CLARION, Pa. (EYT) – Clarion County Commissioner Wayne Brosius declined to offer any comments on the reasons for the resignation of Chief Clerk Angi Keller, effective October 24, 2014, after it was accepted Wednesday morning at a meeting of the Clarion County Salary Board.

“I’d rather not comment on the letter,” said Brosious, citing personnel issues as a reason for staying quiet on Keller’s resignation.

In the letter provided by Keller on Wednesday afternoon after the meeting, she feels she can no longer serve because of collective actions by the Board of Commissioners who she can no longer support and feels it is best she removes herself from the team.  She alleges careless decisions made on behalf of the employee retirement system and a hostile work environment created by the commissioners (Wayne Brosius, Butch Campbell, and Greg Faller); Trisha Douglas, the director of human resources; and her assistant, Eileen Theiss.

“The position of the Chief Clerk is a legislatively mandated post which serves to provide the county’s top non-elected official,” said Keller. “The reasons I was offered the position were public, and the reasons I accepted it were public. I believe the public also has a right to know why I resigned.”

exploreClarion.com filed a formal Open Records request on Monday with the Clarion County Open Records Office, but as of Wednesday, no copy was received. The office has five days to respond to the request. On Wednesday afternoon, exploreClarion.com obtained a copy of the resignation letter from Keller.

After obtaining a copy of the letter, exploreClarion.com left voice messages for both Brosius and Douglas asking if they had any comments on the resignation letter and Keller’s accusations.  Calls were not returned as of Wednesday night.

Keller’s complete letter follows:

“October 10, 2014

Clarion County Board of Commissioners:

Since January 2012, it has been my sincere pleasure to serve as the chief clerk/county administrator of Clarion County. I am and will forever be grateful to you for extending that opportunity to me and it truly has been an honor to serve the employees and the citizens of Clarion County in that capacity. I believe I have filled that position with skill, ambition and integrity.

While this serves in no regard to any of you as individuals, there are collective actions of the board which I have not been able to and can no longer support and I feel that it is best that I remove myself from this team.

More than anything, the careless decisions made on behalf of the employee retirement system not only baffle me but deeply sadden me. I have poured myself into learning that system inside and out and translated that knowledge into many legal advances in protection of that system and those it serves. After everything else I have had to literally fight to get the board to move in line with the retirement law, this summer . . . without even telling me (the administrator of the system) . . . the board decided to skirt the law and offer an employee exemption from participation. The matter was not even brought to the retirement board. Then, when I was out on medical leave, you turned over my records and files to two employees who have absolutely no knowledge of the law, the individual needs and requests, the processing system or the administrative fee system and, to make matters worse, I had to learn about it from a newspaper article.

Also, for the record on future county procedures, in the employee handbook which the board reviewed and approved at a public meeting yet has so many errors in it that it still cannot be distributed, the information on retirement does not coincide with pension law or any county-established protocol. Even as chief clerk and administrator of the retirement system, I was not permitted to preview or edit any of the multiple “final” versions of this manual, including the section on retirement.

I am also no longer willing to tolerate the discrimination against me and the overwhelming disrespect for both me and the position of the chief clerk. I no longer will accept working in a hostile environment. The treatment I have received from the board as well as from Trisha Douglas, the director of human services, and her assistant, over my family and medical leave has been despicable.

Even before I asked for any medical time off, the fact that Ms. Douglas spoke to you just after my son’s death and you all discussed what you thought his life insurance would be is disgusting and completely inappropriate. The board also had knowledge that she came into my office the day after I returned from bereavement leave for the death of my son and told me, “Well, at least you had time to get him into the military. Now you won’t have to worry about money.” She had no idea the plans, if any, my son or my family had in place. The board took no action and, in my opinion, as the director of human resources, she should have been fired immediately for those remarks. But, just a couple months ago, when I brought to the board knowledge that an employee had reported that Ms. Douglas had allegedly told their co-worker that my FMLA is unfounded and that I “just got a lot of money from [my] son” and that I am “going on vacation,” I was told that I “just needed to let some things go.”

The board has not only tolerated Ms. Douglas’ egregious workplace incompetence and disrespectful behavior toward employees, it has encouraged and rewarded it. I cannot be a part of an administration which does this.

I regret that I must leave some projects unfinished and I have struggled deeply over this decision. However, I am hereby submitting my resignation from the position of chief clerk/county administrator to be effective October 24, or sooner, if you’d prefer.

Sincerely,

Anjanette M. Keller”