'Definition of a toxic work environment.' Every worker quits Stark Soil & Water District

MASSILLON ‒ The Stark Soil & Water Conservation District is a muddy mess.

Every employee of the government office has quit. To stay afloat, the district's volunteer board of supervisors had to temporarily outsource most of the agency's workload and divvy up other duties to the board members themselves.

Former employees blame the mass exodus on Executive Director John Weedon. The five-member board, they added, ignored signals that the office was ready to implode.

"The definition of a toxic work environment; that was Stark Soil & Water," said Taylor Noble, a drainage specialist who left on March 27 for a job in the Pacfic Northwest.

"Weird, backstabbing kind of stuff," said former Outreach Technician Adrienne Bock, who left in October.

"We'd all went to the board and nothing was done," said Rome Marinelli, a drainage specialist who quit last year.

By the time its staff of seven employees had eroded to three by mid-March, it was too late. The floodgates opened. The remaining trio was gone by month's end.

Among that group was Weedon, who skipped a board meeting and resigned on March 18. His departure came days after the board gave him written warnings for having alcohol in his office and for creating public documents about employees.

The latter was a series of writings dubbed "Game Plan," which read like a scheme on how to win over certain employees while making others quit by isolating them, making one feel bored, and holding another to task "so that he snaps."

Assistant Stark County Prosecutor Jerry Yost was called in by the board the day Weedon quit because it requested assistance on how to move forward and continue functioning.

"Mr. Weedon seemed to have difficulty gaining the respect and cooperation of his staff and the difficult work environment appears to have continued until the whole system failed," Yost wrote in an email response for this story.

Weedon, reached by the Repository, said, "There are two sides to every story."

He said he'd accepted board reprimands last month for the alcohol and his "Game Plan" documents and that both sides had moved on. However, after careful thought in the following days, Weedon said he realized he and the board were moving in different directions, which is why he resigned.

"And I never fired anyone," he said.

He said he was willing to remain as director until a replacement was hired, an offer the board rejected.

"My intention was not to leave the district high and dry," Weedon said.

Stark Soil & Water: Why did everyone quit?

Public records and interviews, along with office communications and files obtained by The Canton Repository, reveal details of an ongoing divide between staff and Weedon.

It first came to a head in the spring of 2023, said Bock. She said she saw Weedon touch the butt of another female employee, then overheard him tell a sexually charged joke to another female in the office.

"It was uncomfortable," Bock said.

She said she couldn't complain to Weedon so she reached out to Board Chairman Ann Wolfe. Bock said no one interviewed her further about the complaints.

Wolfe declined comment for this story.

"All those false allegations were investigated by the board," Weedon said.

Noble said the board's inaction only fortified the staff's resentment of Weedon and the board.

On one side was Weedon and Sarah Clutter, formerly Sarah Matheny, who left last year only to return in December as a special projects coordinator. The other side, to varying degrees, was everyone else in the office, which included those hired during the past year.

"(Weedon) knew we had went to the board ... and he retaliated," said Marinelli. "It's really too bad because I loved my job. But I felt like I had to leave."

Clutter, who now works for the Canton city engineer, did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story.

Weedon's "Game Plan" documents seem to illustrate how much office relationships had deteriorated. They appear to have been written a year ago to Clutter because she's the only one not referred to by name.

"We both should look for other jobs," it states. "I don’t want to work for or supervise people that think so little of me or treat you the way they did.

"We have a good shot to survive but it is uncertain given the unprofessional board and backstabbing staff. Our goal is to reduce the chances of being fired so we have the time to land elsewhere."

The plan lays out the following "core principles:"

"Trust no one. Only business-like language on work email, teams, work phone text. Rely on our personal phones for the other stuff. Reduce the time we are together in front of staff. Everything we say can and will be used against us. Pretend the board is in the room. Document, document, document."

It goes on to decribe how to handle the board, and the need to find a legitimate candidate to run in a fall election.

Then, this, "Break up the pack by changing expectations," it states. "Go from informal to formal organization; go by the book. Have them turn on each other. Keep them so busy they don’t have time or energy to support each other."

And ultimately, "Make them jealous of each other (unsure how do this; still thinking)," it states. "This requires me to be ruthless; this requires you to stop being (maternal)."

On the other hand, office documents indicate Weedon had reprimanded an employee for using a shared cellphone system feature to track locations of Weedon, Clutter and others, mostly during non-working hours.

"Why are you tracking staff and recording staff locations when neither Sarah nor myself have every asked you to do this?" he wrote. "This is disappointing ... inappropriate ... unsettling ... "

Lots of help to keep operation going

Presented with a clean slate, Yost said, the board is focused on moving the district forward.

"Currently the board’s plan is to hire a director and that way the director will  have some input on the selection of the staff," Yost said. "This did not happen when (Weedon) took over for the former director and the transition was not an easy one."

Each of Ohio's 88 counties has a soil and water district. Although they collaborate with the Ohio Department of Agriculture, each tax-funded district's operations are run by independent elected boards of supervisors.

In Stark's case, that's Wolfe, the chairman, Vice Chair Natalie Hammer, fiscal agent Rodney Campbell, Secretary Andy Wentling and member Rick Horner.

Its duties include handling drainage complaints, performing storm water inspections and reviewing development plans on projects of more than one acre.

Yost said the board has received and reviewed some applications for its executive director post.

For now, he said, the board has hired former Cuyahoga County Soil & Water Director Janine Rybka at $30 per hour to temporarily oversee the office.

The board has informal agreements with Summit and Cuyahoga counties to handle some work; pledges for help from the Department of Agriculture; and assurances that board members will share duties to investigate drainage complaints.

This month, the board also agreed to a contract with EnviroScience, a firm in Stow.

The private firm will be paid as much as $288,000 through the end of the year to handle stormwater pollution prevention plan reviews and approvals, construction site inspections and complaints and violation support.

Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 or tim.botos@cantonrep.com.On X: @tbotosREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Mass exodus at Stark Soil & Water office; all work now outsourced