More than a year ago, Voice of San Diego sued the county for refusing to release employee misconduct records. On Tuesday, within minutes of the county releasing those records to comply with a Superior Court judge\u2019s order, the county announced the departure of its behavioral health director.<\/p>\n
The county\u2019s statement<\/a> doesn\u2019t directly describe the misconduct but decries racism and sexism. Voice is now reviewing the records.<\/p>\n One of the records described a February 2025 incident where an administrative analyst who was unmuted during a county-sponsored cultural responsiveness training attended by about 75 attendees allegedly exclaimed \u201cI thought this wasn\u2019t going to be political, but what do you expect when it\u2019s taught by a bunch of Black people.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the county investigation, the behavioral health staffer was removed from the training and said she meant for the comments to be directed at her mother, who was at home with her at the time. It was not immediately clear how or whether the employee was disciplined after the county review.<\/p>\n \u201cAll inappropriate actions including racism and sexism are absolutely unacceptable and have no place at the county, and we will expect the highest standards of service to uphold public trust,\u201d County Chief Administrative Officer Ebony Shelton wrote in the statement.<\/p>\n Shelton also wrote that the unspecified allegations, which were substantiated by county investigators, don\u2019t reflect the county\u2019s values or her expectations for executive team members and employees.<\/p>\n \u201cThe misconduct was discovered and investigated through reports to the County\u2019s Office of Ethics, Compliance and Labor Standards,\u201d the county wrote in its statement. \u201cThe county anticipates additional substantiated findings and will address them under the same standard of accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n Health and Human Services Agency executive Jennifer Bransford-Koons will temporarily lead the county\u2019s behavioral health department after the departure of Nadia Privara, who has overseen department since April 2025, according to the statement. Privara, a longtime county official, took on the role after the spring 2025 resignation<\/a> of ex-director Luke Bergmann.<\/p>\n County spokesperson Tammy Glenn later confirmed that Privara\u2019s last day was Tuesday.<\/p>\n In its statement, the county said top officials \u201ccalled for a closer examination of processes to strengthen expectations around decision-making, accountability and leadership conduct\u201d after learning of the misconduct.<\/p>\n \u201cResults of this examination prompted a leadership change in Behavioral Health Services,\u201d according to the statement.<\/p>\n Shelton also said in the county statement that \u201csignificant progress that\u2019s been made to date through training, communication, organizational structure and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n In a separate statement, County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe said she supported Shelton\u2019s decision and was committed to helping the county find a strong leader for its Behavioral Health Services Department, which recently became a standalone county agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened is unacceptable, and we have to do better. County leaders have a responsibility to ensure racism and discrimination are never tolerated in our workplace,\u201d Montgomery Steppe wrote. \u201cOur commitment to equity cannot just be something we talk about. It has to be reflected in how we treat people and how we hold ourselves accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than a year ago, Voice of San Diego sued the county for refusing to release employee misconduct…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-445668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}