The Winlock City Council chambers at Winlock City Hall were packed to capacity on Monday, July 13, for a nearly two-hour council meeting in which a number of contentious subjects were discussed.
The meeting started with Winlock Mayor Victoria Marincin clashing with attorney Dana Williams — a member of the Buzzard Law Group, which contracts with the city for attorney services — over Lewis County’s ongoing effort to replace Winlock City Councilor Jeramy Allman.
Other contentious issues included residents living on Cowlitz Road expressing opposition to a proposed walking path on a Lewis County Public Utilities District (PUD) access road behind their properties and a display of LGBTQ+ Pride Month books at the Winlock Timberland Regional Library. Look for an article on those issues in the next edition of The Chronicle.
On a lighter note, Chief Richard Underdahl of Lewis County Fire District 15, also known as Winlock Fire and Rescue, invited Winlock residents and those in the surrounding areas to an open house event this Saturday, July 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the department’s main fire station, located at 609 NW Kerron St. in Winlock.
The open house will feature a barbecue with free hot dogs and popsicles, along with a junior firefighter’s challenge for local youth where they will get the chance to try to pull fire hoses and try other physical firefighter tests.
“We will also have information on the tax levy,” Underdahl added.
An emergency medical services (EMS) continuation levy for the fire district will be on the upcoming Aug. 4 primary election ballot, asking voters for approval of a $0.45 per $1,000 assessed property value rate from 2027 to 2032 to fund EMS during that period.
Residents will also get to meet the staff and volunteers and tour the fire house.
“I would invite you to come down, know your firemen. And I say firemen because I’m oldschool, but about half our firefighters are women, and they do a wonderful job,” Underdahl said.
Winlock City Council position 4 contention
Monday’s meeting began with Marincin and Williams going back and forth over the Lewis County Board of County Commissioner’s (BOCC) ongoing process to find a qualified appointee for Winlock City Councilor Jeramy Allman. Allman was not present at Monday’s meeting.
Williams took issue with Marincin intercepting a legal memorandum he was attempting to give to the councilors at the meeting’s start, advising them to hold an executive session to discuss “whether or not there’s a vacancy on the council.”
“No, there will not. As I spoke to Mr. (James) Buzzard, I told him that there would not be,” Marincin said. “That we are allowing the BOCC to continue with their process.”
With the Buzzard Law Group contracted to represent the city, Buzzard, one of five members of the law group, is typically the one present at Winlock City Council meetings. The Chronicle has also previously observed Marissa Jay, another member of the group, providing legal counsel at meetings.
Aside from Winlock, the Buzzard Law Group also represents the cities of Morton, Mossyrock, Toledo and Napavine in Lewis County, and the Town of Bucoda in Thurston County.
During the meeting, Marincin reiterated her desire to find new legal representation for the city. She echoed concerns she made during the council’s Feb. 23 meeting about the Buzzard Law Group engaging in other forms of litigation, which she believed were possibly coming into conflict with their contracted city services. Marincin also expressed opposition to the contract rate increase the council approved for Buzzard Law Group at the end of 2025.
Williams rebutted Marincin’s comment and explained any councilor has the authority to call for an executive session if they wish. While Councilor Chuck Camps did make a motion to have an executive session, no councilor seconded the motion, and it died on the floor.
Among those in the audience Monday included Lewis County Commissioner Lindsey Pollock. The Chronicle spoke to Pollock following the meeting, and while she declined to comment on the BOCC’s ongoing replacement process, she stated they had so far received five applications from Winlock residents interested in being appointed to the councilor seat.
While Allman lost his 2025 re-election bid to Thomas Robinson by a vote count of 179 to 280, with one vote for a write-in candidate, it was revealed Robinson was ineligible to serve in the seat as he had not been living within Winlock city limits for at least a year.
The position of both the BOCC and the Lewis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is that since Allman lost the election, a council vacancy should have been declared to start the new year on Jan. 1 — prompting the city’s 90-day process to gather applications from residents interested in being appointed to the council vacancy per state law.
Since no appointment was made by the city in those first 90 days, the responsibility then falls to the BOCC, which has its own 90-day period to collect applications and find a qualified appointee.
At the end of outgoing Winlock Mayor Brandon Svenson’s final city council meeting on Dec. 22, 2025, Svenson swore in his replacement, Marincin, along with newly elected Councilor Alishia Hornburg, who ran unopposed. Allman was present at this meeting, but not sworn in.
During the council’s first meeting of 2026 on Jan. 12, no swearing-in ceremony was held, and on Wednesday, July 15, The Chronicle contacted Allman who stated he was expecting to be sworn in during that first meeting in January.
He added he never actually signed the official oath of office affirmation document.
“That’s the problem, because if I remember right, the auditor’s office didn’t send over the right paperwork,” Allman said.
Despite not taking a new oath of office or signing the affirmation document, Allman was selected by the council to be the city’s mayor pro tem during the Jan. 26 Winlock City Council meeting by a vote of 4-1, with Hornburg being the lone opposition.
Ever since then, Allman has continued serving in the seat and voted on multiple city ordinances and resolutions.
Later during the meeting, Williams spoke during the public comment period to lay out his opposition to the ongoing BOCC process.
Citing the Municipal Research and Services Center (MRSC), Williams stated that while technically Allman lost the election, “lawfully and appropriately, Mr. Allman, whom I’ve never met, remained in this position as a hold-over.” The MRSC is a nonprofit organization which provides legal and policy guidance for municipal governments in the state.
He argued the council reaffirmed Allman to the seat through the mayor pro tem selection process and by allowing him to continue voting on city business.
“If there was a vacancy and he was not a lawful councilor, then why did the council appoint him to be the mayor pro tem?” Williams said. “The council failure to formally appoint him to position 4 looks like an oversight, a technical violation.”
He added Allman voting on council resolutions meant, “under the legal principles of ratification, he was ratified and consensually allowed to remain on the council.”
Williams also contested whether or not the county still even had the authority to appoint someone to the council seat, as technically the state-law mandated 90-day period the BOCC has to find a councilor has already passed. He also opposed letting Lewis County choose a councilor to begin with.
“The city had 90 days to appoint a qualified individual to fill a vacancy if there was one. They didn’t do it in 90 days. After that the county had 90 days. Another 90 days has gone by, the county doesn’t have the authority to do anything,” Williams said. “Frankly, in my experience, having the county decide on things about Winlock is tantamount to taking a block of cheese and having a rat look after it. You come back in, you’re going to wonder what happened to the cheese. You give over your authority as a council to the Lewis County government to micromanage your affairs, you might as well forget about having a city council.”
He reiterated his call for the council to call an executive session to “air this all out” and consider the laws and legal precedent he was presenting.
“Our position is Mr. Allman was confirmed in this position, even if it wasn’t an actual statement, but by the actions of the city council. He was allowed to sit and vote, he was allowed to be appointed by city council motion and approved as mayor pro tem,” Williams added. “A technical violation doesn’t leave Winlock without a city council member.”
He ended his statement by stating per state law, the current legal authority to choose an appointee to fill the seat is Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, not the BOCC.
“Lewis County, frankly, kills everything it touches,” he said.
Later during the meeting, after concerns raised by a meeting attendee about Ferguson being a good choice to appoint someone to the Winlock City Council, Williams explained in cases where the governor has to get involved, he would be relying on the council still to provide a qualified appointee.
“It’s not them searching for somebody else. If the council had followed my advice and if they had chosen, because it is their choice, to nominate or to approve the continued service of Councilman Allman, then that goes to the governor … I suppose he could turn it down, but why would he?” Williams said.
While state law specifies what happens in cases where an incumbent is re-elected but not sworn in, it does not lay out procedures for an incumbent who loses to an unqualified candidate, like Allman did to Thompson.
According to RCW 42.12.010, situations that create a vacancy in an elected office include the death of an incumbent, resignation, felony conviction, moving out of the voting district, refusal or neglect to take an oath of office, a competency tribunal ruling, a judgement ruling the incumbent has breached the condition of their official bond, or “his or her removal.”
No specific reasons for removal are listed.
When it comes to disqualified election candidates, RCW 29A.36.180 states votes cast for a disqualified candidate in a general election simply “shall not be counted for that office.” The statute further states, “if the disqualified candidate is the only candidate to have filed for the office during a regular or special filing period for the office, a void in candidacy for the office exists.”
Robinson, however, was not the only candidate, as Allman did run as the incumbent. No state law guidance is given for this scenario. As for the Lewis County Auditor’s Office candidate filing process, the only candidate qualification the auditor’s office is required to screen for is voter registration, not any other local requirement municipalities may have — like the one-year residency requirement in Winlock.
