Yuba County supervisor investigated for misconduct is censured and banned from leadership
Yuba County supervisors censured one of their own Thursday for inappropriate comments and other workplace incidents alleged to have happened over the past couple of years, following an investigation that revealed a series of complaints from county workers and conference attendees.
Supervisors at a special meeting voted 3-2 to approve a suite of actions against Seth Fuhrer, who was recently reelected to his second four-year term. In addition to the censure, supervisors blocked Fuhrer through 2025 from becoming board chair, which he was in line to become in January.
Fuhrer voted against the sanctions, as did Supervisor Jon Messick, who said he was opposed to stopping Fuhrer from becoming board chair. Messick agreed that Fuhrer has offended people with past comments and said supervisors should help him with “the social aspect” of being an elected official.
“People elected you to represent them and represent them with dignity,” said Supervisor Don Blaser, board chair. “When something like this happens it reflects badly not only on the board, it reflects badly on the employees of the county, it reflects badly on the 80-something (thousand) residents out in the county.”
Allegations of ‘inappropriate comments’
An investigation into Fuhrer began after the county received a complaint against him in July, said Tiffany Manuel, Yuba County human resources director. The county hired Boucher Law to investigate the complaint. The third-party firm created a report citing a number of complaints from county workers and attendees of conferences hosted by California State Association of Counties and Rural County Representatives of California.
Those organizations sent a joint letter in August that banned Fuhrer from conferences and events through 2026, accusing him of “lewd, sexually suggestive, and inappropriate comments” at conferences in November 2023 and July.
Fuhrer said Thursday that his comments and actions were being held to an unfair standard that has not been applied to other county workers and elected officials. He reiterated that the investigation was meant to keep him from becoming board chair and said that many of the incidents described in the report had been exaggerated or mischaracterized.
“Publishing this report and making a public spectacle is harassment and abuse of power,” he said, reading from a statement he had previously posted on Facebook. “The goal is to stop me from being chair and defame me in the eyes of my constituents.”
The third-party investigator found credibility to the allegations made against Fuhrer, which accused him of massaging an employee’s shoulders, pulling an employee’s hair and touching an employee on her nose and stomach, among other incidents, according to the report.
Fuhrer also allegedly referred to county harassment prevention training as “sex training” and told one county worker to “stop flashing me” while she adjusted her shirt, according to the report.
The report also included a number of “unwelcome” comments and incidents involving Fuhrer from the two conferences, including that Fuhrer had jokingly threatened to push another attendee off of a “tiki boat” and made inappropriate comments toward a woman from another party who was wearing a wedding dress.
Craft a code of conduct
Supervisors, by approving the resolution, also directed county workers to craft a code of conduct for supervisors within 90 days and suspended Fuhrer from meetings and conferences of the two organizations that accused him of inappropriate behavior.
“The complaints came not necessarily within the county or within our employees but actually within the state and clear to the East Coast is where some complaints came from,” Blaser said.
Supervisors also barred Fuhrer from attending events on behalf of the county without another supervisor present and ordered that he direct all communication to county workers through the county administrator.
Doug Lofton, a Yuba County resident and former supervisor representing Fuhrer’s district, supported the action taken against Fuhrer.
“As you wade through whatever self-absorbed rhetoric you’re going to be flung at today, I respectfully ask that you keep in mind your wives, your sisters and your daughters, and a level of respect that you would require them to be shown from this dais,” he told supervisors. “The level of respect you would demand they be shown from this dais, and everyone in this room.”
A few community members spoke in support of Fuhrer, questioning the motivations of the investigation against him and equating it to a “witch hunt” and “smear campaign.”
“Why is he the only one being publicly defamed?” said resident Ruth Armstrong. “Where are the other lies or whatever buried in the closet? How about those coming out? I’m sure there’s a lot.”