Hearing over Ottawa County health officer’s $4 million settlement delayed
MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — Arguments over whether Ottawa County should be forced to pay its top health officer a $4 million lawsuit have been pushed back one week.
The court hearing was scheduled for Monday morning in Muskegon County Circuit Court. After conferring with attorneys privately in chambers, the judge brought the proceedings to order shortly after 10:15 a.m. and quickly adjourned them until Dec. 4.
Ottawa health officer asks court to enforce $4 million settlement
Judge Jenny McNeill said she needed time to review additional motions regarding subpoenas that she received Monday morning.
“I have informed counsel that we are not going to proceed today,” McNeill said. “We are going to adjourn until next Monday at 9 a.m., and at that point in time, we are going to hear arguments on the various motions. We’re not going to take testimony, so any of the subpoenas, everybody can kind of calm down a little bit. We will just have argument on all of the motions addressing the motion to quash subpoenas filed by the defendant and the motion to quash subpoenas filed by the clerk.”
Administrative Health Officer Adeline Hambley’s attorney Sarah Howard said in a court filing earlier this month that the Board of Commissioners agreed to settlement details, including the $4 million payout, on Nov. 6.
“Going out to vote and saying, ‘We’re accepting the recommendation of counsel for this deal,’ we thought that was enough to indicate objective confirmation that there’s a meeting of minds on the essential terms,” Howard told News 8 after Monday’s short proceedings.
Hambley’s attorney says the county is trying to back out of the deal, while the commissioners’ attorney David Kallman said nobody ever agreed to anything. He said emails that Howard pointed to as proof of a deal were tentative only and didn’t go to the board.
“There’s no way the board could vote to approve email tentative discussions as a final settlement when they didn’t even know those emails existed. That’s just common sense. How can you vote on something that you don’t even know exists?” Kallman said.
The court filing says that under the settlement, Hambley would leave her position by Dec. 15, 2023, in exchange for $4 million. Deputy Health Officer Marcia Mansaray would resign in exchange for a severance of one year’s pay. Howard argued that commissioners negotiated the agreement in closed session, memorialized it in writing via a series of emails and voted in favor of the settlement in open session before recessing.
On Nov. 14, the board reconvened and asked to negotiate different terms, according to the filing.
Still no vote: Ottawa County board pauses health officer removal hearing again
Kallman previously told News 8 that there was never a finalized deal and several options had been considered, including the $4 million proposal. He added that his office never recommended that the board accept any specific settlement.
Conservative county commissioners backed by the political action committee Ottawa Impact voted in their first meeting in January to remove Hambley from her job and put her in an interim role. She sued, saying that was illegal. Commissioners countered that she was never properly appointed by their predecessors. The Michigan Court of Appeals finally ruled that Hambley was rightfully appointed, but also that the board could fire her if it could prove cause under state law.
A document signed by Ottawa Impact co-founder and Commission Chair Joe Moss previously laid out a case for why Hambley should lose her job, alleging incompetence, neglect and misconduct in the way she handled and communicated to the press about this year’s budgeting process.
The removal hearing got underway Oct. 24 and included two days of testimony in which Hambley’s lawyer tried to show her client was only concerned with ensuring her department could operate properly. Hambley testified she went to the media because her understanding was that the general fund dollars to the Ottawa County Department of Public Health would be limited to $2.5 million, which she said would cause it to close. Commissioners ultimately decided the health department would get about $4.8 million from the general fund. The health department’s total allocation for the fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, was less than the previous year.
Commissioners debated for a while after the second day of testimony, but held off voting so they would have more time to consider everything they heard. The following Monday, Oct. 30, they pushed the vote back another week. On Nov. 6, they voted to accept their lawyer’s recommendations on “litigation and settlement activities.” Kallman told News 8 that motion was meant to indicate discussions would continue. During the fifth day of the hearing, commissioners voted immediately to go to closed session. After hours of negotiations, members came back said they were recessing again.
The hearing has been scheduled to resume for its sixth day on Tuesday. Kallman said the board could make a decision on whether to fire Hambley or go into closed session again to continue to meet with attorneys.
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