A group of far-right local commissioners in Michigan has offered the county’s public health officer $4.1 million to leave her job, after trying unsuccessfully to remove her for the last 10 months.
The commissioners, aligned with local ultraconservative group Ottawa Impact, offered the high-priced settlement to Adeline Hambley, the county’s public health boss, after an 8-hour closed door session on Wednesday, according to reporting from the Holland Sentinel. In exchange, the commissioners want Hambley to resign and drop her wrongful termination suit against them, the newspaper reports.
The $4 million offer to Hambley comes after the commissioners voted last month to cut millions from the Ottawa County Health Department’s budget in September, in a move widely viewed as retaliation for the department’s COVID measures.