The fallout continues from two separate investigative reports into the conduct of Shasta County elections chief Clint Curtis.
Personnel and county administration staff members have been assigned to the county clerk and registrar of voters offices on Market Street and Court Street.
“There will be one Personnel manager assigned at Market St, and one CAO staff member assigned to Court Street, each day. Those specific individuals who are assigned will vary but on any given day it will be no more than two,” Shasta County Support Services Director Monica Fugitt said in an email to the Record Searchlight on Monday, May 11.
Fugitt said there is no timeframe for how long they will be deployed to the two offices.
This comes two weeks after Fugitt told supervisors at a special meeting to consider a censure of Curtis over his conduct, that based on the findings of the investigations, Curtis should not work in the same location as his staff.
“Given the pervasive, abusive conduct that Curtis has exhibited toward staff it is recommended that the board request Curtis separate himself from staff, working in a different physical location or remotely,” Fugitt said at the April 28 special meeting.
Fugitt also recommended a county employee who works outside the department should monitor communication between Curtis and elections staff when he’s present.
Asked if Curtis is working remotely, Fugitt told the Record Searchlight that he is not.
“At the special Board meeting the recommendation for Mr. Curtis to separate himself from staff was discussed, and Mr. Curtis declined to do so,” she said.
Robert DeLong, business manager of the Redding-based UPEC Local 792, said it’s great the county is willing to provide outside help to act as an in-between.
“These are election workers and they are professionals and what has taken place, you have brought in somebody with an agenda and the agenda is not to support current employees,” he said. “It’s just been tough on our employees. They are just trying to do their jobs in what has become an increasingly hostile work environment for our full-time employees. I hope what they are trying to do will help, but I just don’t think there has been any accountability.”
Curtis at the meeting said the allegations were false and threatened to sue the alleged victims for defamation. He characterized the employees as disgruntled people who worked in the elections office before he arrived, and they don’t want to see change, so they are attempting to sabotage the upcoming election.
“I understand what he said. There is no employees who have an axe to grind. They are professionals. … They are just trying to do their jobs,” UPEC’s DeLong said. “There is state law that needs to be followed.”
Taking Curtis’ threat seriously, supervisors in closed session on May 4 voted unanimously to defend the county if the registrar of voters files a lawsuit.
In his email recap of the May 4 board meeting, Supervisor Matt Plummer, who has been particularly outspoken about the need to censure Curtis, said he was pleased the board agreed to defend “our employees.”
“It appears that he (Curtis) has also made comments to them suggesting they’ll need to hire their own attorneys to defend themselves against him. This has scared some employees, rightfully so,” Plummer said in his email.
In a text message to the Record Searchlight on Monday afternoon, Curtis said he filed a defamation lawsuit.
Plummer and Supervisor Allen Long voted to censure Curtis at the April 28 meeting. But they were overruled by Supervisors Kevin Crye, Corkey Harmon and Chris Kelstrom, who voted to delay the decision until after the June 2 election.
Curtis is running against former Assistant Registrar of Voters Joanna Francescut on the June 2 ballot.
Plummer made the case for censure two days after the special meeting in an email summary he sent out April 30.
The District 4 supervisor said most of the responses he received from that email were from people thanking him for the information. Some also expressed concern over the investigative reports findings.
“There was probably a few who pushed back,” Plummer said. “Some people suggested it can be common for people who don’t like their boss to make up things that could get the boss in trouble. They cited different instances … where something similar happened.
“What I pointed out to them is that they mentioned how employees, I will say in their examples, lied about their boss. But the way they found out they had lied was through an investigation into that behavior. In this case, we have two investigations that suggest the employees making these complaints were likely to be truthful.”
Plummer said the point of the investigations into Curtis’ conduct was to find out through witness interviews and other evidence, what was most likely to be the truth.
“If we reject that process as a way (to get to) the truth, then what process are we to look at to tell the truth,” he said.
The county on May 1 released the Oppenheimer Investigations Group report, a third-party investigation on Curtis after the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted on April 28, to make the 51-page report available to the public. Supervisors also voted to make public an internal investigation done by Fugitt, but that report has not been released.
David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly “Buzz on the Street” column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: In wake of investigations, Shasta staff assigned to elections office
Reporting by David Benda, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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