After nearly four months on unexplained — and fully paid — administrative leave, Humboldt County Airport Manager Jacquelyn Hulsey will resume her job duties Monday morning.
As the Journal reported last month, no one with the county has been willing to address the reasons for Hulsey’s extended leave. Public Works Director Tom Mattson and Humboldt County Supervisor Mark Lovelace again declined to elaborate Friday morning. Both repeated that Hulsey’s leave is “a personnel issue” and thus confidential.
Though Hulsey has no employment contract, neither is she an “at-will” employee — someone who can be fired without cause. As a public employee, her job is considered her property; therefore she cannot be fired, demoted or transferred without due process. (This has been the case for non-contract public employees in the state since the 1975 California Supreme Court ruling in Skelly vs. State Personnel Board.)
Hulsey’s job performance has been repeatedly scrutinized and criticized in recent years, with members of the public, the county’s Aviation Advisory Committee and former employees accusing her of mismanagement, verbal abuse and jeopardizing the safety of both employees and the public. (See previous stories here, here and here.)
Asked if he has any concerns about Hulsey’s competence, Lovelace responded, “That would get into an issue that would not be appropriate for me to discuss here.”
Addendum: Local business leaders have also been among Hulsey’s most vocal critics, particularly following a series of flight delays and cancellations in the fall of 2010 (see the second of the three linked stories above).
Jonathan Speaker, chief operating officer of Arcata-based streaming media company StreamGuys, said he was disappointed to learn that Hulsey will be returning to her position.
“I would like to know why the leaders of Humboldt County are not looking at the track record of Ms. Hulsey and seeing the same thing that the business community is seeing,” he said.
Like others, Speaker believes many of the recent problems at the airport could have been avoided with proper communication and project management. He also cited the fatal plane crash on the night of March 1, 2009, which went unreported to search and rescue personnel for more than 12 hours due to a miscommunication between Hulsey and an airport employee (see the first linked story above).
“With this kind of track record it is beyond me why [county officials] are not looking to improve our critical infrastructure by staffing the appropriate key personel,” Speaker said. He added that he and others are currently seeking answers from county officials.
This article appears in Burlesque!.
How is it this woman still has a job and isn’t in jail?
Boy, I wish I had a job that I “owned” and couldn’t be fired from. Don’t we all?
To suggest that she hasn’t been fired because she has a public job is not correct. There are mechanisms to fire incompetent employees for bad performance in all sectors. We need to be looking at who her superiors are and ask why they have failed to take action. Being a small area, I suspect she simply has friends that are helping her stay on or is being protected by someone. This is not acceptable.
NCJ – Please follow-up on this matter, let us know who has the responsibility over her work and position.
Dear Mark Lovelace,
I saw the article on the airport manager’s extended leave. I’m always surprised when I hear the management cannot comment due to (fill in the blank rule). You can give us all, and should illuminate the situation, by listing those reasons why someone in her position would be given administrative leave, without being specific.
We have no access to the information that would explain why a critical manager would be absent with pay? That’s ridiculous…. is the situation over? Can we expect it to apply to other’s in a similar situation?
I hope you are looking to explain as much about this as is allowed under the law… did you check with legal council to see what the county can release to the public about this?
We don’t have a secret government, much as many in government would seem to want that. Aside from the mismanagement of the construction, the misrepresentation that cost local businesses, and the issue of the safe operation of the airport in notifications for search and rescue there are likely other serious issues.
Please don’t duck these questions, on the other hand, there are 3 supervisors and we are looking for clarification of this from all of the supervisors.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Marc Delany
Did she get to keep the county car while on leave?
I learned through personal experience that personnel matters really are confidential–if you talk about someone’s job performance, whether they still have the job or not, you can be sued for slander. Google it:
Under common law, slander traditionally was actionable per se if it fell into one of four categories:
~imputations of criminal conduct
~allegations injurious to another in their trade, business, or profession
~imputations of loathsome disease
~imputations of unchastity in a woman
the last one presumably no longer stands…
There is nothing slanderous in this article, and reporting more details would also not be slanderous. Certainly anything that is public record should be included.
Investigation is helpful, and running stories about it will improve the performance of these departments. They can’t do this in the shadows and any attention will make them nervous if they are doing something illicit.
Furthermore, there is not a discussion of illegal conduct, merely incompetence. Any outside observer can report on the performance of the airport and call for those in charge to resign or be released.
There has been plenty of discussion about the poor performance of the airport in recent years and there has been insufficient response from those in charge. If Hulsey cannot or will not answer to this performance then we need to have her superiors comment on it.
This really looks like something that the Humboldt County Grand Jury should be looking into.
She owns her job? There has to be a way to have her dismissed or foreced to resign. When the families of the men who died in the accident she failed to report came to the area to gain some understanding about how they had lost their loved ones, about how their lives had been turned upside down, she refused to talk to them. She hid, lied and dodged their legitimate questions. Her reign of job ownership has got to end.
YES I HAVE NOT GONE AWAY MS. HULSEY I HOPE YOU ARE READING THIS!
My name is Sheila Jenkins, I live in Florida and just stumbled across this recent article regarding Ms. Hulsey’s return to her management position and I am absolutely disgusted! I was upset when I heard she was on an “undisclosed leave” and paid! And now to let her return, and only say her leave was personal breaks my heart truly.
You see, it was personal to me too, on March 1, 2009 when my Dad was the passenger on the plane that crashed just off shore of the Arcata Airport, and although she was notified the plane was missing from radar she DID NOTHING for 12 hours but instead went to bed that night and than in the am tried to cover up why she did nothing further delaying the search and rescue disgusts me. The Coast Guard literally sitting there just a MILE away from where the plane had fell off radar and she did NOTHING to inform them. For ONE year after the crash she avoided me, even after my 3 trips to CALIFORNIA, she lied, she manipulated people, and although MANY news stories and even radio interviews were done with KHUM Radio. There she sits, quiet, personal, and getting paid, representing that small county.
If I did not live so far away I would make it my personal agenda to have her removed from her office, I would not want her in charge of the safety of so many lives. I hope she goes to bed EVERY NIGHT remembering that 3 grandsons lost their grandfather, a daughter lost her father, her best friend, and a wife lost her husband, because she was negligent and wanted to get some sleep.
Sorry, but as the anniversary of the crash approaches and I see this yes I am bitter.
Regards,
Sheila Jenkins
TLC_SHY@YAHOO.COM
Ms. Jenkins,
Please know that many Humboldt County residents are as disgusted with our County government’s behavior as you are.
There have been many complaints about the airport manager (yours, of course, by far the most significant). Citizen complaints in Humboldt County are ignored except when they come from someone with serious connections. The fault really lies with our Board of Supervisors, which allows a wide variety of incompetent appointees to run the government.
And, of course, the faults of the Board of Supervisors are due to a pathetic press corps (bottom of the barrel TV news and newspaper) and an apathetic and uninformed electorate.
I’m sorry. I think your bitterness is 100% justified, and I hope you are able, somehow, to get beyond it. I wish you well, and I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank You Mitch for your kind words.
It is 3 years today that my Dad was lost at sea. And I do know there are MANY Humboldt residents who are on my side even though I am so far away. Ms. Hulsey “owns her job?” I will keep trying, I will keep questioning, I will keep poking, even from far away. Ms. Hulsey and her circle who continues to “protest her/lie for her/shield her” sooner or later the truth ALWAYS has a way of coming out. 🙂 I will find it.
Regards,
Sheila Jenkins