Routine Lincoln County commission session takes a chaotic turn during end

This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.org and is used with permission.

Wednesday’s Lincoln County commission meeting turned chaotic and tearful after a routine bi-monthly meeting was followed by heated public comment.

Last week the Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted to unanimously investigate commissioners’ votes on hiring decisions done outside public meetings after receiving a complaint from Commissioner Casey Miller. Commissioners may have broken several public meeting laws when they voted for exceptions to a budget-triggered hiring freeze using a private online system rather than a public meeting, the state agency’s staff found in their preliminary investigation.

The hiring freeze has been a contentious topic, with District Attorney Jenna Wallace