County attorney pleaded with Ottawa Impact not to fire Shay. 'You will send shock waves.'

OTTAWA COUNTY — At the beginning of the year, Ottawa County’s newest batch of ultra conservative commissioners made a slew of sudden changes to county government with no notice to the public.

After being sworn in Tuesday, Jan. 3, the commissioners, including eight new members backed by far-right group Ottawa Impact, fired administrator John Shay and replaced him with former GOP candidate John Gibbs without conducting a public interview; eliminated the county’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office; chose a new health director to replace the successor to Lisa Stefanovsky, who already had been approved by the state; replaced the county’s counsel and changed the county’s vision statement — costing taxpayers what's expected to be in excess of $300,000.

More:Ottawa County Board abruptly fires administrator, hires former GOP candidate John Gibbs

More:Ottawa Impact campaigned on transparency. In their first meeting, they blindsided the community.

The decisions were a surprise to many, but not — it seems — to former corporate counsel Doug Van Essen.

The Grand Haven Tribune reports several dozen emails sent to incoming county commissioners, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, showed Van Essen warning the group not to fire John Shay.

On Dec. 22, prior to the new commissioners being sworn into office, Van Essen wrote in an email to the group: “John Shay has no idea I am sending this message and would not approve of it. John has left for Ohio for Christmas and I have not talked to him about what my connections in other parts of the (state) are advising me.

“Let me summarize the rumor,” he continues. “You have decided to fire John and fire me at the start of the year.”

Ottawa Impact is an upstart far-right political group borne from clashes over the county’s COVID-19 mitigation mandates in 2020. Its founders, Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea, targeted the Ottawa County Commission in 2022, recruiting like-minded candidates who agreed “traditional Republicans” weren’t enforcing true conservative policies.

All of its candidates were required to sign a contract saying, “We recognize our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage and celebrate America as an exceptional nation blessed by God. We stand united to restore and amplify the principles of American exceptionalism.”

Those who signed the contract received funding and campaign support from Moss’ PAC — Ottawa Impact PAC — while agreeing to some specific policy changes upon entering office, including:

• Opposing “unconstitutional orders” by the government in times of crisis, including mask and vaccine mandates

• Disavowing promotion of "divisive" racial equity, privilege and implicit bias training

• Opposing the use of Planned Parenthood resources

Ottawa Impact candidates unseated eight Republican incumbents on the board during the August primary, and now hold a majority on the 11-member board.

More:Did the majority of Ottawa County support Ottawa Impact at the polls? The data says no

More:Christian nationalism is gripping the nation — has it arrived in Ottawa County?

The change in administrator surprised two Ottawa Impact-backed commissioners. Jacob Bonnema wasn't present at meeting Jan. 3. Rebekah Curran, who was present, said she was “completely blindsided” by the move and thought Shay deserved a chance to work with the board.

Curran challenged Moss at the meeting, implying the Ottawa Impact commissioners had discussed possibly firing Shay and decided against it.

“I came to you (Moss) and specifically asked if this was going to happen today and I was pretty much told no,” Curran said. “I’ve been completely blindsided by this this morning. While I think John Gibbs is a fantastic candidate and is very overqualified, I felt that it was prudent to at least give (Shay) the benefit of the doubt to prove if he was going to be able to work with the board or not.”

Van Essen's emails explain why Curran had a reason to approach Moss in the first place.

“Absolutely not,” Curran told FOX-17 when asked if she had knowledge that six of the Ottawa Impact commissioners would bring a vote to replace Shay with Gibbs. “It was brought to my attention that there might be a possibility of legal counsel and the administrator being dismissed. I reached out to Joe Moss and I personally asked him if that was the case, and in essence, I was told no.

“When I went to him during the recess and said, ‘Hey Joe, you lied to me,’ he said, ‘Oh no, I skirted the question,’” Curran said. “And I’m like, well, that’s deception.”

In his email to the commissioners, Van Essen seemed largely unconcerned with his own position, stating he had planned on retiring from the county at the start of 2023, but intended to wait until a suitable replacement could be found. He did, however, seem concerned with the security of Shay’s position.

“I am writing about John Shay and the good of Ottawa County, whose interests you will soon be sworn to uphold,” Van Essen wrote. “First, John is not a friend. We only work together. I am not personally close to John, but I have watched him in operation since he came as deputy administrator.

“John had absolutely no role in COVID, on the mask mandate or any of the health department issues that are so important to you. John had absolutely no role in DEI. It was here when he arrived and he has had no role with it while he has been here. John only took the administrator’s job because he literally felt the county had no one remotely capable who applied. All good candidates were worried about the politics in Ottawa County.”

Van Essen expressed concern that Ottawa Impact’s brand of conservatism will scare away big business from Ottawa County and damage its reputation.

“You can fire me and you can fire the DEI director and serve whatever base you think you have to serve and do minimal damage,” he wrote. “But if you fire the corporation counsel and administrator you will send shock waves, not just throughout the county but at Wall Street where we have ended up with one of the few AAA bond ratings in Michigan, in part due to Ottawa County’s perceived stability.

“Stable counties don’t fire their corporation counsel and administrator,” Van Essen continued. “It either means there is mass corruption or that the commissioners are inexperienced and on some witch hunt. Either way, that bond rating, which affects the ability of the county and townships to save thousands of dollars in rates, will be rattled and at risk because the intangibles are as important in the rating as the financial fundamentals.”

Van Essen confirmed the bond rating is still currently AAA.

Van Essen was replaced as corporate counsel with the Lansing-based Kallman Legal Group, which notably represented Owosso barber Karl Manke, several businesses that sued the state over shutdown orders and four Western Michigan University athletes who sued over a vaccine mandate.

Van Essen refused to comment further because he still serves as the county’s litigation attorney.

Shay had been an employee with the county since 2018. In 2021, he took over for former administrator Al Vandenberg, who left to take the administrator job in Kent County.

In Van Essen’s email, he describes an exodus of county employees who disagreed with the incoming leadership.

“There are 1,800 employees who work at Ottawa that have been scared (some have already left) about the political turnover and John (Shay) has worked tireless(ly) to calm matters down,” Van Essen wrote.

“By the way, of the millions of things that happen in a year in county government, the now dead mask mandate and DEI are not even blips on the day-to-day functioning of Ottawa County government.”

There was also some concern from the attorney about the potential firing of the county health officer, Lisa Stefanovsky. He said the decision could potentially open the county up to expensive litigation down the road.

More:Ottawa County's prospective health officer has no experience. Here's why that could be a problem

The outgoing board appointed longtime health department employee Adeline Hambley to be the next administrative health officer in December after Stefanovsky announced her retirement in August.

The new board wants to remove Hambley and replace her with Nathaniel Kelly, a health and safety manager at a Grand Rapids-area HVAC company. Kelly has no previous work history in public health and does not support masking, vaccines or social distancing to mitigate viruses.

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It's unclear if the state health department can review Kelly's eligibility; the board didn't fire Hambley, but named her the "interim" health officer at the Jan. 3 meeting. Because Hambley currently occupies the position, there technically isn't a vacancy within the county for the state to review.

— Sentinel editor Sarah Leach contributed to this article.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: County attorney pleaded with Ottawa Impact not to fire Shay. 'You will send shock waves.'