As Thurston County Commissioner Emily Clouse works to regain trust from her seatmates and the community following the conclusion of a monthslong investigation into her relationship with her former aide, her fellow commissioners debated paths forward to hold her accountable.
Clouse told her seatmates during a Wednesday, Jan. 22, work session that Maria Aponte, the county’s human resources director, drafted a proposal for the hiring process for her next aide. Clouse’s former aide accused her of sexual harassment, retaliation and accepting money and gifts from him without paying him back. While Clouse told the commissioners that she believes she is ready to supervise again after firing her former aide in the summer, her seatmates felt differently, especially with the county paying a $300,000 settlement to the aide following a since-dismissed lawsuit.
After a lengthy discussion, the commissioners voted 3-2 to direct County Manager Leonard Hernandez to work with the Human Resources Department to develop a corrective action plan focused on supervisional training for Clouse to be done in a timely manner and that a discussion of a potential new aide would occur following the completion of the plan.
Clouse and Chair Tye Menser voted against Vice Chair Wayne Fournier’s motion, while Fournier and commissioners Rachel Grant and Carolina Mejia voted to approve. Mejia initially voted to abstain but changed her decision.
Mejia said she was not comfortable with moving forward posting an executive aide position for Clouse.
“I believe that Commissioner Clouse should absorb the $250,000 cost under her budget, of what we had to pay out,” she said. “On just a financial standpoint, I’m not comfortable with our personal actions reflecting and impacting our budgetary situation.”
Clouse said she had worked with her fellow commissioners and the Human Resources Department to participate in training sessions related to retaliation, harassment, bullying and discrimination. When Menser inquired about the amount of time Clouse had spent on the training, she said she had spent approximately five to six hours and had received one certificate from one of the sessions. She added that she has plans to register for more in February and March.
Fournier advised that the Human Resources Department should find a sufficient amount of training to be completed by Clouse before she begin hiring for a new executive aide. He told Clouse he would like to see that she is not only completing her recommended trainings but that she is learning from them and showing self-awareness.
“Somebody that is accused of something doesn’t get to decide their own recourse for making things whole. In my mind, it gives you protection when you ask HR what their recommendation is,” Fournier said. “There’s a little more legitimacy than if you just make it up on your own.”
Clouse said she could provide a log of her trainings to the commissioners and that she was willingly completing the sessions even though she said the allegations against her were found to be unsubstantiated.
“There were a lot of allegations that were made that were not substantiated. I’m fine with taking trainings related to the allegations that were not substantiated, which is why I took one on preventing harassment, discrimination and retaliation, even though those things were alleged but they were not true and they were not substantiated,” she said
Fournier said her vote against the motion to propose a corrective action plan was evidence of her lack of accountability.
“The nay vote just makes me even more worried. That is not accountability. Taking ownership and saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll move forward and I’ll trust the process,’ that’s accountability,” he said.
Clouse expressed her desire to move forward and seek opportunities to regain trust from the county after the commissioners collectively said in a Dec. 6, 2024, statement that she had directly violated county HR policies, her oath of office and the public’s trust instilled in elected officials. She said she has been in communication with Aponte regarding steps forward.
“I let her know that I’m seeking opportunities and which opportunities I had already looked into. I also let her know that this was a top priority for me and I’m willing to clear my schedule or travel to nearby counties if that’s what it takes to get some of these trainings completed,” Clouse said. “I don’t really think there is an end point. I think that this is an ongoing process, and I’m always going to be taking opportunities to learn more. So it’s not something that I think has a finish line necessarily.”
While Menser acknowledged Clouse’s point about her training being an ongoing process, he said the ongoing process is hurting the county.
“I feel pretty strongly that there needs to be an aggressive timeline because this has gone on for months and months and months. I believe it is hurting us collectively as we try to build a new team with a new commissioner and a new county manager,” Menser said. “If we’re going to delay this for an additional period of time, I really want to be clear about what that period of time is and where the end point is.”
Grant suggested that commissioners be held to the same standards as county staff in terms of accountability and pathways forward. She also said the county should have moved forward by now but hasn’t due to Clouse not completing her training in a timely manner.
“I want there to be a path forward, and I want us to be able to see that you are actually taking those actions. We talked way back in October about taking trainings, and you could have hired by now if those trainings would have been done in November and December, and so we’ve waited,” Grant said.
The commissioners agreed that they would discuss the correction action plan brought to them by the Human Resources Department and Hernandez and then reconvene once Clouse has completed the necessary steps to begin a potential hiring process for her next executive aide.