On Thursday, April 16, the Josephine County Commissioners held both an open session and a private executive session to “consider the dismissal or discipline of, or to hear complaints or charges brought against a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent.” This was to cover both the County’s Information Technology and Emergency Management Director (Michael Sellers) and Airports Manager (Mike Crisafulli). Both Sellers and Crisafulli had been on paid admin leave for several months.
Both Sellers and Crisafulli also faced criticisms from many community members for being a crony hire of previous commissioners. Sellers was hired by former commissioners West and Baertschiger after serving as Baertschiger’s chief of staff for eight years in the Oregon Senate. Sellers was also in a leadership position in the Josephine County Republican Central Committee at the time, making him a close political ally of both West and Baertschiger at the time. Crisafulli was hired by commissioner Andreas Blech last year in a relatively rapid hiring process after the former Airports Director left. Crisafulli has been described as a good friend of commissioner Blech for many years, as evidenced by both testimony of airports users and real estate deals between the two going back to at least 2017.
After spending a little over an hour discussing both Sellers and Crisafulli in a private executive session, commissioners went back into open session and made two quick votes without discussing the matter in open session. Commissioners voted unanimously to dismiss Michael Sellers and prepare a due process hearing. Commissioners then voted 2-1 to return Crisafulli from administrative leave with a “Performance Improvement Plan.” Commissioners Martin and Richardson voted yes, with commissioner Smith voting no.
While no reasons were stated in open session, a due process hearing would typically imply that Sellers was fired for cause. And a performance improvement plan would imply that commissioners have concerns about the job performance of Crisafulli. Sellers had been on paid admin leave since October 2025, after the Oregon Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into both Sellers and former commissioner Blech. Crisafulli had been on paid admin leave for a few months for reasons that have not yet been disclosed.
Starting in the fall of 2024, the Grants Pass Tribune started publishing articles detailing the crony hiring process that led to hiring Sellers in the summer of 2023 and some corrupt activities that had already taken place with commissioners West and Baertschiger looking the other way. At the time of his hire in 2023, Sellers’ resume showed he had no boots on the ground experience working in Emergency Management and he was now the director of the department.
The Grants Pass Tribune also broke the story in the fall of 2024 that Michael Sellers had two different jobs besides his county job working for two state senators while at the same time working as the director of Josephine County’s Information Technology and Emergency Management departments. Each of the two legislature jobs paid the equivalent of 50% of a full-time salary, making Sellers earn the equivalent of a full-time salary from both the Oregon Legislature and Josephine County at the same time. There are not enough hours in a day or week to effectively work all these jobs at the same time, in my opinion.
Commissioners West and Baertschiger looked the other way when this story broke, claiming that they didn’t know Sellers was working these other jobs and claiming that they didn’t care as long as Sellers was getting the job done. This is despite Sellers disclosing one of the two jobs on his resume when he applied to work for the county. County employees on the other hand have testified to the Grants Pass Tribune that Sellers was regularly “missing in action,” especially during times when the legislature was in session.
Sellers worked all three jobs simultaneously up until the end of 2024, then in April 2025 an inside county whistleblower blew the whistle on the fact that former commissioner Andreas Blech unilaterally promoted Sellers to a newly created job of Director of Operations for a total compensation package of $388,000 per year. This was significantly higher than the top paid county staff member in any of Josephine County’s peer counties across the state, and Sellers appeared to have lacked the qualifications to serve in what would effectively be a County Manager executive role.
The Grants Pass Tribune submitted several records requests in 2025 related to Sellers’ employment and salary history. The first couple were illegally denied, citing state law exemptions not applicable in this case. It took several months and an appeal to the Josephine County District Attorney to get the first couple of records requests fulfilled.
Then when one of those records requests was finally fulfilled on the District Attorney’s demand, according to a second county inside whistleblower one of the key records that should have been included in the fulfilled records request was missing. This was the signed personnel action form which promoted Sellers to the Director of Operations position with the total compensation package of $388,000 per year.
The second whistleblower, the County’s Finance Director, claimed that she signed this personnel action form after commissioner Blech approved it. All the other personnel action forms approved for Sellers were included in the fulfilled records request, but this one was missing.
The County’s Finance Director had no choice but to report this to law enforcement, and the state Department of Justice investigation began. Almost eight months later, the DOJ investigation is still not fully complete today. The time it has taken to complete this investigation suggests, in my opinion, that the investigation is likely covering more than just a missing personnel action form.
While to this day the Grants Pass Tribune is still waiting on the fulfillment of a couple Sellers-related records requests, personnel actions forms received last year revealed at least one other major costly mistake approved by former commissioner Blech. In early 2025, Blech approved a retroactive salary increase for Sellers going all the way back to the summer of 2023 when Sellers was first hired. The total cost of the retro pay including taxes and benefits was likely approaching almost $50,000; however, this is one of the records requests that remains outstanding. In our opinion, the personnel rules used to justify this retro payment were not applied correctly.
While there are many other stories we’ve heard about the performance of both Sellers and Crisafulli from county insiders, the end is near for Sellers and in a typical performance improvement plan Crisafulli would have to agree to the plan conditions. Sellers will be given an opportunity to defend himself against the performance allegations in a due process hearing in front of the commissioners. These hearings would often be done in private executive sessions, however typically the employee has a right to request the hearing be done in open session.
Whatever happens, current county commissioners appear eager to put this painful chapter in the rear-view mirror.