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County board fires administrator in 3-2 vote

ESCANABA — The Delta County Board of Commissioners drew ire from a crowd of residents that overflowed into the hallway at the Delta County Service Center Tuesday by voting to terminate Delta County Administrator Emily DeSalvo. The move came after the administrator gave a public statement about her treatment and accusing board members of a pattern of unethical behavior.

“I thank Administrator DeSalvo for what she’s presented. My name and a few other commissioners’ were used a few times in this. And she’s right, she serves at the pleasure of the board. So I’m going to make a motion to terminate Administrator Emily DeSalvo’s contract and employment with Delta County, immediately,” said Commissioner Bob Barron following DeSalvo’s statement (see related story).

The motion was seconded by Commission Robert Petersen, who was accused both by DeSalvo and Commissioner John Malnar of having prior knowledge of the Delta County Conservations District’s intent to pull out of its contract with the county for the management of the county’s parks. Earlier in the meeting, Petersen admitted he was aware of the disgruntled conservation district employees while serving as the conservation district’s board chair, but said the final decision was made after he was off the board.

Board Chair Dave Moyle — who was also named specifically in DeSalvo’s statement — joined with Barron and Petersen in the vote for DeSalvo’s termination. Malnar and Commission Steve Viau voted against her dismissal.

“I would need Emily’s keys tonight,” said Moyle after the vote. “There will be somebody in the office first thing tomorrow morning where you can get your personal stuff. Thank you for your service, and I do wish you luck.”

During the discussion prior to the vote, Malnar lamented the motion and general direction of the board.

“I don’t know where this board is headed, but it looks like it’s going down the tubes. I am just, can’t even, words can’t describe it. And I think it’s wrong. Deadbeat wrong. I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he said.

Despite her firing, DeSalvo’s statement alleging misconduct by Barron, Petersen, Moyle, and Delta County Conservation District CEO Rory Mattson was met with overwhelming support from the audience and a round of applause at its conclusion. Commissioner Moyle repeatedly interrupted the statement to threaten to remove audience members and to clear the room when the audience applauded the statement. He compared applause to “outbursts” and repeatedly said the audience was “out of control.”

“Listen, I haven’t heard anyone out of control right now, so I think people can just calmly listen to what’s being said,” Sgt. Kurt Wilson, of the Delta County Sheriff’s Office, told Moyle when the commissioner called for the room to be cleared and for officers to bring individual speakers into the room one-by-one for final public comment.

The room was not cleared and public comment continued as usual, with the exception of Zoom participation. The connection to Zoom and the YouTube feed cut out shortly before public comment began and the three-minute clock used to monitor public comment also glitched, staying locked at three minutes.

Throughout the course of the meeting, Moyle said he would use a police escort to remove an audience member or for the room to be cleared entirely nine times, repeatedly for applause and often for comments made at whisper-level volume. No one was removed from the meeting room by an officer at any point, but one man, who stormed out of the meeting after hearing DeSalvo say Petersen had been thinking about what would happen to the county if she were hit by a car, was prevented from reentering the building by officers.

A dozen people spoke during the final public comment period. The majority of those comments revolved around DeSalvo’s dismissal, with the remainder focusing on the Conservation District’s decision to terminate its contract for the parks or alleging other board member misconduct not raised by DeSalvo in her statement.

Some in the public commented on specific statements from DeSalvo’s speech, such as her claim the commissioners were already discussing her replacement.

“I guess now that you’ve taken this step to eliminate Emily, the next step would be that you put in place Rory Mattson as your interim administrator, county administrator. This apparently is your next step,” said Ford River resident Christine Williams.

Others focused on two emails sent to DeSalvo after the Feb. 7 commission meeting. According to DeSalvo, the emails from Barron and Petersen directed her to stop researching the county’s options to run the parks in-house.

“You guys seem to be off on a little power trip of your own and have personal interests. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am, how disgusted I am in your behavior, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s an embarrassment to this community,” said former County Commission Chair Mary Harrington, who reminded the commission DeSalvo worked for the board as a whole and not individual commissioners. “What are you guys thinking? It’s really sad, and I can’t even tell you how disappointed I am with you guys. Rest easy with your minds.”

Barron and Peterson both confirmed earlier in the meeting that they had reached out to DeSalvo via email individually. Both men said their intent was to say she did not know the direction the board was going to go. Barron confirmed he said in his email that DeSalvo was being “presumptuous,” as she had indicated.

Two comments made took aim at DeSalvo. The first was made by Bonnie Hakkola, who did not identify herself during the meeting.

“I would just like to say, this has been a very difficult evening. I’m sorry to hear that the board is having to hear accusations and I think a lot of these accusations could be mitigated if there were another venue. So I would like to say, also, that if you have someone work for you that challenges you openly in the manner that I saw tonight, that it would be extremely difficult to work with that person and have a productive relationship,” said Hakkola, who added she didn’t believe “the board really had much of a choice.”

The other comment was made by Reid Hyken, who said he had multiple Freedom of Information Act requests that remained unfulfilled. He also blamed Malnar for the audience’s response to DeSalvo’s firing, claiming he had spread the word that the board was considering her termination.

Despite the many comments critical of the board and its actions — including members of the public calling the board or its members “hypocrites” or “disgusting” — the board itself made no comments on DeSalvo or any other issue before closing the meeting Tuesday.

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