The Thurston County Board of Commissioners spent three quarters of its Wednesday, Feb. 26, work session in another tense debate regarding the potential hiring of a new executive aide for Commissioner Emily Clouse.
The latest conversation comes over a month after the commissioners voted to direct County Manager Leonard Hernandez to work with the Human Resources Development to develop a corrective action plan focused on supervisional training for Clouse before an aide could be hired.
Clouse told the commissioners Wednesday that she had completed 58 hours of training since December following the conclusion of a monthslong investigation into her relationship with her previous aide. Clouse’s former aide accused her of sexual harassment, retaliation and accepting money and gifts from him without paying him back.
Thurston County agreed to pay $300,000 to the former executive aide, Allyn Hershey, who was fired last year after making the allegations against Clouse. The commissioners voted to censure Clouse, who had been removed from boards and appointments as the investigation unfolded. She has since been reinstated to those positions
Maria Aponte, the county’s human resources director, provided the corrective action plan that commissioners requested, but members disagreed on a few of the factors.
Chair Commissioner Tye Menser motioned for the hiring process to begin under Aponte’s outline but expressed his confusion in having a potential second supervisor for the executive aide, outside of Clouse. He requested that the county’s legal team provide input on a dual supervisory structure.
“The aide would be supervised by somebody else but receive the day-to-day interaction with Commissioner Clouse,” Hernandez said. “We don’t have a situation where there’s someone that’s supervised by two people.”
When Menser’s motion was seconded by Clouse, Vice Chair Commissioner Wayne Fournier conveyed his displeasure in Clouse failing to recuse herself from the vote as it pertained to her own interest.
“Typically, you cannot participate in a motion where it’s about you. I don’t know that seconding a motion when it’s about yourself is proper,” Fournier said. “I’d love to point out that this is clearly a matter of personal interest. A prudent move would be to recuse yourself, and just the fact that that’s not understood really points out to me that the training that we have asked for has not been effective. The continued lack of self awareness tells me that there’s a continued issue.”
After a quick Google search, Menser learned that it is recommended that commissioners refrain from voting on a matter with personal or monetary interest not shared by other members but that they cannot be forced to abstain from voting.
Menser, Clouse and Commissioner Rachel Grant voted to approve Menser’s motion, while Commissioner Carolina Mejia and Fournier voted against. With the legality of Clouse’s vote up in the air, Menser called for a legal review from a prosecuting attorney as the motion would come down to a stalemate if her vote didn’t count.
“As I understand the rule, she’s not barred from voting and, therefore, the motion passes 3-2. That’s my understanding of the rules,” Menser said. “But, if it’s OK with the board, nothing will occur in response to this motion until we have that confirmation from the prosecuting attorney’s office that that vote was properly counted.”
The commissioners continued to discuss the idea of the supervisor structure for Clouse’s aide, as Mejia and Fournier agreed that the supervisor, or supervisors, should be clear before the job is posted and especially before an offer is made.
Clouse disagreed with the sentiment of having a second person for her executive aide to potentially report to, saying that it would be “a new dynamic that doesn’t exist currently.” She later claimed that she is not opposed to the idea of having a second person to go to and that every executive aide should have another person but that it should be through a clearly outlined policy, to which Hernandez differed from.
“[Aponte’s] recommendation is just that. It’s not a well dialed-in approach. We’re not going to spend staff time on something we don’t know that the board even wants to do,” he said. “I’m concerned that what we’re doing is we’re taking Maria’s memo and we’re weaponizing it. She just put some words on a concept.”
Fournier motioned to direct the county manager to work with human resources and “whoever else appropriate” to come up with recommendations for a supervisory structure that follows the recommendations of human resources and that the matter needs to be adopted prior to the beginning of the hiring process.
Clouse and Menser inquired about the omission of the legal input from Fournier’s motion, to which Fournier said he mentioned when he directed the county manager and staff to seek clarification.
“My motion seeks clarification, and it directs the county manager to find that out and give us some options. If there are no viable options, then that’s probably what will come back to us,” Fournier said. “We’ll get to debate it at that time, but until then, it’s just an idea in the ether that gets no action, and then we’re going to be spinning our wheels talking about it at the next meeting.”
Fournier’s motion failed as Fournier and Mejia voted to approve while Menser and Clouse voted against, but Clouse’s vote was again flagged as needing review like Menser’s previous motion. Grant was absent from the vote.
Hernandez told the commissioners that he and Aponte can work on a framework and ask the attorney to review.
“Let us come up with the framework. It’s not going to be detailed out. I disagree that it needs to be a policy. This is not a policy,” he said. “This is a framework that we say, ‘Here’s how we do matrix supervision,’ which the concept of that is there’s an appointed authority that is the official supervisor, but for workload and workflow, they’re assigned to somebody over here. We’ll come up with that scenario, sit with legal counsel and see if they have any major concerns about it, and then all come back and present that so everyone’s here for questions.”
Menser presented another motion to formally direct staff to carry out the framework with legal review while the mechanics of the hiring process move forward immediately. Menser and Clouse voted for the motion, and, while Mejia and Fournier abstained, the motion passed, subject to review on Clouse’s vote, as the majority of the commissioners present voted to approve.
