Dylan Reubenking / For Nisqually Valley News
The Board of Thurston County Commissioners reaffirmed its previous decision when it voted 2-2 Wednesday to deny county legal representation for Commissioner Emily Clouse in a recall petition, which has been appealed by the petitioner to the Washington state Supreme Court.
Arthur West, of Olympia, filed a petition to recall Clouse on Dec. 12, 2024, citing “acts of misfeasance and/or malfeasance and for violations of her oath of office.”
The petition came shortly after Thurston County released the results of a monthslong investigation into her relationship with her aide. The county agreed to pay Clouse’s aide $300,000 to settle a lawsuit he filed in December.
Commissioners previously denied county defense for Clouse in the superior court, but Judge Jennifer A. Forbes of Kitsap County Superior Court dismissed the recall attempt in January. Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim brought the issue back to the commissioners during a Wednesday work session as the case “changed its posture,” he said.
According to Tunheim, Clouse sent him and County Commission Chair Tye Menser an email asking them to take another look at the defense issue after West filed a petition to the Washington state Supreme Court to review the superior court dismissal. Tunheim expressed that defense of Clouse was within the county’s capacity due to it being what he called a “limited project.”
“We have the ability to do it because it is a limited project that basically is the production of a brief and perhaps an oral argument of this. If the court decides to hear an oral argument, we can do that within existing resources,” Tunheim said. “I wouldn’t need any kind of budget extension or additional budget to do it.”
Tunheim added that not only would the county be defending Clouse in the appeal to the supreme court but that it would be defending its own superior court’s decision.
In her only comments during the nearly 30-minute discussion, Clouse announced she would be recusing herself from the vote on the matter so as to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. She explained that when West appealed the matter to the supreme court, he also filed a motion for reconsideration as he had an “almost all the way unredacted report” and submitted it, which she said was also turned down by the superior court.
Menser and Commissioner Rachel Grant showed support for providing the defense costs to Clouse, while Commissioners Wayne Fournier and Carolina Mejia defended their previous stances and disapproved. Despite Tunheim’s explanation regarding the court’s capacity to provide legal defense in the case, Mejia shared her concerns about the costs and capacity, especially if additional civil matters were to add to the workload of a civics department she described as “spread thin.”
“We’ve heard it here over many budget sections how spread thin your civil division is. In regards to civil division charges and internal rates, you have a budget for that that’s set aside. As that’s dwindling down because of this, even if it’s scoped out, we cannot increase that,” Mejia said. “We’re right at the beginning of the year. We have the rest of the year to go. We don’t know what’s going to be coming up this year.”
Grant said her decision to support providing county defense for Clouse was easy because the board had voted to defend elected officials in past recall petitions, including Menser and former Sheriff John Snaza. Additionally, she said Clouse had already won in court previously and the court would not be taxed with additional budget requirements.
“I know we didn’t approve fees before for Commissioner Clouse, but that was different. Those were based on misconduct or defending actions that she took at one point in time. This isn’t about that,” Grant said. “This is about the right to representation for a recall. If I was facing a recall or if you were facing a recall, I would want that same support. When I think about equity and fairness, if we’re going to offer legal support to some, I think we need to offer it to all when it comes to recall efforts.”
Fournier disagreed with Grant’s stance, noting that Clouse’s matter was different from the rest because it dealt with personal conduct, not with her performance of her duties as commissioner. He read a prepared statement to the board that called for the board to remain consistent in holding commissioners accountable for their actions.
“Last year, this board faced an extraordinary and deeply regrettable situation. One of our fellow commissioners hired her intimate partner as her full-time Executive Assistant. This decision, made outside of professional norms and prudent boundaries, led to a cascade of problems: errors in judgment, inappropriate workplace conduct, HR complaints, public controversy, and ultimately, a lawsuit that cost Thurston County taxpayers $300,000,” Fournier said. “That figure does not account for the time lost, the reputational damage to the county, or the erosion of public trust that resulted.”
Fournier added the facts of the case “have not changed, and neither has the rationale for our prior decision.” He commended Clouse for showing effort in recent months to better understand workplace ethics, participate in a structured hiring process for a new executive aide and demonstrate a more professional approach. But Fournier said her steps do not alter the basis for the request for defense.
“This is a moment for integrity. To approve this request now would not only contradict our earlier decision but send a dangerous message that serious personal misconduct may be forgiven with time or revisionist thinking, and that public funds can be used to clean up personal mistakes,” he said. “We must be consistent, we must be accountable, and, above all, we must remember that we serve the people of Thurston County, not ourselves. Let us be clear: this is not punitive. It is principled. The public has already paid too high a price for these mistakes. It is time to move forward, with a firm commitment to accountability, transparency, and respect for our collective role as stewards of the public good.”
Menser admitted he was conflicted at the time Clouse had first asked for legal representation in the superior court case, stating that West took an act of Clouse’s and put it in “an inappropriate legal context.” After previously voting to deny, he changed his mind due to the two dismissals by the superior court.
“I was pretty sure that there was no basis for the action that we all disapproved of to be a basis for recall. I had an informal conversation with the prosecutor about it. That was his sense as well,” Menser said. “In light of the prosecutor talking about the different posture that it’s in and his ability to handle it with minimal resources expended, I would support it at this juncture. It’s not to discount some of the things Commissioner Fournier outlined, but I see this as a different situation.”
