'Get out of my face': Ottawa administrator's behavior 'threatening,' commissioner claims

OTTAWA COUNTY — Ottawa County Administrator John Gibbs is under investigation for "threatening" behavior, according to a complaint filed in March by one of the sitting county commissioners.

In an email filed March 21, District 4 Commissioner Jacob Bonnema requested Human Resources Director Marcie VerBeek open a disciplinary investigation into Gibbs after what Bonnema described as a "threatening outburst" at the board's March 14 meeting.

The exchange was overheard by a reporter from local ABC affiliate WZZM 13, which reported on it the same day.

Bonnema told VerBeek that "if Gibbs is willing to speak to commissioners in this way, then he is very likely to treat the employees and citizens of Ottawa County in similar fashion."

The Sentinel obtained a copy of the complaint through a Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent appeal.

Bonnema declined The Sentinel's request for comment for this story. Gibbs did not respond.

How we got here

The confrontation came one day after Bonnema publicly announced he was severing his relationship with Ottawa Impact, the far-right fundamentalist group that helped get him elected last fall. When citing his reasons for departing the group, Bonnema said he ran to serve the people in his communities and that Ottawa Impact no longer aligned with his values.

More: Signs of fracture as three commissioners distance themselves from Ottawa Impact

More: Commissioner Bonnema: Ottawa Impact 'silencing the elected voices' of the county

"In 2022, I ran to serve the people of the City of Zeeland, Zeeland Township, and Holland Township," Bonnema wrote in a statement. "I ran on the values of government transparency and accountability and respect for parental rights. At the time, these same values appeared to be aligned with the Ottawa Impact PAC. Unfortunately, some of the PAC’s leaders, who now lead the county commission, have not acted in strict accordance with some of these values."

Those leaders, Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea, created the group after clashes with the county and its COVID-19 mitigation mandates in 2020 and 2021.

Moss and Rhodea were unsuccessful in suing the previous board of commissioners and the county's former health officer, Lisa Stefanovsky, so they targeted seats on the board in 2022, recruiting like-minded candidates who agreed “traditional Republicans” weren’t enforcing true conservative policies. They successfully defeated enough incumbents in the August primary to win the majority.

Bonnema remained aligned with the group, but said he grew frustrated with a lack of communication, particularly with new administrator Gibbs, who was hired by the OI majority Jan. 3, among other sudden and controversial decisions. Bonnema was absent that day.

Those decisions, including firing former administrator John Shay and former corporation counsel Doug Van Essen, as well as demoting health officer Adeline Hambley in favor of public health newcomer and COVID-19 minimizer Nathaniel Kelly and eliminating the county's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office, have resulted in two pending lawsuits against the commission and a six-week investigation from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel over allegations of Open Meetings Act violations.

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

More: Judge: Ottawa health officer will remain in place until trial on broader issues

Hambley filed a lawsuit against the Ottawa Impact commissioners on Feb. 10, and later amended the complaint to include the full board. She claims OI-linked commissioners have repeatedly interfered with her ability to do her job. A judge has since granted a preliminary injunction, preventing Ottawa Impact from firing Hambley until a trial can take place later this year.

What the complaint alleges

In his March complaint, Bonnema describes numerous attempts to speak to Gibbs on the status of Kelly's application for health officer. He notes a first attempt at the board's meeting on Feb. 28 and said, "Moss prevented Gibbs from answering the question. ... Gibbs offered to update me after the meeting ended. ... He said he would get back to us with an update after he spoke to HR."

Bonnema goes on to document text messages sent to Gibbs on Feb. 28, March 2 and March 3 with no response. He describes an email sent by District 7 Commissioner Rebekah Curran to Gibbs on the same subject, and adds she also received no response.

In the complaint, Bonnema said he approached Gibbs prior to the March 14 meeting.

"I said, 'Hey John, I still need to know the status of the Kelly appointment to health officer.' He ignored me and just stared straight ahead into space," Bonnema wrote in his complaint. "So I continued, 'I would like to know before the meeting begins so that I do not have to ask the question again in public.' He said something about how he thinks he communicates well with commissioners. So I responded, 'Then would you please give me an update?'"

Bonnema describes Gibbs' response as "a short update explaining the multiple reasons that they have decided to hold the application in his office."

"I replied, 'Thank you for that, but going forward, would you please respond to our texts and emails so that we don't have to continue asking you?' Gibbs replied, 'Get out of my face, dude!'" Bonnema wrote in the complaint.

"'Get out of my face, dude?' I replied. I said, 'John, I am a commissioner. It is my job to provide oversight on matters like this.' Gibbs replied, 'Get out of my face!' I told him this was incredibly unprofessional and I returned to my seat."

Bonnema and Curran have both been vocal during meetings, often questioning why the board isn't following historically accepted practices and protocols.

Curran told The Sentinel in early March she initially was affiliated with Ottawa Impact, but withdrew in spring 2022. District 6 Commissioner Kyle Terpstra said although the group featured him on its website briefly during the campaign season, he never was affiliated with OI and never accepted funding from Ottawa Impact PAC.

Moss has interrupted Bonnema and Curran several times during discussions over various board business. Most notably, he attempted to get the board to take a brief recess during the board's Jan. 31 meeting after Curran questioned District 1 Commissioner Gretchen Cosby over the vetting process to select Kelly as the county's new health officer.

Three days after Bonnema filed his complaint about Gibbs, a tense showdown occurred between Bonnema and Moss during the board's rules committee meeting, where Moss and Rhodea championed revoking dedicated time on the regular board's agenda to allow commissioners to speak freely about non-agenda-related topics.

“I’m not interested at this point in having what you might call commissioner comments or commissioner free-for-all at the end of meetings,” Moss told the nine members of the rules committee March 24. “I’d like to have well-run, orderly, organized meetings. An open-ended discussion, maybe, is best handled outside the board room, where you can go back and forth with each other."

Moss said any commissioners wanting to add an item to the agenda can come to him, or the chair of a subcommittee, and request it be added for discussion.

“I really protest this," Bonnema told Moss. "We are elected just as you are."

Moss interrupted, saying Bonnema didn't have the floor to speak, and picked up the gavel.

"Hit the gavel," Bonnema challenged.

“You are not recognized, you need to wait,” Moss said.

"You are stifling—"

“You are out of order," Moss interrupted again. "Please stop."

The next day, Bonnema released a statement saying Moss continues to stifle civil discourse and is methodically ensuring no dissent be allowed during public meetings.

More: Commissioner Bonnema: Ottawa Impact 'silencing the elected voices' of the county

In his statement, Bonnema said Moss and his "lockstep commission" are "silencing the elected voices of the people of Zeeland, Holland, Georgetown, Allendale and Grand Haven, just because he doesn't like what he might have to hear."

Other non-OI commissioners have since confirmed to The Sentinel their requests to add items to the agenda have been ignored.

"Sometimes I feel like we don't also have the chance to comment and talk among ourselves," said District 3 Commissioner Doug Zylstra, the lone Democrat on the board, during the March 24 rules committee meeting.

District 10 Commissioner Roger Bergman said Gibbs and Moss claimed to represent “the board’s” wishes when they requested changes to a countywide community health survey via email between two recent meetings — but half of the commissioners didn’t know about the discussion at all.

"Gibbs said the commissioners were requesting this (but) the commissioners were not all involved," he said. "Myself, and I know that one or two others, were not involved in any of these discussions and I think the public needs to know it wasn't the commission presenting these — it was a few of the commissioners."

Since the complaint was filed against him, Gibbs' responsiveness to non-OI commissioners does not seem to have improved. At the board's Tuesday, May 9, meeting, Bonnema addressed the fact Gibbs continues to not respond to phone calls or emails.

"I know that half the board has struggled getting answers out of our administrator," Bonnema said, looking directly at Gibbs. "To date, I have not received any response to my numerous emails to the administrator. And this process — we're going into budget season — requires answers to questions. My job, as a commissioner, is to provide oversight. If I cannot ask questions and get answers, in any kind of timely manner, it prevents me from being able to do my job."

Bonnema then pivoted to address Moss: "I've requested this multiple times — that communication improves between the administrator, counsel, yourself. ... I think we need to take a good, hard look at how we are operating right now so we can do our best job for our community as we go into budget season. Because right now, communication is in dire need."

Moss replied, "Yes, it is. Thank you."

Moss did not respond to The Sentinel's request for comment on this story. The Ottawa Impact commissioners have never responded to local media requests.

A problematic FOIA response

The Sentinel obtained a copy of the Bonnema complaint through a FOIA request filed March 23 through the county's online FOIA center. The request asked for any and all complaints made about Gibbs to the county's Human Relations Office from employees, officials, county commissioners and residents from Jan. 3-March 23.

In his response April 14, county corporate counsel Jack Jordan described the request as overly broad and estimated fulfillment would cost $5,071.10 and take 36 weeks to complete. Jordan said the cost for the county's IT department to locate the records would be one hour of time at a cost of $77.76 and that 38 hours of corporate counsel legal time would cost an additional $4,979.20. The remaining costs were listed as shipping fees and the cost of a flash drive to store the data.

The Sentinel appealed the FOIA response over the estimated fees and timeline, among other issues, arguing they did not align with state law and essentially was a denial of the request.

A public body may not charge more than the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of searching for, locating, and examining the information necessary to comply with a request under FOIA. This is true regardless of whether that person is available or actually performs the labor, said Robin Luce-Herrmann, general counsel for the Michigan Press Association.

"FOIA specifically requires the public body use the lowest-paid public employee capable of performing that function. That does not allow a public body to designate one person to respond to all requests at a much higher rate," Luce-Herrmann said.

FOIA also allows a public body to use contracted labor to separate and delete exempt information, but those labor costs must not exceed an amount equal to six times the state minimum hourly wage, which is currently $10.33, or a cost of $61.98 per hour.

In his response, Jordan listed fees more than 31 times those allowed under state law.

In his May 9 response to The Sentinel's appeal, Moss released the Bonnema complaint. He also confirmed it was the only one during the timeline of the original FOIA request and that an investigation was ongoing.

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He went on to revise the county's initial timeline response to 150 days to complete at a cost of $81,532.68. He requested The Sentinel make a "good faith deposit" of $40,766.43 in order to cover the costs of additional searching through county employee emails and text messages.

"It's very concerning that there seem to be a large number of FOIA requests where the response — they will cost thousands and thousands of dollars and take months to fulfill," Luce-Herrmann said. "FOIA prohibits deliberate delays for requested information."

The Sentinel does not plan to pursue the revised $81,000 project, but has filed additional FOIA requests on complaints made against Gibbs.

— Sarah Leach is executive editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @SentinelLeach.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Ottawa administrator's behavior 'threatening,' commissioner claims