Thurston County Commissioner Carolina Mejia abruptly left Tuesday afternoon’s meeting after saying she wanted to hold fellow Commissioner Emily Clouse “to the same standards of what I would expect from any elected official in this community if confronted with a complaint like this.”
Following her roughly three-minute-long remarks, Mejia said she would excuse herself “from the rest of the meeting” and left the commissioners chamber. Mejia did not return to the dais with her fellow commissioners following an approximately 20-minute-long recess.
“First of all, I’m so disappointed and incredibly frustrated,” Mejia said at the beginning of her remarks. “These past three weeks have been a waste of government resources, taxpayer money, and a huge emotional burden. I’m disappointed because I’m seeing what I myself have experienced and what other people of color experience over and over in these systems. I’ve seen this situation play out a million times.”
The agenda for Tuesday’s meeting included presentations on International Overdose Awareness Day and a proclamation for Target Zero, among other agenda items.
The remarks by Mejia come after Clouse was temporarily removed from all appointed boards and commissions last week as the county investigates what an attorney representing Clouse described as a “brief dating relationship” with a colleague.
“I, myself, have been scared to speak out because it is easier to believe the white women's tears and easier to paint the narrative of the angry brown women,” Mejia said Tuesday. “It’s easy for her to say that I don’t like her and for people to believe her, than for people to know why I’m keeping my distance and the way she has made me feel.”
“Commissioner Clouse has used her position of power and system and made it work for her,” Mejia said.
Clouse and Mejia did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
During the Aug. 13 commissioner’s meeting, Mejia introduced a motion that was seconded by Commissioner Wayne Fournier to temporarily appoint alternatives to serve in place of Clouse on county-appointed boards and commissions “until an investigation is complete.”
The results of the investigation — which is being conducted by a third party — will be made public, Commissioner Gary Edwards told The Chronicle last week.
Maia Robbins, an attorney at Seattle-based law firm Corr Cronin, told The Chronicle on Thursday that the county has opted to conduct the investigation “out of an abundance of caution” after both a relationship and the employment with a county employee “recently ended.”
“She is cooperating fully with the investigation and looks forward to its conclusion, which will reveal nothing more interesting than someone dating their coworker: something that happens every day in America’s workplaces,” Robbins wrote on Aug. 15.
On Tuesday, Mejia seemed to take exception with Robbins’ remarks.
“None of you have cared to think about how the person who stepped forward is doing,” Mejia said. “How they also deserve accountability, how their mental or emotional health is doing.”
The decision to temporarily remove Clouse from boards and commissions has divided the Board of Commissioners, with Commissioner Tye Menser telling The Chronicle last week the move was unnecessary.
“I think that was a premature step at this point and I would not have voted for it had I been present,” Menser wrote.
Menser, who was not present at the Aug. 13 meeting, specified that the complaint did not involve him “in any way.”
“I chose not to participate in the executive session based purely on process-related advice given to the board by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office,” Menser said.
A Democrat, Clouse was elected to the Thurston County Board of Commissioners with 59.9% of the vote during the 2023 election. Clouse was sworn in during a November 2023 commissioners meeting.
