Administrator Gibbs
On February 22, the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners held a Special Session to review recent developments with County Administrator John Gibbs. Following a nearly two hour closed door meeting, the Board voted 10-1 to place Administrator Gibbs on Paid Administrative Leave. I voted no on the Motion.
There have been numerous reports on this matter the past few days, weeks and months, and I wanted to take a moment to explain how I currently view the situation with Mr. Gibbs and why I voted they way I did on the Motion.
Thursday's meeting was ostensibly brought on by a letter sent by Gibbs’ Attorney to Board Chair Moss. This letter was the second letter that Gibbs has sent to Chair Moss regarding his employment with the county. However, the issues with Mr. Gibbs, as the rest of the members of the Board learned late on February 21 when they were finally shared the letter, began a considerable time before that.
This letter, dated February 15, details a variety of actions dating back almost a year earlier. The first was on March 10 of 2023, when Mr. Gibbs reached out by email to certain members of the Board to outline numerous issues he had with Corporate Counsel, Kallman Legal Group, and their role and abilities to function adequately as Counsel for the County.
The February 15 letter also described a follow-up document from Mr. Gibbs in July, where he laid out in greater depth his various issues with Corporate Counsel. According to the letter, “members of the Board and Mr. Kallman met with Mr. Gibbs. During this meeting, Mr. Gibbs’ concerns regarding the Corporation Counsel were not addressed. The Board conducted no investigation into Mr. Gibbs’ complaints, and instead began to plan Mr. Gibbs’ expulsion. In the time since Mr. Gibbs expressed his concerns about the Corporation Counsel, the Board has become increasingly hostile towards him and some members aligned with the Corporation Counsel have openly expressed their lack of confidence in Mr. Gibbs.” The Board has taken no action to investigate Mr.Gibbs’ assertions.
On October 24, 2023, a court complaint was filed (“Kimball v Ottawa County”) against the County alleging that Mr. Gibbs had unlawfully discriminated against an applicant for employment with the County. According to Mr. Gibbs, “the Kimball matter quickly became the vehicle for the County’s attempt to fire Mr. Gibbs. After its own failure to secure a settlement in the Kimball matter, the Corporation Counsel seized an opportunity to exact its revenge on Mr. Gibbs by offering his termination as part of a settlement offer in that matter. Accordingly, Mr. Gibbs was approached by the Board on January 9, 2024, to request that he tender his resignation.” The Board has taken no action to investigate Mr.Gibbs’ assertions. However, it is important to note that, similar to the email in March and the document in July, this conversation, however phrased, was not one that the Board as whole was aware of until late on February 21, approximately ten hours before the Special Meeting.
On January 15, Mr. Gibbs sent, through his attorney, a letter warning the Board not to fire him. My initial perception of this letter, not knowing about the conversation from January 9 and the context in which it was written, was to take this as a very negative action by Mr. Gibbs. However, in the context presented in the February 15 letter, the letter dated January 15 makes a good deal more sense, and I now view it much more neutrally.
On February 22 at our special meeting we heard and discussing charges brought up against Mr. Gibbs. As his attorney noted afterwards, “Mr. Gibbs was confronted today with what the County described as recently uncovered allegations about his job performance that were never previously disclosed until this emergency board meeting.” He went on to allege that “These brand new allegations about his conduct were strictly obtained for the purpose of justifying a ‘for cause’ termination. The forced leave of absence the Board placed him under is retaliation for Mr. Gibbs’ efforts to protect the County.”
I personally do not have a strong positive impression of Mr. Gibbs as County Administrator. I believe that if we were able to have given him his annual performance review as contractually mandated, I would not have given him high marks, for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, I left Closed Session concerned about two things. The first is that Mr. Gibbs is alleging that the conversation on January 9 regarding him potentially leaving his employment with Ottawa County was because of his March email and July letter to certain members of the Board regarding his perception of the quality of Corporate Counsel services, and that this allegation in my mind has not been disproven, nor even investigated by the Board. The second is that he was not afforded basic fairness around his ability to hear and rebut the charges brought against him at that Special Session. Both of these issues I believed demonstrate a lack of proper process and placed the Board in a precarious position should we decide to take action at the Special Session. Thus, when the motion to place him on Administrative Leave was made, I felt that I could not support that action, because it was both premature and made with too many loose ends pending.
It is my hope that we get better resolution on both of these issues over the next week, so that any further action may be informed by a better process, with better answers to open questions and a fairer review regarding the pending charges.
Update 2/24 - On Friday 2/23, Chair Moss publicly released a set of accusations that were sent to Mr. Gibbs’ attorney. Approximately half of those charges were the ones Mr. Gibbs was shown on the 22nd. The other half were brand new charges. I am troubled by the public release, because, to my knowledge, Mr. Gibbs has not rescinded his request to hear all charges in private. I worry that if that is the case, such action by Chair Moss only further complicates the current proceedings against Mr. Gibbs.
As far as the additional accusations themselves, they do not change my prior opinion, that Mr. Gibbs has a right to hear his charges in private and to be able to respond to them before they are made public, and before we take any action on them.
Update 2/29 - On Tuesday, February 27, Mr. Gibbs responded to the accusations against him. You can rea his responses here.
