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Michelle Bushnell, Humboldt County’s Second District supervisor and the current chair of the Board of Supervisors, believes that her due process rights were violated during a recent county investigation into alleged misconduct on her part, and she has retained an outside attorney to fight her corner.

Reached by phone this morning, Bushnell said she doesn’t think county employees have done anything wrong; rather, she believes that the county’s established process for investigating misconduct allegations is flawed. 

“When you have a complaint filed [against you] and you don’t agree with one of the findings, there’s no process to say, ‘That’s not what happened,’” she said.

Bushnell declined to get into the details of the complaint itself, except to acknowledge that she “got upset and emotional” while on the job recently. She has hired Harland Law Firm attorney Allison Jackson — a frequent antagonist to Humboldt County’s government — to challenge the county’s process for investigating alleged violations of the Board of Supervisors Code of Conduct and Ethics.

Bushnell herself played a role in modifying that document in 2022 and 2023, following an earlier allegation against her. (She later was found to have violated the board’s code by mistreating a staff member during a Planning Department meeting.) The Board of Supervisors approved amendments to the code of conduct the following August. 

But now Bushnell and her attorney say the investigation process prescribed by the code is fundamentally unfair: On Oct. 2, Jackson had a letter hand-delivered to County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes, Interim County Counsel Scott Miles and Human Resources Director Zachary O’Hanen. The letter says, “the Boards [sic] articulated process does not contain adequate due process protections for any subject of any investigations.”

Specifically, Jackson objects to the fact that Bushnell was given only an executive summary on the outcome of the investigation into her behavior. She’s entitled to read a copy of the full report (with employee witness names and/or identifying information redacted, if necessary) so she can “evaluate the quality and veracity of witness statements,” according to Jackson.

The letter also quotes the following portion of the Board of Supervisors Code of Conduct and Ethics:

If county officials or staff become aware of any improper behavior by a Board member, they are encouraged to formally report such behavior in writing to the County Administrative Officer and Director of Human Resources. Any such report or complaint will be reviewed by a committee consisting of the County Administrative Officer, Director of Human Resources, and County Counsel (Committee). … 

This presents another problem, Jackson argues in a follow-up letter sent on Oct. 20: The county counsel shouldn’t be part of any review committee because that gives him two incompatible roles to fill, Jackson’s letter says. He’s charged with being both an advocate for his client (Bushnell, in this case) and an objective arbiter of justice. 

The letter argues that Bushnell not only has a right to hear the charges against her but also deserves “an opportunity to be heard before a decision is made by an impartial decision-maker as mandated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 7 of the California Constitution.”

To meet those constitutional due process thresholds, Jackson’s second letter says, Bushnell must be given a chance to present her side of the story, “which includes the right to call and cross-examine witnesses, present evidence, and make arguments.”

The county has now hired its own outside counsel to handle this matter: Savana M. Jefferson with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, a big California firm that handles much of the county’s business. (Jackson’s second letter was sent to Jefferson in Sacramento.)

Bushnell reiterated during our conversation that she doesn’t believe any employees did anything wrong — not CAO Hayes nor Interim County Counsel Miles nor HR Director O’Hanen. Nor does she want to cost the county extra money. 

“It’s just about the process working better,” she said, adding that the procedures aren’t just unfair to her. “I’ve seen it with department heads [and] anyone with a complaint filed against them. … If whatever comes back to you [in a report], if you feel it isn’t accurate, there’s no way to work through that.”

Bushnell said she expects a redacted version of the employee complaint to come before the board soon, possibly for discussion at next week’s meeting. When it becomes public, she will respond to the allegations, she said. But until then she’d rather not discuss it.

“This is not comfortable for me,” she said. “And then it gets played out in the media. … That’s not comfortable either.”

The Outpost has requested a copy of the complaint and all related documents but has not yet heard back. When we asked for a comment on the situation, Public Information Specialist Cati Gallardo gave us essentially the same comment she provided to blogger John Chiv over the weekend: 

“Concerning this situation, the county has followed the processes as outlined in the Code of Conduct adopted by the Board of Supervisors. Given this is a legal matter, and in order to respect the integrity of that process, the county will not discuss this topic further with the press at this time.”