Ironically, County Commissioners Chris Endresen and Tim Botkin may have ensured wiping out their own jobs with passage of the new charter neither wants, because of the royal screwing-over they gave their Republican cohort on the board, Jan Angel.

Angel was, or thought she was, in line to become board chair as of Jan. 1, but the two Democrats conspired to ace her out of it. Conspire: to join in a secret agreement to commit a wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end.

For years, the chairmanship of the board has been rotated so each of the trio, or more pointedly, each of the three districts gets a turn. North Kitsap’s Endresen is chair now, Central Kitsap’s Botkin was chair in 2000. It’s South Kitsap’s Angel’s turn. The new chair however, is Botkin again.

Here’s what happened. When the trio met to put together the agenda for the Dec. 17 meeting. Angel said she thought it was peculiar Botkin was nominating her and Endresen to the various boards and commissions they serve on as county representatives, and naming himself to nothing.

“Kitsap Transit is his baby and he nominates Chris for that?” she said. “Then Chris said to me, ‘At the end of the year, we’ll be appointing the new chair.’ I said, ‘And that’s me, right?’ She said, ‘No, you’re a new commissioner. You need to be in for two years before you become chair.’

“I said okay, but I felt something was fishy and checked into it. I went to Chris and said, ‘You told me I had to wait two years to be chair but I couldn’t find any rule like that.’ She said, ‘Well. There isn’t a rule, but you were new and so I am going to nominate Tim.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute,’ and turned to Tim and asked, ‘How do you feel about that?’ He didn’t say a word.”

The more she thought about it, said Angel, the more convinced she became that she was getting the shaft. “On Saturday, I went to the office and called Bill Mahan. I wanted to talk to somebody who had been a (South Kitsap) commissioner.”

Mahan told her rotation of the chairmanship among the districts began in 1969, should be maintained and what they were doing to her, “stinks.”

“I sent e-mails to Tim and Chris,” said Angel, “left messages on their voice mails with hard copies to their offices and requested that the rotation not be deviated from. It had been in place for years and it was not for us to change it. I requested their support and said I could fill that role.”

On Monday morning, she said, she went to the meeting room. “Chris walked in, said to me, ‘I will still be nominating Tim,’ and it was show time. When the chairmanship came up, Chris just said, ‘It’s that time of the year to appoint the head of the board. I nominate Tim Botkin.’ He said, ‘Thank you, second the nomination, and thank YOU (Chris) for doing a good job.’ I said, ‘Just a minute. I’d like to express my strong opposition based on what has happened here.’

“I said to Chris, ‘You’re the one who told me that I couldn’t be chair because I hadn’t served two years but I can find no rule to that effect.’ She said, ‘For clarification, the rule states that (election of the chair) is by a vote of the board of commissioners.’ Tim said to me, ‘You said you weren’t ready yet.’ I said, ‘I did not!’ Chris said to me, “You will not interrupt when another commissioner is speaking.’ From there, things went downhill fast.”

Obviously, Endresen and Botkin got together without Angel to hatch this plot. Why else would he exclude himself from board appointments if he didn’t know he was becoming the chair instead?

What these two have done is one more reason people hate and distrust politicians. Why did they do it? P.O.W.E.R. The board chair sets the agenda. 2002 is a big year. The new government building in Bremerton is on the brink. Angel opposes it. The others support it. She asks too many questions about land use and environmental policies.

The charter election is in February. My hunch is that it will pass, propelled by the votes of a backlash of people who think the way it is now, there’s too much power in the hands of too few people who misuse it to their own advantage.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA, 98340).