WOOD-TV: Ottawa board votes to revise resolution that hired health officer
OLIVE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — In a four-hour Tuesday night meeting, the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners voted to revise a resolution from December that appointed the current health officer.
Adeline Hambley was appointed the administrative health officer by the previous board before the slate of Ottawa Impact-backed conservative candidates took office. The new board claims that the written resolution improperly left out that Hambley would only be appointed if approved by the board, although it was included in the official minutes.
The conservative commissioners voted in their first meeting in January to replace Hambley with Nathaniel Kelly, who has criticized COVID-19 mitigation measures like wearing masks or social distancing.
In Tuesday’s meeting, the board voted 6-5 to revise the written resolution from December, claiming that it incorrectly omitted that Hambley needed to be approved by the Board of Commissioners.
“When I made the motion on December 13th to install Adeline Hambley, it was unanimous between all of the commissioners and we had no intention of voting again to install her. She was installed once and that’s where she belongs,” said Phil Kuyers, former Ottawa County commissioner.
The board’s attorney says tonight’s action was simply to make the resolution accurate, but some in the crowd said they felt it was an attempt to rewrite history and oust Hambley from her position for Kelly.
“If you go through with this it’s clearly headed for court, I’ll leave the ethics of that up to other people. I just know I don’t want my tax dollars being used to defend you from what is obviously an unlawful action that you clearly know is prohibited,” said Sheila Detloff, Holland resident.
Conservatives were split on whether or not to change the language in the resolution.
“It’s one thing to correct our own minutes and our own resolutions but I believe it’s crossing the line to try to correct a prior commissions. I think if we are upset with who is chosen to be our health officer for us in Ms. Hambley, we can address that going forward,” said Commissioner Jacob Bonnema of District 4.
“It’s entirely appropriate to have the record reflect the actual words of the commissioners who passed the resolution,” said Commissioner Sylvia Rhodea of District 8.
“All of us up here as commissioners understand why this was brought to us. I’m not going to speak to that but I believe it’s a pretty big Hail Mary. I don’t think it’s going to land and I believe it’s probably going us to land us in a harder situation going forward,” said Kyle Terpstra, District 6 commissioner.
More than 60 people gave public comment Tuesday night.
Commissioner Roger Bergman, who voted no on the changes, walked out after it was approved.
Hambley has sued the conservative commissioners, saying they’re trying to fire her in violation of state law. Her attorneys argued the law prohibits firing a health officer without cause to prevent the health officer from doing their duties and that the commissioners have not provided cause.
She’s still in the role on an interim basis since Kelly’s appointment must be approved by the state health department.