The BCC Weekly – Taking the “Blind” out of the BCC
Josephine County now has its own mini-Watergate political scandal. And like the original Watergate, the extraordinary lengths taken by those accused to cover up the alleged crimes are likely worse than the “crime” itself.
The Grants Pass Daily Courier first reported that Commissioner Andreas Blech and IT/Emergency Management Director Michael Sellers are under investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice, after an insider in County government had no choice but to report their actions to outside law enforcement. But what you won’t read about in the Courier is that it was reporting and follow-up investigations by the Grants Pass Tribune that caused the whistleblower to come forward and report the alleged crimes.
This round of problems began when in early March 2025 Commissioners Barnett and Smith delegated their voting power on personnel matters and gave Commissioner Blech sole authority to take any personnel actions he deemed necessary to “restructure” County government. Soon after, the Public Health Director and Community Development Director were fired with termination letters signed by Michael Sellers, “Interim Director of Operations.”
The Director of Operations was a job title that didn’t even exist in approved County salary schedules at the time but appeared to operate and have responsibilities very similar to a County Manager given the directors’ termination letters were signed by this new position. In addition to his existing duties, Michael Sellers was put in charge of both the Human Resources and Finance departments given the recent resignation of the Finance/HR Director, despite having no experience working in an HR or Finance department. But the Commissioners never publicly disclosed what all the responsibilities of this brand-new Director of Operations were supposed to be and just appointed Sellers to the new job without any kind of public decision or public announcement.
This was just the latest of many controversies involving Michael Sellers. Sellers was hired in July 2023 in what many say was a crony appointment to a new job title at the time to be director of IT and Emergency Management, despite having no boots on the ground experience working in an Emergency Management department at the time of hire. The former Josephine County HR Director has testified that former Commissioners West and Baertschiger held illegal private meetings to create a new job with a higher pay schedule for their political buddy Michael Sellers. Sellers had worked under former Commissioner Baertschiger during the eight years he served as a State Senator and was also the Vice Chair of the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee until he resigned shortly after the first part of this scandal was made public. All three 2025 Commissioners are Josephine County Republican PCPs and therefore active with the party central committee.
And there are many other controversies related to Michael Sellers’ performance and related actions by the Commissioners that have been well documented by the Grants Pass Tribune. For example, prior to 2025, a records request obtained by the Grants Pass Tribune showed that Michael Sellers was working full time for two State Republican Senators at the same time as he was supposed to be working full time as the Director of Josephine County IT and Emergency Management. In my opinion, it’s not possible to work two busy full-time jobs like these at the same time, so this is a blatant abuse of our state and local tax dollars. There are other examples of problems with Michael Sellers, some of which have now been reported to the State Department of Justice.
The original “crime” in this particular story was disclosed by an insider when former 2025 Budget Officer Simon Hare resigned in a blaze of public glory towards the end of April 2025 and disclosed budget documents that proved Commissioner Andreas Blech was trying to pay Michael Sellers a total compensation package including taxes and benefits of about $388,000 per year for his new role as “Director of Operations.” Hare resigned and made the public disclosure because he claimed this inappropriate action was reported to the other two commissioners and they didn’t do anything about it. This first major scandal later became one of the points listed on the current recall petition for Commissioner Blech.
Around the same time, when we at the Grants Pass Tribune learned about Michael Sellers’ secret promotion to Director of Operations, we sent in a couple public records requests for payroll information about this newly created position. One request was for all the personnel action forms approved for Michael Sellers during his term of employment with Josephine County. Any time an employee receives a promotion or changes job titles this would be documented by a personnel action form and signed by HR, Finance, and the Commissioners. So this would be the primary source of truth as to what the promotion to Director of Operations really meant. The other public records request was for documents showing what Mr. Sellers pay and benefits were as of April last year and April this year, so we could see what both his past and current salary amounts were and where they fell on the county’s salary schedules and established step ranges for his position.
It took close to three months plus an appeal to the District Attorney just to get these two simple public records requests properly fulfilled. And as reported previously by the Grants Pass Tribune, once these records requests were received they didn’t make sense because the information was inconsistent from one record to another. It was as if some records were missing or incomplete. And according to the recent insider whistleblower, the personnel action form that originally promoted Michael Sellers to the Director of Operations position with a pay rate of $113.00 per hour and total compensation package of $388,000 per year was missing and was not included in the fulfilled public records request.
The inside whistleblower actually signed that personnel action form which was to give Michael Sellers a pay rate of $113.00 per hour. So they know the form existed. But it was not included in our fulfilled public records request. The whistleblower then brought this to the attention of all three commissioners and had a discussion with Commissioner Andreas Blech who in early August was given the authority to oversee the completion of all public records requests. According to the Daily Courier, the whistleblower had at least two discussions with Commissioner Blech about this. And Blech tried to bully the whistleblower into thinking there was no approved personnel form that promoted Sellers to the Director of Operations with a pay rate of $113 per hour. The whistleblower signed the form, so they knew it existed. Also this matched the budget schedules disclosed by former budget officer Simon Hare earlier in the year.
When Simon Hare first blew the whistle in late April 2025, Michael Sellers himself made a special appearance on the Bill Meyer Radio show saying he was not getting paid $113 per hour as Simon Hare alleged. This was a blatant lie, because just a few weeks ago that personnel action form which promoted him to Director of Operations with this pay rate was signed and approved and entered into the budget financial system of the County. He was on the radio show to defend himself from these allegations, and according to his own words he denied that this was his rate of pay. Then, all of a sudden one business day later after his radio show appearance Mr. Sellers “voluntarily” went back to his old position of Director of IT and Emergency Management, according to an announcement by Commissioner Blech in a public meeting of the commissioners the next business day after Sellers was on the Bill Meyer radio show.
Commissioner Blech has never publicly denied that he approved the personnel action to promote Michael Sellers to Director of Operations at a pay rate of $113 per hour, he has only denied the Simon Hare allegation that he was attempting to draft a multimillion dollar employment contract with Michael Sellers and there was no employment contract. But as for the signed personnel action form which was approved and put this inappropriate action into motion, now Blech and Sellers will have to explain the missing document to the Oregon Department of Justice.
After the County insider who actually witnessed and signed this missing personnel action form read about the release of these public records requests in the Grants Pass Tribune and realized this form was missing in the fulfilled public records request, the insider confronted the commissioners with this concern. According to recent reports by the Daily Courier, Blech tried to intimidate her into thinking there was no form, despite her having signed the form. And the other two commissioners who knew about the approved form also did not respond to the whistleblower’s concerns. She had no choice but to report this to the County’s legal counsel and law enforcement. The destruction of public records is of course a serious concern, and since County employees can’t really investigate their fellow employees or the County Commissioners, the State Department of Justice had to get involved.
Later this year, in at least two public appearances or public meetings, Andreas Blech lied about the promotions and pay rates of Michael Sellers. And Michael Sellers himself lied about it on the Bill Meyer radio show in April of this year. Given the other evidence that exists that proves that Sellers was temporarily promoted to Director of Operations with a pay rate of $113 per hour, including both emails that were circulating around that time according to the whistleblower, the personnel form that was signed by the whistleblower, and also the budget documents disclosure by former budget officer Simon Hare, Michael Sellers and Commissioner Andreas Blech will likely have a very hard time explaining to the DOJ investigator why they lied and why that signed personnel action form went missing.
So, we now have two County insider whistleblowers that have both blown the same whistle. The first whistle was for illegally promoting Sellers to a job title and salary rate that did not exist at the time (the $388,000 annual compensation package) and was completely improper for the job responsibilities and experience that Michael Sellers had. And the second whistle has now been blown for actions by Blech and Sellers to lie about the promotion and attempt to cover it up. And according to the recent whistleblower article by the Daily Courier, Commissioner Blech then tried to convince an insider that signed the personnel action form which promoted Sellers to this pay rate that there was no form in the first place. Instead of admitting to the mistake back in April when it was first disclosed, it appears Blech and Sellers chose the path of attempting to cover it up which in my opinion seems likely to make the coverup worse than the initial “crime.” Had they simply admitted to their initial mistake, and taken corrective actions, the initial crime likely would not have even been considered a “crime.” But the coverup will almost certainly be considered a crime, in my opinion.
We at the Grants Pass Tribune have now talked to two individuals who have participated in the Department of Justice investigation into Sellers and Blech. We’ve known for a while this was going on but the last thing we want to do is disturb a law enforcement investigation in progress, so we chose not to report on it until the investigation was made public another way. For now, we’ll just say the missing personnel action form is not the only thing under investigation by the DOJ.
One personnel action (PA) form that we did receive a couple months ago in the fulfilled public records request for the approved PA forms of Michael Sellers showed that Commissioner Andreas Blech also approved a large retroactive raise for Michael Sellers, going all the way back to his July 2023 date of hire. The amount of the retroactive raise, and the policy they used to justify the large retro raise, could also be deemed an illegal action or at a minimum an action that violated County administrative policies. This large retro payment made earlier this year was likely in excess of $50,000 including payroll taxes and benefits such as PERS.
Making matters even worse, just a few days after recall petitions were filed against commissioners Blech and Barnett at the end of August this year, all three commissioners approved and signed a personnel action form for Michael Sellers that gave him yet another promotion and large pay raise for additional duties acting as the “Chief of Staff for the BCC Office.” There is no approved job title of “Chief of Staff” for the BCC office, therefore this was yet another inappropriate action by the County Commissioners in violation of County HR/Administration policies and potentially in violation of budget or other laws. When disclosed in another public records request, this new PA form approved by the commissioners had big wording written across it in pink marker “Withdrawn 9-16-25,” and wasn’t even signed by the Finance Department as PA forms usually are. So, a little more than 2 weeks after all three Commissioners approved and signed this PA form and didn’t follow law and policy in doing so, it was “withdrawn.” It’s not clear which County official “withdrew” the form.
Thankfully, the new County insider whistleblower recently said the County intends to do a special review of all personnel action forms approved in the last year, to see if other personnel actions may have been approved without following the laws or not done according to County administrative policies. There have been other personnel actions done in recent weeks and months that did not follow policy. As recently reported by the Grants Pass Tribune, all these legal and policy violations prompted County Legal Counsel Wally Hicks to issue a harshly worded memo on October 1st to all elected officials and County managers and warning them of the personal liability that could result from not following the proper laws and policies for personnel actions.
Nixon was facing an impeachment when he resigned from office after the Watergate scandal. Commissioner Blech is facing a likely recall vote in a few months as the recall committee has stated they are on track to gather enough signatures to bring the recalls of Commissioners Blech and Barnett to a vote. Will Blech resign from office, having been caught red handed in a cover up of inappropriate actions?
And where are Commissioners Chris Barnett and Ron Smith and why have the other two commissioners been silent and non-responsive when both county insiders reported these concerns to them privately before going public with the concerns? The other two commissioners also had a chance to do the right thing before these concerns went public and failed to do so. And now with a State DOJ investigation pending, we won’t likely get answers from County officials on these concerns anytime soon.