A Clark County Superior Court judge Friday directed the Washington Department of Corrections to postpone closing Larch Corrections Center until Tuesday while he decides whether to grant a motion that would further delay the closure.
Teamsters Local 117, which represents 6,000 state corrections employees, filed a complaint Sept. 13 alleging that the agency, under Corrections Secretary Cheryl Strange, had committed several violations leading up to Larch’s planned closure. The union is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the closure until arbitration is completed.
Corrections announced in June that it would close the minimum-security prison in the fall, citing declining incarceration trends and a need for higher-security-level beds. The agency originally planned to close Larch on Oct. 1 but later changed the date to Monday.
About 30 people, mostly corrections employees, held a rally Friday morning outside the Clark County Courthouse before attending the hearing.
The gallery appeared to let out a collective sigh of relief after the judge ordered layoffs at Larch to be delayed at least a day.
“For me, it goes to show the judge has a very tough decision to make and an overwhelming amount of information to weigh,” Shawn Piliponis, a corrections specialist at Larch, said after the hearing.
Judge Derek Vanderwood anticipated that he would issue a decision at about 10 a.m. Monday.
Assistant Attorney General Kelly Oshiro, who represented DOC at the hearing, declined to comment afterward.
In partnership with the Washington Department of Natural Resources, Larch has trained crews used in fighting wildfires across the state for more than six decades. Larch is equipped and staffed to house 240 incarcerated men, making it one of the smaller state correctional facilities. It is located southeast of Battle Ground in the Yacolt Burn State Forest.
Larch staff have adamantly opposed the closure and held a town hall in July to draw support, which included Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz. Local elected officials and fire agencies and a bipartisan group of lawmakers representing Clark County have also urged Gov. Jay Inslee and Corrections to keep Larch open. Last month, U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, sent a letter to Strange expressing concerns over the closure and noting that she had received numerous complaints.
Piliponis said Corrections began transferring incarcerated individuals from Larch to other facilities in mid-July. The remaining population was transferred last week. He and other employees are continuing to report to work at Larch.
“The hope is the judge delays the closure and allows us to present our case that DOC failed to meet its contractual obligations and allow us to move through that process,” Sarena Davis, the union’s director of corrections and law enforcement, said before Friday’s hearing.
Teamsters Local 117 argues that the department has refused to bargain collectively over the closure, violated workers’ seniority rights and improperly offered employment to bargaining unit members in exchange for ceasing union activities. The complaint also alleges that the department violated Inslee’s August emergency proclamation concerning statewide wildland firefighting.
Conflicting arguments
On Friday, Ben Berger of Seattle-based law firm Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt, who presented the union’s argument, focused on layoffs at Larch, DOC’s alleged interference with labor rights and the dispersal of Larch’s forestry crews, which leaves Southwest Washington without a nearby inmate firefighting crew.
He argued that Corrections has moved at “breakneck speed” to close Larch and, in doing so, has violated its contractual obligation to the union. He asked the judge to order the preliminary injunction to restore Larch to status quo until arbitration can be completed.
Oshiro said the authority to close Larch lies with Corrections, not with the union nor the court.
The union hasn’t tried to bargain over the closure, she said, and didn’t file its complaint until three months after being notified of the plan.
Oshiro said the union was presented with monetary remedies and that DOC is committed to ongoing bargaining. She further argued that the closure itself is not subject to bargaining.
Berger said the union has been seeking to bargain since it was notified of the closure June 26, though he acknowledged that the first session didn’t occur until Aug. 3. He said it’s taken time to gather and receive information, and the union has had follow-up questions.
Corrections leadership, in announcing the closure, said it was due to a surplus of minimum-security beds and need for higher-security-level beds, Berger said; the agency plans to reallocate resources from the closure for those beds.
Berger said Corrections has also claimed there is a lack of work at Larch, but he argued that the beds were full, the facility was fully staffed and some employees were working overtime. Work crews were also in demand by community partners, he said.
Berger said Corrections is “cloaking itself in criminal justice reform.”
Oshiro argued that even if Larch were full, DOC is trying to consolidate its operations and is looking at beds across the system. The cost to operate the facility also went into the decision, she said.
“It’s always a difficult decision to close a facility,” Oshiro said.
Regarding wildland firefighting, Berger said Larch’s inmate fire crews play an essential role in fire suppression in Southwest Washington. Corrections pitched the Longview Reentry Center as an option to house crews in the region, Berger said, but it has since reversed course. Instead, the crews were sent at least 100 miles away, he said.
Oshiro argued that wildfire advocacy is not part of the union’s purpose. She said Corrections met with DNR in the spring and chose the October closure date because it’s the end of the fire season and would minimize impact to the 2023 wildfire plan. She said the agencies are still exploring options. (DNR has opposed Larch’s closure.)
As far as the union’s other claims, Oshiro said they can be addressed later and should not delay the facility’s closure.
When Vanderwood asked Oshiro why Corrections can’t delay its action until arbitration is completed, she said the decision was made months ago and collective bargaining should have happened sooner. She asked the judge to deny the union’s motion.
Vanderwood said he needed more time to review the materials before reaching a decision and directed Corrections to delay layoffs until he issues his order.
