As Jefferson County’s recently hired chief civil deputy prosecutor, Philip Hunsucker wants the public to know what a civil prosecutor actually does.

“We handle all the legal issues that aren’t criminal,” Hunsucker said. “As you can imagine, that’s pretty wide-ranging.”

Hunsucker acknowledged that people might associate prosecutors with what they see on TV shows like “Law & Order,” but noted that such depictions correspond more to the work of criminal prosecutors, such as what Michael Haas handles as the county’s prosecuting attorney.

By contrast, civil prosecutors are more “corporate,” in Hunsucker’s words, providing legal advice for the county commissioners, assessor, auditor, administration and sheriff’s office.

Hunsucker identified seven key issues that the civil prosecutor addresses: land use and community development, including building permits, shoreline management and the Growth Management Act; public and environmental health, including sewer and septic systems; public records and open records; new ordinances and the applications of existing ordinances; nuisance abatement, including the use of city codes and zoning to preserve safety and quality of life; human resources, albeit to a limited extent, since the county tends to retain outside counsel for such matters; and contract law.

Hunsucker is making $96,000 a year, which is $6,000 more a year than what former chief civil deputy prosecuting attorney David Alvarez had been making before resigning last June to take a job in Clallam County. Alvarez had held the job for 17 years in Jefferson County.

‘PENT-UP’ DEMAND

Because the civil prosecutor position had gone unfilled since last August, Hunsucker conceded that when he started the job April 3, there was close to nine months’ worth of backlog, which he’s catching up on, in addition to more current cases.

“There was a ton of pent-up demand, waiting for this position to be filled again,” Hunsucker said. “Most of it related to land use and community development, but there was some pent-up demand for environmental health, and a little bit for public records.”

Indeed, Hunsucker estimates that 30 percent of his job relates to land use, 10 percent to contracts and 5 percent to code enforcement, with the remainder falling under a mix of “miscellaneous.”

Coming up, Hunsucker expects the Brinnon master planned resort and public concerns with geoduck farming near Shine Road to take up a good deal of his time.

A 35-year trial lawyer who has worked in Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas and even Oklahoma (the last during his days in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps), Hunsucker, 60, had already lived in Port Ludlow for a number of years when his predecessor, Alvarez, left Jefferson County to become Clallam County’s chief civil deputy prosecutor.

While many of the issues he’s dealing with here have been common regardless of where he’s worked in his legal career, Hunsucker noted that Jefferson County poses the unique challenge of being bisected by national park and forest lands that comprise a huge percentage of its lands.

“I haven’t been out to the west end of the county yet,” Hunsucker said. “I’m trying to figure out a periodicity. It’ll probably be at least a couple of times each year.”

Until the 10-month gap between Alvarez’s resignation and Hunsucker’s acceptance of the job, the civil prosecutor position in Jefferson County had been continuously filled since 1995.

“There was a recognition that this role needed to be filled,” because of the breadth of its job responsibilities, he said.