This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.org and is used with permission.
Lincoln County Commissioner Casey Miller is asking a federal judge for a preliminary injunction to force county officials to allow him to return to work in the courthouse, 17 months after he was barred from using his office over allegations he bullied staff and released confidential personnel information.
The request also asks that the judge order Commissioner Walter Chuck, counsel Kristin Yuille and human resources director David Collier to “stop obstructing” Miller from putting items on the commission’s bi-monthly meeting agendas.
The March 31 injunction request is a followup to a whistleblower lawsuit Miller filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene weeks earlier against the county and its top leaders seeking unspecified damages because of his ban from commission offices and because of his complaints to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission about potentially illegal public meetings to vote on employee hirings.
No date has been set to hear Miller’s request, but his attorneys said in their filing that the county’s defense counsel “did object to plaintiff’s request for an expedited hearing.”
Miller’s lawsuit and injunction request comes after two years of turmoil on the county commission and as Miller also seeks re-election to a second term, facing five opponents in the May 19 primary election.
The injunction request was filed before Yuille, who has been acting in part as county administrator, put an item on the commission’s April 1 agenda – and again this Wednesday – to discuss how elected commissioners can place items on their meeting agendas.
Two years turmoil
The board of commissioners has been in turmoil since September 2024 when Miller spent more than 30 minutes criticizing commission work, stopped Yuille from cutting off his comments, and wondered aloud how to deal with what he said was the imminent departure of their first administrator who had worked for 2½ years without an evaluation.
What followed was a months-long investigation that found Miller did not engage in disrespectful conduct or bully staff but that he did release confidential information about Johnson. Commissioner Kaety Jacobson quit in frustration in February 2025 and Johnson resigned. Miller and Hall appointed Chuck, then a Port of Newport commissioner, to replace Jacobson who mostly sided with the late Commissioner Claire Hall on issues and later with Yuille to thwart Miller’s many attempts to place items he’d like to discuss on the commission’s agenda.
A successful petition to hold a recall election of Hall in January only inflamed tensions, but the election was voided after Hall died unexpectedly Jan. 4 after complications of months-long illnesses.
Last October, the staff of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission said their review of employee hiring decisions made by Hall, Chuck and Miller via individual email votes instead of in public meetings likely broke several public meeting laws. The ethics commission voted unanimously to do a full investigation, which is still under way.
1st Amendment arguments
Neither Miller’s whistleblower lawsuit nor restraining order request have been scheduled for hearings. County spokesman Ken Lipp said Monday it is the county’s policy not to comment on pending litigation.
The eight-page injunction request relied heavily on First Amendment court rulings from 2022 lawsuits involving a legislator banned from the Oregon Capitol, saying that free speech “is a vital component” of public officials’ duties. It also cited the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision in N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan in arguing that Miller’s September 2024 comments were protected speech and that accusations against Miller for violating county personnel rules only came after he raised concerns about meeting law violations.
Finally, his attorneys argued that the “manifest function of the First Amendment in a representative government requires that legislators be given the widest possible latitude to express their views on issues of policy.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com