commissioners did not respond to Greenfield’s request to interview them, instead suspending the investigation in late April citing the recall effort.

Wyatt criticized the move, saying commissioners “are once again moving the goalposts to justify their unlawful conduct.” 

“In short, the attorneys now hired to investigate retaliation are the same attorneys previously hired to deny that retaliation ever occurred,” Wyatt said.

Lori Stevens

Wyatt also said that in an April 28 declaration to the state Supreme Court, O’Neil stated that only one employee submitted a complaint in January. During the July 8 commission meeting, O’Neil said there were employee complaints but didn’t specify how many.

Wyatt noted that less than four weeks before Howard was suspended, commissioners Lori Stevens and Scott Keller both gave her a positive review and a raise.

More than six months into Howard’s paid leave, she “still has not been told who made the complaint against her, what it concerned, or why it required her immediate suspension without even giving her an opportunity to respond,” Wyatt said in a statement. 

Recall charges

Howard’s suspension is one of the charges at the heart of the recall petition itself, which cleared its own legal hurdle with the July 2 ruling.

Recall efforts initially started in February, led by retired Benton County District Court Judge Eugene Pratt and his daughter Ashley Garza, a land surveyor who worked as a contractor for the Port of Benton from 2022-26. 

They formed a political action committee, Citizens for a Better Port, to work on the recall.

Scott Keller

The initiative also stemmed from concerns about utility issues at the Richland Airport, which Garza discovered while mapping the port’s airport infrastructure. Recall proponents also focused on gifting laws broken by Keller, according to an investigation the Port of Benton paid for. 

In a March decision, Benton County Superior Court Judge Diana Ruff struck several of the charges against the commissioners but ultimately allowed the recall to proceed.

Some of the charges focused on actions Keller had taken prior to becoming a port commissioner, meaning they couldn’t be grounds for recall. Keller worked for the port for 30 years, including 18 as executive director, prior to becoming a commissioner.

Valid charges were related to the paid suspension of Howard in January and the firing of former Finance Director Alicia Myers in February. The petitioners said the actions were retaliatory and intended to conceal Keller’s wrongdoing. 

In her decision, Ruff stated that she could find no legitimate reason for Howard’s suspension other than that.

An additional charge was upheld for Keller alone, regarding his failure to report his ownership of The Axe LLC, which leases a hangar at the Richland Airport, to the Public Disclosure Commission. 

After Ruff’s decision, commissioners appealed to the state Supreme Court, which upheld the decision. 

Collecting signatures 

Petitioners planned to begin collecting signatures July 11 in John Dam Plaza, Garza said, with volunteers also popping up at community events, farmers markets, parks and neighborhoods. Others will canvass door-to-door, and signature sheets will be available at Wautoma Springs Winery in Prosser during daily business hours. Rachel Mercer, one of the initial petitioners, is manager at the winery.

The number of signatures needed for each commissioner will vary. For each commission seat, the petitioners will need to secure 35% of the total number of votes cast for all candidates.

For Keller, that’s 4,092 votes; 4,124 for Stevens; and 3,956 for O’Neil. The group’s goal is 5,000 signatures.  

Although recall petitions typically have 180 days to collect signatures, Garza said in an email to the Journal that the group is trying to “fast track” the signatures to make it onto the November ballot. 

To do that, they’ll need to collect them all by Aug. 27. 

Garza said they decided on this strategy to “stop the corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars by the port commissioners” as quickly as possible. 

The recall group will need to make sure that those signing the petition are voters in the port commissioners’ districts, and they’ve developed a mapping database for the volunteers to help verify that. 

The port district covers two-thirds of Benton County, including north Richland, Benton City and Prosser. That district is further split into three smaller districts, each represented by a commissioner.

While the group is moving forward with the recall process, “we feel strongly that the commissioners of the Port of Benton should resign immediately,” Garza said in the email. 

Eugene Pratt

“With this ruling behind us, the responsible path forward is clear,” said Eugene Pratt, president of Citizens for a Better Port, in a statement. “Commissioners Keller, O’Neil, and Stevens should resign now and spare the taxpayers of this district the cost and distraction of a prolonged recall campaign. This is no longer a legal question – the courts have spoken. It is now a question of whether these commissioners will put the port and the public ahead of themselves.”

Public comments

Pratt made a similar statement during the July 8 commission meeting. Others in attendance echoed his sentiments. 

Former port commissioner Jane Hargarty, who lost her seat to Stevens in 2021, criticized commissioners for contributing to an unhealthy environment and an unstable organization and asked them to resign.

She said she was disturbed by the commission’s “single-minded focus” on the airport, while neglecting the wine and ag industry at the national level. 

“Years to build relationships are being destroyed,” she said. 

Keck, who lost his seat to O’Neil in 2025, wanted to know when commissioners planned on reinstating Howard.

Richland Airport tenant Clif Dyer showed support for the commissioners, saying that they have been acting in good stewardship and voters have already spoken by electing them in the first place.