District Court cancels dockets amid staffing dispute

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 22, 2025

On July 2, Grays Harbor County District Court issued a press release that stated, “District Court 1 will cancel the criminal dockets for July 16, 17, and 18 due to a lack of necessary staffing.”

According to the press release, the Grays Harbor Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) has declined to place the court’s request to fill the Criminal Deputy Administrator position on the BOCC’s weekly regular meeting agenda since May 19.

District Court also issued a letter that read, in part, “This temporary closure is due to the Board of County Commissioners’ recent decision not to fill the court’s vacant Criminal Deputy Administrator position and their refusal to place the matter on the agenda for discussion.”

According to county officials, the agenda item requests were kicked back through the county’s electronic workflow system for various reasons. Four District Court items for review appeared on the July 15 non-action meeting agenda.

“It’s certainly not on the Commissioners to make sure that they know how to submit something to the agenda properly,” County Commissioner Vickie Raines said. “If it gets kicked back because there’s an error, or if it gets denied for some reason, then it’s their responsibility to confirm why or what needs to be done to resubmit those types of things.”

The staffing position in question is the ​​criminal deputy administrator, who, according to the press release, “plays a vital role in managing the court’s criminal calendar, coordinating with law enforcement, and ensuring timely and accurate case processing. Without this position, the court cannot operate efficiently or meet its responsibilities to the public.”

The former Deputy Administrator/Criminal Division Director was promoted to Court Administrator on June 10, leaving that position vacant. Hiring a criminal deputy administrator would bring the staffing level back up to three. District Court had three people on staff until MiHa Kapaki was let go on March 4.

According to Grays Harbor County Administrator Sam Kim and Raines, District Court informed county officials that Kapaki’s position was no longer necessary.

“(Judge Megan Valentine) said she has two deputies, criminal and civil, and so she does not need a court administrator,” Kim said.

“Closing the court is completely up to the District Court judges, and that’s their decision. We have no authority to have them do something different. That’s completely up to them,” Raines said.

At the March 25 meeting, hiring a court administrator was approved by a 3-0 vote by the BOCC.

“The judges are aware that an internal candidate taking that position would require that the position they vacate would be subject to the (90-day) hiring freeze,” Raines said at that meeting.

Kapaki’s position was filled with an internal promotion.

“They backfilled MiHa, which they promised they didn’t need, and now they want to backfill the person who was internally promoted to take MiHa’s role,” Kim said.

According to District Court, one staff member is currently on vacation and one is out on medical leave, which necessitated the cancellation of criminal dockets for three days.

“You have to (plan for that) because we’re facing that throughout the county. That happens. People go on vacation in the summer. That should have been anticipated,” Kim said.

“The concern at (Tuesday’s) meeting was that they had that position fall empty, and if they filled it with someone internally, their position would become vacant. That’s how it works. We see it all the time,” Raines said. “That’s the general way that you see people move up the ladder and the way you fill other positions. But to say that they closed the court for three days because they had inadequate staff? Not because of us, not because of the Commissioner’s office. That’s on them.”

District 1 Commissioner Georgia Miller added, “I just hope that they do adhere to the 90-day hiring freeze because we are trying to be mindful of budgets within the county, so we would really appreciate that support from that department.”

The District Court was also asked to wait out Kapaki’s 90-day severance period because the Court chose to let her go, thus creating a vacancy, which pushed the effective date of a new hire to roughly Sept. 1.

“This position is essential to keeping the criminal justice process moving,” Valentine said. “Delaying or ignoring it puts the fairness and safety of the system at risk.”

During last Tuesday’s BOCC non-action meeting, District Court did acknowledge that Sept. 1 would be the earliest it could hire a ​​criminal deputy administrator; however, it bemoaned issues with the BOCC’s electronic workflow system and agenda item request procedure.

“Our items never made it onto the agenda, got stuck somewhere in workflow. Actually, we were told they were not going to be entertained,” said Brandy Rux, District Court administrator. “On June 10, the judge appointed me to the court administrator position, leaving the criminal deputy administrator position open. The items were not returned to us, so we weren’t able to go through the appeals process. June 10, we had requests submitted in OnBase to recruit for the criminal deputy administrator position for the 6/17 discussion meeting and the 6/25 action meeting, the agenda item was not approved, they weren’t approved or returned to us per your policy. Robert (Bouffard) let us know on June 4 that Sam (Kim) indicated that you, the Board, was not interested in us proceeding with recruitment for the criminal deputy administrative position.”

Raines said, “I think that is because when the request came in to advertise and not wait, the prior court administrator left, and we normally would have that position stay open 90 days. We understand that you have to have that position, so we allowed it to be filled, there was also a severance that came out of the budget that we paid out. I spoke with the judge, and said ‘if it’s an internal position, an internal employee that moves up, we would like their position to remain vacant for three months.’”

Commissioner Miller added, “And that was agreed upon during the public meeting because I asked the question, it’s on record that I asked the question, that if we authorized this position, will they wait for the 90 days, like all other departments, for backfilling that position? And it was ‘yes.’”

Rux countered, mentioning that other vacant positions in the county had been filled quickly.

Raines said, “We initially wanted the administrator position to be open for six months. To allow the 90 days to expire, and to allow the severance to expire for an additional 90 days.”

As the Board worked their way through the District Court’s agenda items, the discussion came back to the Criminal Deputy Administrator hiring request.

Miller said, “That’s the position you (Rux) had, that you promoted from. I don’t have any problem hiring this as long as it’s subject to the 90 days, because that’s what was agreed on in a public meeting. How long will it take to fill that position?”

Ninety days from Rux’s promotion would be Sept. 2.

“Going through this process, we would be at about 90 days before we could even have it, it would be around September, we would be asking,” Rux said. “You go through this process, and it gets kicked to the action meeting, and you have to wait for all that to be approved. By the time the process is complete would be about 90 days.”

Jon Beltran, Grays Harbor County Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor, interjected and said that he believed the continued vacancy of the Criminal Deputy Administrator position would continue to put stress on District Court.

“One of the things we’re facing rather eminently is the potential for reduced dockets,” Beltran said and then asked for a description of the duties of the position.

“We currently have one person that’s out on vacation; she plans hers a year in advance. I have another staff member that’s out on medical,” Rux said. “I have two staff members in our criminal department right now that just came off probation. They’re not trained to go into a courtroom as a clerk. They’re union positions, so I can’t go in there and do that either. We don’t have the staffing to train those newer employees to go into a court.”

Miller concluded, “I would support this moving forward on the action meeting.” Raines and Commissioner Rick Hole concurred.

Beltran asked if filling this position would alleviate disruption in the court’s schedule. Rux said she couldn’t guarantee that because of vacations and unplanned medical situations.

However, Miller said, “But we are authorizing to move forward for the hiring of this position.”

That discussion and vote were to be included on today’s BOCC action meeting agenda.

If the vacancy is filled by an external candidate, District Court would be fully staffed. If they promote from within, yet another vacancy will be created.

On the question of communication at the end of the discussion, Rux concluded, “I think that has been an issue between the two entities lately.”