Following the September 13th article titled “A Story of Corruption Involving Two Josephine County Commissioners and the Republican Party Leadership,” this update corrects one salary number that was off in the original article and provides some reactions to the original article.
As mentioned in our report last Friday September 13th, after the filing of a recall petition against Josephine County Commissioner John West in early August 2024, additional unsettling stories have come to light. And we now know that when caught with a hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, Commissioner West has chosen to make false statements and verbal threats rather than explain his policy recommendations or admit to making mistakes.
Even when presented with simple facts, such as clear violations of state campaign finance laws (see the fact sheet referenced on the recall website www.recalljohnwest.com), West and the Republican Party leadership refuse to admit they’ve been caught and instead deflect by telling false stories about the motivations of recall committee volunteers.
In the summer of 2023, about six months after Commissioner John West took office, the County had already lost a few department directors and needed to hire an Emergency Management Director and an IT Director. According to a statement from Josephine County’s former HR Director, who was involved in the hiring processes, Commissioner West called Commissioner Baertschiger (an illegal meeting) right before a meeting where they were slated to select a candidate to fill the Emergency Manager role.
Commissioner West stated on the phone that the County didn’t need to fill the position, claiming that the County only had to have an emergency management program, not a manager. West wanted to assign the oversight to another person and said this would be a good way to get Sellers a pay bump (referring to Michael Sellers, who was eventually appointed to the newly created position of “Technology / Emergency Services Director”). This was especially troubling to the former HR Director, as Sellers had not yet even interviewed for the IT position.
Also troubling was that Commissioner Dan DeYoung was not involved in the restructuring that combined two department director positions into one, and that Michael Sellers had no actual emergency management experience. Sellers’ resume confirms that he had no experience working in an emergency management department and no real boots-on-the-ground experience in an emergency management incident. Sellers, Vice Chair of the Josephine County Republican Executive Committee and former Chief of Staff for Senator Baertschiger (now County Commissioner), was a close political ally of both West and Baertschiger, which is likely why he got the job.
Both the former HR Director and former Commissioner Dan DeYoung confirmed that the County passed over an emergency management candidate with about 15 years of real experience to give Sellers a pay bump. Former Commissioner DeYoung confirmed in a recent interview that he was so disgusted by the department restructuring and hiring process (which completely left him out of the decision) that when it came time to interview for the newly created Technology / Emergency Services Director position, he refused to participate, knowing that their minds were already made up.
Coincidentally, I recently spoke to the emergency manager candidate who had 15 years of experience and was passed up for the job. He confirmed the facts told by the County’s former HR Director and former Commissioner DeYoung.
Josephine County’s former HR Director further reported that Commissioner West saw him at the Grants Pass Growers Market on Saturday, September 14th, the day after this original article came out. West called out to the former HR Director saying “he was gonna sue me into the poor house, saying I’d lose everything I have with lawyer fees. I told him he can threaten me all he wants. I will bring witness after witness confirming I speak truth. I said I’m not afraid of you.” This is how Commissioner West reacts when light shines on his bad behavior. It sounds to me like Commissioner West is opening up Josephine County to additional liability to the County if he pursues this course of action.
Commissioner West also continues to falsely claim that merging the IT and Emergency Management departments saved the County $95,000 per year. In reality, the budgets for both departments increased by $835,400, or 35.3%, in fiscal year 2025.
More troubling is that Michael Sellers didn’t disclose that he was also working full-time for the State of Oregon when he was appointed to the Technology / Emergency Services Director position a little over a year ago, and he continues to work full-time for the State of Oregon today. A public records request from the State of Oregon revealed that Sellers earns a gross salary of $7,139 per month working 50% FTE (full-time equivalent) as Chief of Staff for Senator Art Robinson and 50% of his time working as Legislative Assistant III under Senator Brian Boquist.
Sellers is effectively triple-dipping into taxpayer funds. Figures in this previous paragraph have been revised from the original article due to the strange and misleading way the state answered our specific public records request. Please also see the end of this article for both the received public records request and the resumes and County job application received by the Grants Pass Tribune.
You might ask, as I did, how one person can serve as the full-time director of two busy Josephine County departments while working full-time for the State of Oregon. Well, you can’t. It’s physically impossible to give full-time hours to each of these jobs simultaneously. In my opinion, this is a clear case of taxpayer waste and abuse. Sellers works two government full-time jobs, both of which are highly paid government jobs.
Another news article that came out over last weekend quoted Commissioners West and Baertschiger as saying they did not know Sellers was simultaneously working full-time with Josephine County and full-time with the State Legislature. This is hard to believe given how closely Sellers and Baertschiger previously worked together, how close West and Baertschiger are with Senator Robinson, and reportedly how close Baertschiger is with Senator Boquist. This also helps prove Sellers was hired as a political ally rather than because of his qualifications, given Sellers disclosed at the time of his application that he was working with Senator Robinson. Did Commissioners West and Baertschiger even read Sellers’ job application and resume? Curiously, in Sellers’ application for employment with Josephine County and resume, Sellers did not disclose that he had been working with Senator Boquist since 2021.
I recently interviewed former Josephine County Commissioner Dan DeYoung, who shared some stories about his interactions with Sellers during Sellers’ first few months on the job. For example, DeYoung had to sign a travel/mileage reimbursement form for Sellers, but noticed inconsistencies and ineligible mileage claims. When he called Sellers into his office to correct the errors, Sellers became visibly angry. DeYoung also questioned Sellers about jobs he left off his resume, including a towing company where Sellers was allegedly fired for misappropriation of assets. Sellers responded dismissively, saying, “I didn’t need to disclose that.”
After this interaction, Sellers reported to HR that DeYoung harassed him and demanded that DeYoung could no longer correspond or meet with him without legal counsel present. According to DeYoung, Sellers was hired to do the dirty work of Commissioners West and Baertschiger, monitoring County employees’ communications. Other County employees have voiced similar concerns, including Sellers’ focus on monitoring communications and the purchase of GPS devices for County vehicles without proper justification.
Backing up these concerns, former Secretary to the Board of Commissioners, Trish House, was abruptly fired after complaining about Sellers’ behavior. Trish reportedly claimed that Sellers was unproductive, frequently absent, and hired because of his connections rather than his skills. This aligns with concerns from other County employees about how much time Sellers and the two commissioners spend across the street at the Josephine County Republican headquarters instead of at the courthouse.
Further illustrating Sellers’ inefficiency, Josephine County residents lost out on a broadband grant of nearly $200,000 because Sellers failed to follow through on a project promised by his predecessor. This lost grant revenue was disclosed in a public meeting of the Josephine Community Library District budget committee earlier this year. Commissioner West has set out to financially attack the Josephine Community Library District, and based on Sellers’ refusal to meet with Library officials to discuss the terms of this broadband grant, Sellers appears to have followed the same political agenda of Commissioner West which resulted in the loss of the grant. The ultimate loss is for the citizens of Josephine County in this case. See the fact sheet at www.recalljohnwest.com for more information about how Commissioner West attacked the local Library District.
As a lifelong conservative, I call on both the current County Commissioners and the Josephine County Republican Party Leadership to address these abuses of public tax dollars. I’ve heard from too many local republicans that say the current leadership of the Josephine County Republican Party does not represent them or what the Party is supposed to stand for.
What do you think? Drop me a line using jay@VoteJayCPA.com to share your thoughts.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS: (Oregon State Records Request)
