LYNNWOOD—The Lynnwood City Council Chambers were flooded with orange vests Monday, October 27, from those representing the Western States Carpenters local 425 outraged over alleged unfair labor practices at the city’s downtown ENSO project. The ENSO project is receiving $6.4 million in tax breaks from the city over the period of eight years.
In April 2024, the Lynnwood City Council unanimously approved Mayor Christine Frizzell to enter an eight-year Multifamily Tax Exemption (MFTE) for American Capital Group LLC (ACG Acquisitions), the developer of ENSO. On September 18, 2024, local union carpenters attended a City Council Work Session warning the city that projects like these often see unfair labor practices, wage theft, and tax fraud.
An investigation revealed that one of ENSO’s subcontractors, GMH LLC, has been doing exactly what the carpenters warned of by changing the hours of workers’ pay stubs, and not paying overtime despite an expectation to work more than 40 hours a week.
The video of that meeting, and subsequent warning, has since been removed by the city who, when questions why, informed the Lynnwood Times:
“The city received threats of litigation concerning statements made during the meeting by members of the public against other members of the public. On the advice of our insurance counsel, we’ve removed the video. Please be aware that there isn’t a legal requirement to create a video recording of meetings, so there isn’t a legal requirement for us to allow this video to remain.”
The Lynnwood Times consulted with Washington State Representative and Attorney Gerry Pollet, who is a specialist in Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act and Open Public Records Act, on the matter. According to Pollet, the City of Lynnwood is right and is not required to keep record of past meetings minutes so long as it’s available to the public via a records request.
For a second interpretation of the OPMA, the Lynnwood Times talked to Toby Nixon, President of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, who echoed Rep. Pollet’s comments stating:
“I am not aware of any requirement that minutes of past meetings be posted on the agency web site. They must be available by public records request,” said Nixon. “Many agencies do make minutes available on their web site, but it’s not required as far as I know. Certainly not required by the OPMA.”
Ahead of Monday’s meeting’s public comments section, Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell noted that she has since been contacted by ENSO’s General Contractor – American Capital Group (ACG) – who, she said, was surprised to learn about the issues involving their subcontractor GMH LLC. after the Lynnwood Times broke the story last Sunday. The Lynnwood Times has still not received a response back from ACG after multiple attempts to reach out via its online contact portal.
The council heard a total of seven public comments concerning ENSO, some carpenters, others simply members of the public concerned over alleged wage theft taking place under the city’s nose. Though the comments section was extended to 45-minutes not every carpenter in the crowd had the opportunity to speak but the wave of orange vests crowding practically every seat spoke for itself.
Zac McCown, representative for the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, was first to speak at Monday’s meeting regarding the alleged wage theft at ENSO, criticizing the city for taking down video record of that September, 2024, meeting.
“You may be able to delete the history of that video but good luck deleting the history of the workers who were cheated and exploited on a project this council gave a 6.2 million multifamily tax exemption to,” said McCown. “The city deserves better than to have the ego and authority of a few dictate the next worker in Lynnwood from being cheated.”
Brian Selby, another public commenter, echoed McCown’s comments saying:
“Those people who don’t have those overtime wages now are wondering how they’re going to pay bills, how they’re going to buy milk, when they’re going to get paid, where the gas for their next job is going to come from,” said Selby.
In response to these concerns, Lynnwood City Council member Patrick Decker asked the council to add this discussion to the agenda near term to explore what actions can be taken by the council, as well as encouraged any and all workers on major Lynnwood projects currently experiencing wage theft to reach out to him under the presence of honoring requests for anonymity.
“At the minimum I would hope that we could forestall any future projects with this specific contractor until this is resolved,” said Decker. “We are the oversight of the oversight and clearly we’ve failed to do our job.”
Decker added that he planned to visit the ENSO job site after the carpenters’ union brought forth the warning last September but “was advised not to do so” by city leadership due to “potential liability” on the city.
Councilwoman Derica Escamilla followed Decker stating that her family has been a victim of wage theft in Lynnwood (on the Lynnwood High School project) and stands in solidarity with the union workers in attendance.
“And yes L&I did get involved but we never got paid. Matt of fact, that contractor shut down, went bankrupt, and just opened under a different name, and was operating within six months somewhere else,” said Escamilla
Escamilla added that she is looking forward to the passing of Senate Bill 5572, which will oversee the labor of school and public works projects for that very reason. However, this bill refers to school construction projects, not multi-purpose projects such as ENSO.
Council President Nick Coelho reminded the public that the City of Lynnwood created a Workforce Labor Agreement Task Force, chaired by Council member George Hurst. Coelho committed to the public that he would be utilizing this Task Force to follow up on its findings.
Coelho added that there appears to be desperate reforms needed at Washington State Labor and Industries – particularly the speed of resolution and how a complaint can be filed while maintaining anonymity. He expressed interest in working with the state legislature to visit this proposed reform.
Councilman Hurst shared that the delay to the Workforce Labor Agreement Task Force in developing proposed project labor agreements was a result of pushback from city staff.
“After the initial meeting, they [city staff] didn’t want to meet union representatives. They thought it would devolve into some sort of labor issue, and they thought that city officials should be the ones that create the policy,” Hurst said.
Hurst also noted that when the city was first approached with ENSO’s MFTE development agreement they were told that they would potentially face legal action if they did not approve it, he added, because the developer had complied with all aspects of the city’s MFTE ordinance. Hurst would also like to revise the MFTE ordinance to ensure the city does not agree to a project that will not provide affordable housing.
Councilman Hurst had originally put forth a Wage Theft Ordinance for the City but was told by the mayor that she believed it was L&I’s responsibility, he said Monday. He mentioned he would be interested in revisiting that ordinance, having stewards on job sites, and protecting wages of workers.
Council member Parshall, also related to the Task Force, added that he has not received a single report by this task force since he took office.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
