Attorneys for Lincoln County say commissioner’s injunction request is “political stunt completely devoid of merit.”

By QUINTON SMITH/Lincoln Chronicle

Outside attorneys for Lincoln County say a request by Commissioner Casey Miller for a preliminary injunction to allow him to return to his courthouse office and place items on meeting agendas has nothing to do with his First Amendment rights but is a “political stunt completely devoid of merit.”

The county’s attorneys responded Tuesday in a blistering 20-page filing to Miller’s March 31 injunction request to a federal judge.

The filing relies heavily on affidavits by county counsel Kristin Yuille and human resources director David Collier, who were named in Miller’s  injuction request and earlier whistleblower lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, and with whom Miller has been feuding since September 2024. Both defendants laid out procedures that Miller is not following in his many requests and said his banishment from courthouse offices was necessary because some employees felt unsafe.

“… Plaintiffs actions have caused substantial and ongoing disruptions to the county’s operations,” the filing by attorney Roman Hernandez of Portland said. “The county has had to take safety and other measures to minimize these disruptions without impeding plaintiff’s ability to do his job, but plaintiff persists with his numerous meritless ‘grievances’ because he wants political and media attention.”

“Plaintiff is widely perceived to have encouraged members of the public to attack the county government in various ways, including, by encouraging public comment consisting of personal attacks on staff, a constant stream of public records requests, and, in one instance, reportedly advising a constituent to sue the county,” Hernandez said in his conclusion.

The county’s filing said Miller’s whistleblower lawsuit and injunction request “are just the latest examples of his cries for attention that harm, rather than help, the county and the people he is supposed to be serving.”

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 his office over allegations he bullied staff and released confidential personnel information. The request also asks that the judge order Yuille, Collier and Commissioner Walter Chuck to “stop obstructing” Miller from putting items on the commission’s bi-monthly meeting agendas.

Miller filed a whistleblower in early March seeking unspecified damages over his ban from commission offices and retaliation for his complaint 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 injunction request, but his attorneys said in their filing that the county’s defense counsel “did object to plaintiff’s request for an expedited hearing.”

Two years of turmoil

Miller’s lawsuit and injunction request comes after two years of controversy 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 board of commissioners has been in turmoil since September 2024 starting when Miller spent more than 30 minutes criticizing commission work, stopped Yuille from cutting off his comments, alleged meeting law violations and wondered aloud about 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 and Johnson resigned in February 2025. Miller and Hall appointed Chuck, then a Port of Newport commissioner, to replace Jacobson and who mostly sided with the late Commissioner Claire Hall on issues and now 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.

The staff of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, acting on a complaint by Miller, said last October that their review of employee hiring decisions made by Hall, Chuck and Miller via individual email votes instead of in public meetings likely broke several Oregon laws. The ethics commission voted unanimously to do a full investigation, which is under way.

Charges and responses

Miller’s 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.”

Miller said the county also barred him from attending Monday morning meetings of managers led by Collier, in the absence of a regular administrator.

The county’s response Tuesday largely refuted those claims and argued that a preliminary injunction “is an extraordinary remedy” granted only when a plaintiff is likely to succeed in their lawsuit, is suffering irreparable harm and provides evidence of that harm. Miller’s request meets none of those standards, the county’s attorney argued.

“The county has not obstructed plaintiff from doing his job, and plaintiff’s arguments and allegations to the contrary are mere political grandstanding,” the response said.

It said Miller’s requests to place items on agendas needed the approval of the commission chair, the county administrator and county counsel. Chuck and Miller have been alternating chair duties and Yuille and Collier have divided up administrator duties in the absence of one.

Tuesday’s filing said simply that Chuck, Yuille and Collier – and Hall before she died — have simply not agreed to his requests or because Miller regularly failed to follow up with reasons or documentation for his requests.

And the filing said Miller has no right to attend the management meetings and that important information is relayed to other departments and commissioners. The filing said Collier has offered to discuss the meetings with Miller but that the commissioner has not attempted to obtain meeting information.

• Quinton Smith is the editor of Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at [email protected]