Shasta County clerk reprimanded, Ashland clinic sued, tariffs favor Oregon seafood industry and coastal martens win protection

You're listening to the Jefferson Exchange. Thanks for joining us. The JX starts today with a debrief where JPR reporters discuss the stories they've been covering this week, including the center of the Shasta County Clerk, how tariffs are affecting Oregon's seafood industry, and other lawsuits against an Ashland chiropractic clinic. I'm Peyton Gast, JPR's Snowden intern. I'm Jane Vaughn, Housing, Homelessness, and Education Reporter. I'm Roman Battalion, Science Environment and Politics Reporter. Roman, let's start with you. You brought us a story about the censure of a public official in Shasta County this week. What happened? So the county board of supervisors this week voted three to one to censure their elections official, Clint Curtis. He took office last year. He was actually appointed by the board of supervisors. So the censure is essentially a formal reprimand of a public official. It's the most that a board of supervisors can do to punish someone who is an elected official. So supervisors actually had delayed this decision all the way from April. They were considering censoring him then, but they didn't want to do it before the June primary election because Clint Curtis was actually running to fill the full term as a county clerk, and the supervisors didn't want to influence the outcome of that election. Of course, that didn't end up changing things very much. significant margin to the former assistant county clerk Joanna Franciscate. So she's going to take his place in January. So why did supervisors want to censure Clint Curtis? So this was related to some complaints the county received from some employees at the office. And those complaints prompted two investigations. One is internal and one's from an outside firm. And those complaints were about threats of violence towards employees and sort of contributing to an unprofessional workplace environment. So the county released a redacted version back in April of this nearly 600-page independent investigation. And it did. find that, you know, Curtis did make some violent threats towards employees. That includes threatening to have HR come and pull an employee out of their office by their hair or threatening to slap people or punch them in their throat. There's other smaller things like sticking its tongue out at employees or threatening to fire people a lot or sabotaging people's work, making it harder for them to get things done. The report also found that he did make some campaign calls while he was during... work hours, which is not usually allowed. Curtis has publicly criticized the election staff that was there before he took office last year. He claims that they're loyal to the previous administration and that they've essentially been trying to undermine his work to reform the election system. He's also denied all these claims of threats and stuff and has repeatedly said he'll sue the county and others for defamation, including this week, but we've yet to see any court filings related to that. No, this isn't the first time Curtis has been reprimanded by the board of supervisors, right? No, it's not. So the board...

Previously, back in October, they condemned him, which is like the level down from a censure. And that was for him excluding this local press outlet from a press release distribution list. He had alleged the outlet had a left-wing bias and questioned their nonprofit status without really any evidence. And the board condemned his actions for that. And they had said back then that, you know, if Curtis does anything like this again, that they would move to censure. And they brought that up, you know, during this hearing. The board chair. Kelstrom said, you know, that if even 10% of what was in that investigation is true, that Curtis deserved a censure. Plus, Curtis did have time. I mean, they delayed this vote. back from April. And so he had time between April now to change things again and could have possibly avoided a censure. But his supervisors noted that he hasn't really shown a willingness to change his actions. And this wasn't really at all related to his actual work as an elections official and the changes he's made to the election system. You know, some like Keltstrom have supported those changes. But, you know, this was more about the complaints from county employees and protecting them and kind of making a point that, you know, county officials can't do these kinds of things. So one of the four supervisors voted against censoring Curtis. What were his reasons? Yeah, so Corky Harmon was the only one who voted against the censure. He basically claimed that he didn't have enough evidence to censure Curtis. There were a number of people who spoke at the public comment that are new employees at the office who claim Curtis is not threatening or mean and didn't want a censure. Harmon also said that because Curtis is leaving at the end of the year anyways, and this is really just like a... You know, a slap on the wrist, it doesn't really do anything. He doesn't want to put a permanent mark on Curtis's record as he leaves and seeks another job. He did face a lot of questioning from other supervisors asking Harmon, you know, what more he would need to censure because, you know, there was a 600-page independent report plus this internal investigation, but, you know, he did stick to his vote anyways. It's also important to know supervisor Kevin Cry was absent from the meeting. We're not fully sure on how he would have voted, but even if he voted against the censure, it still wouldn't have changed the outcome. Okay, thanks, Jane. I'm sorry. Thanks, Roman. Jane, we'll move on to you now. You had a story this week about a lawsuit that was filed against a chiropractic clinic in the Rogue Valley. Tell us about that. So a former client of Southern Oregon chiropractic, her name is Nora Costley, sued the clinic recently. She claims that she was sexually abused at their Ashland Clinic in 2021 by a massage therapist named Kevin Farrow. And she says the clinic had previous complaints about Farrow from other clients, and the clinic should have... done something about it. She thinks they should have fired him and reported his conduct, which is required by state law, to the police and to the state board of massage therapists. And she's claiming in this lawsuit that it was basically because of their negligence, that she was eventually assaulted and that the clinic basically failed in its duty to protect its patients. So that's what she's saying in her lawsuit. It names the clinic's Ashland location and the co-owners, Jody Baines Reed and Eric Reed as defendants. And I will say that.

that I did reach out to Southern Oregon chiropractic, and they did not respond to request for comment. And then can you give us some background on the situation? So I started reporting on Southern Oregon chiropractic in 2023, which is when Farrow was charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse for allegedly assaulting patients. That case is still ongoing. But meanwhile, there's a second lawsuit that Southern Oregon chiropractic is facing. That one was filed last year by a former employee, a Southern Oregon chiropractic massage there. Her name is Jamie Jerome Powell. And in that case, Jerome Powell alleges that the clinic didn't respond adequately after Farrow was charged. She claimed the clinic didn't provide additional employee training, for example, to ensure client safety. And so the interesting thing is that in the deposition for that lawsuit, Jamie Jerome Powell's lawsuit, we have testimony from one of the co-owners, Jody Baines Reed, testifying that she was aware of two complaints against Kevin Farrow during his employment, one in 2019 and another in 2021. and she says that Farah was terminated quickly after that second complaint. She says that in her testimony. And then we also have a deposition for that same lawsuit, Jamie Jerome Powell's lawsuit. There's testimony from the former office manager, Tanya Norman, who testified that the clinic had received three complaints about Kevin Farrow before he was terminated, as well as several more after that. She also testified that she did not receive adequate training on how to handle such complaint. She said she felt powerless. She didn't get the support she needed. So the... newest lawsuit by Nora Costley does reference some of that testimony from the other case. So what happens next? So, I mean, Nora Costley says that the assault continues to affect her. She says she doesn't trust health care providers now. Her lawsuit is seeking $950,000 in damages. Kevin Farrow's criminal case has a pretrial hearing set for October. And then the other lawsuit, Jamie Jerome Powell's lawsuit, has a trial date set for November. So there's a lot going on here and we'll keep following up with it. Okay, thank you, Jane. Theo, we're going to move on to you now. You reported that Governor Tina Kotek released a report saying President Trump's tariffs have hurt Oregon trade with exports falling sharply last year. But you found the picture for the seafood industry on the South Coast is a little more nuanced. What's going on? Yeah, well, you know, I went down and talked to some seafood processors, and I expected it to really be sort of the biggest thing on their mind. But I talked to Lori Steele, who she heads the West Coast Seafood Processors Association. It's a major trade organization for processors on the West Coast, as the name applies. And she said it's really more of a mixed bag. Many of the companies that she represents on the South Coast, they primarily sell domestically. And she said that she hopes the tariffs will encourage buyers to purchase locally, to purchase Oregon seafood. you know, at the same time, the big concern here really, you know, is retaliatory tariffs. And they've been trying to enter foreign markets for decades, really. And she said her industry is concerned about the tariffs, specifically retaliatory tariffs from other countries. But she also said,

that you know they've been dealing with this for decades and they've been trying specifically to enter um e u countries and the uk and she pointed to pink shrimp which is one of the biggest Oregon species. And they've been trying to, you know, enter these countries' markets for years. And so that is a bit of a concern. But again, she says that this is just nothing new. It's not a new crisis. So tariffs aren't exactly a new problem for Oregon's seafood industry. What kinds of trade barriers have the Southern Oregon Coast processors been dealing with? Well, you know, I talk to... Eric Garman from the Oregon Department of Agriculture. And he pointed to the same issue as Lori Steele did. He said that pink shrimp specifically has been really tough because basically, basically, look back basically a decade at Brexit. What happened was when the UK exited the European Union, that there were sort of some leftover tariffs that they have been trying to get knocked out for this entire time in all the interim years between now and then. And that... Pink shrimp is a huge, huge culinary item in the UK, but their traditional sources where they... get that from is they're just it's not the shrimp isn't there anymore stocks are declining there's overfishing climate change and so there's this huge opportunity for Oregon to sell to the UK but these UK tariffs on American seafood are just making that really really hard and that so that's That's something that they have been dealing with for a long time and are still struggling to get past. If the latest tariffs aren't their biggest concern, what is?

Well, you know, Laurie Steele again with the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, you know, she pointed to state, Oregon local, Oregon state environmental regulations. Specifically, you know, the DEQ has sort of... has lifted the bar, has raised the bar on the requirements for seafood processors, specifically with the quality of their wastewater. You know, they use a lot of water to process seafood. And that water is then sent into the bay. And it's highly regulated. You know, they need to have a local treatment. apparatus in place. You know, when we use local water that goes into our sinks and stuff, that ends up in a treatment facility that desalinates it, you know, gets rid of chlorine, you know, treats it before it is permissible to go back into the water supply. And the regulations that Oregon has for Seafood companies, a lot of people are really in the industry, are saying that it's just too much for them to operate. So that's what they are, that's what the seafood industry is really kind of speaking out against right now. But, you know, the ODA, the Oregon Department of Agriculture is still working on the tariff stuff. And they recently got tuna approved in the UK to get past some of those tariffs. Now they're working on pink shrimp. Okay, thank you, Theo. Roman, we're going to move on to you now. You also reported on an update to a lawsuit seeking to protect coastal martins on the Oregon coast. What are coastal martins? So they're these cute little carnivores. They're in the same family as weasels and badgers. You know, they... live on the Oregon and California coast, but, you know, they're at a lot of risk right now. There's less than 500 estimated to be living right now in four separate populations. Around 75 of them live in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area near Cus Bay, and they were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2020. What is this lawsuit claiming? Yeah, so it was filed in 2024. It basically claimed that the U.S. Forest Service has delayed these needed environmental reviews of the Martin to protect its habitat. They've specifically focused on the martins that live in the Oregon dunes because they're vulnerable because of these off-road vehicles that drive on the dunes, rip of vegetation. They're really loud. They can disrupt that habitat. And what did the judge rule this week? So he ruled in favor of the environmental groups and the Martins. The Forest Service is going to have to do this environmental review. They've also closed some areas, and you can view a map of those closures on our website. So really a win for these environmental groups for these Martins who have been trying to protect this very threatened species. And you talked to the environmental group.

Actually, you know what? We're running out of time here. That's going to be all for the debrief this week. Thanks for listening. You can reach the newsroom with comments on our coverage and suggestions for things we should cover in the future through our news tip line. That's on our website, IJPR.org. And you can find this program in more at chefexchange.org or on your favorite podcast platform.