ILSA MINOR

The Daily Press

ESCANABA — After more than a month of being asked for the reasoning behind the termination for former Delta County Administrator Emily DeSalvo, the Delta County Commissioners each made a statement on the firing during their meeting this week.

“I think it’s something past-due that needs to be attended (to) for the general public,” said Commissioner Steve Viau, who made the motion Tuesday for the commissioners to address the issue.

DeSalvo was terminated at the Feb. 7 commission meeting after reading an 11-minute prepared statement about her treatment and accusing the Commissioners Dave Moyle, Bob Barron and Bob Petersen of a pattern of unethical behavior. She also said during the statement she had been given low performance review scores by Barron and Moyle and was given no explanation, despite repeatedly requesting rationale for the scores.

Following the statement, the board voted in a 3-2 split vote to terminate DeSalvo, effective immediately. Commissioners Moyle, Barron and Petersen voted in favor of the termination with Viau and Commissioner John Malnar voting against DeSalvo’s firing.

Viau’s motion to address the issue publicly was the result of phone calls and emails he received following a radio interview given by Moyle on Feb. 15, wherein the commission chair promised the commission as a whole would put out a statement explaining DeSalvo’s firing at the Feb. 21 meeting.

“I made the statement with the full expectation of on the 21st that we would have some sort of statement for the public. This job is anything but static, it can be very ballistic at times, and so I did say that. I take full responsibility for that. There was nothing nefarious based on that. As it was, the commission meeting on the 21st was almost four hours,” said Moyle.

The commission in a 4-1 split vote, added individual statements on DeSalvo’s firing to the agenda. Barron, who said he didn’t know what would be gained adding the item and that discussing it would just be stirring things up, voted against the motion.

What follows are the commissioners’ statements on the issue.

BOB PETERSEN

“Well, the only thing I can say is, having been an employer and had to deal with the hiring and termination of employees, it was always my understanding that when you terminated an employee, that you were not supposed to address that, with cause, as it violates their rights. And so I would just say at this point in time, that I always suggest that people should watch the YouTube video, honestly, of that meeting and come to their own conclusion.”

STEVE VIAU

“I think being a new commissioner, my interactions with Emily were not 100% on the direction that I needed help with all the time, but I understood if she was busy in her position. She also said we were a fast-paced county and I was just a little bit too slow. Other than anything like that, I didn’t realize till after, in retrospect, that maybe some of the commissioners were — and I’m not speaking for them — but, and the public, probably didn’t understand, and I didn’t understand, until I looked at what was said later. It was real difficult for me to see why that was said, because something must have happened over the last year, and it didn’t involve me. But I had nothing but (a) positive relationship professionally with our administrator.”

JOHN MALNAR

“I’ve heard several times that we’re moving in a different direction, and not one time has anybody, any one of the commissioners, come up and said, ‘this is the direction we’re moving’ and I still don’t know what direction we’re moving in, from what we were used to doing. Second of all, I don’t know how a commissioner after only five weeks of being on the board can make such a judgement towards a person that they don’t even know.”

DAVE MOYLE

“I did not go into the meeting on the seventh with the intention of terminating our employee. In fact, I didn’t know, I wasn’t knowledgable about why it was on (our agenda). I was expecting a discussion on the contract. People are welcome to their own opinions, and that’s the way it goes. I would suggest you put yourself in my position and watch that video. I don’t feel good about this, but that’s all I’m going to say.”

BOB BARRON

Barron’s comments about DeSalvo’s termination was presented in two parts, one at the beginning of the meeting and once during the agenda item. The first statement is as follows:

“As far as the termination that took place four weeks ago tonight, I believe the information has been out there what took place and I think it’s self-explanatory from the 10- or 12-minute statement from our Former Administrator DeSalvo, and it should be fairly obvious to all that the board and the former administrator were moving in different directions. And so that’s what’s taken place.”

He later said:

“I stated earlier and I reiterate that, as Commissioner Malnar is curious about, we are moving in a different direction, and that’s it.