You Don’t Belong Here: The Cost of Civic Participation
A little over a year ago, I was appointed to the County Behavioral Health Board. I dove in and immediately saw ways that I could contribute to my community. Prior to working as a civil servant, I led human resources in a locked psychiatric facility. I also happen to have personal experience with trauma and caregiving going back decades. I know all too well the toll that caregiving takes on anyone, especially those that caregive for work in addition to caregiving in their personal lives. I thought that by applying to the behavioral health board, I could get involved and potentially even have an impact on my colleagues’ lives. I interviewed with my District supervisor—I was hopeful, it was good interview—I expressed concerns I had about county leadership, about my hopes to improve the lives of the behavioral health workforce, and explained how I wanted to engage, etc.. When I eventually received notice that I would be sworn in, I was proud. I was ready to expand my learning around inclusion, civic participation, representation, and community feedback. I resigned last month.
I should have known there was an issue when I, myself, assigned and completed the County Ethics training that individuals are required to take upon appointment to a Board.
And let me tell you why…
It was my second board meeting. It took place in my District, at our community center. I was prepared—I read the previous meeting’s minutes and was excited to get to work. I arrived a little early and sat down next to another Board member from my district and we started chatting about our experiences—we were both fairly new. I was sitting at the front table, just left of the middle of the room at the pre-assigned Board member table when the county behavioral health director came in. I had seen them once, when I first started at my county job, at a labor-management meeting. They seemed engaged, sincere and generally like someone I would love to work with. I was not expecting what came next.
I smiled and was about to introduce myself properly this time. I arrived late to the previous Board meeting—of course I did—it was my first meeting as a member, and per Murphy’s Law of First Impressions, I would be late. The director and I made eye contact and my smile was met with a pointed finger and a snarled lip. They uttered the phrase, “You do not belong here, you need to leave”, or some variation of that. They then walked over and sat down next to me and in a terse and reproachful manner, stated that I was not welcome as a Board member because of a conflict of interest. I panicked—I had gone through the application, interview and selection process—I was confused. If this was true, how could I have been appointed? I thought they vetted applications for this role! I also did not understand what conflict she was referring to, as per Welfare & Institutions Code §5604, I did not work for behavioral health or benefit financially from my appointment. I asked her what was prompting her reproachful manner and she stated that she was contacting my manager and my former colleague and repeated that I did not belong at the meeting and I needed to leave. She pulled out her phone.
Gobsmacked.
Several weeks before, I was asked for a favor by a former colleague who worked in Behavioral Health, to try out a training I developed for a separate department on their staff—a test run. I did that and the short version is that I stopped the training mid-presentation to address competing conversations, constant interruptions, and general disrespectful behavior. I believe in accountability and have a couple of decades of conflict resolution and mediation experience tucked under my belt, so I engaged the discomfort. I managed to turn the meeting around and into a Q&A with their managers, which is what they, as a group, were expecting—a surprise to me.
“Humiliations Galore”
I snapped out of my momentary stupor and asked them if their behavior toward me stemmed from my speaking up about my experience of disrespectful and bullying behavior while visiting their department. Their terse reply was that my appointment was a conflict of interest and they had just then messaged my manager and colleague so that I would be removed from the meeting. My vantage point was awful in that I was seated next to them and could see my colleague and manager’s names pop up as they texted responses—the display settings were adjusted to show text as larger than standard—the phone was on their lap and the screen lit up for every text. It was awful. At one point during this interaction, my fellow District board member asked me why they were trying to have me removed. I remember texting my husband in a state of disbelief. This was a public meeting and I understood that they are recorded. Oh good, more bullies. This, on top of what I was experiencing in the workplace. What the hell was going on? Why was I being talked about? Why were my manager and a former colleague involved? “Hi County, It’s Me Gaslighting” indeed.
By chance, the Board meeting started out discussing the orientation process and I stated my experience with my own ‘onboarding’, adding that the validity of my status was being questioned by the behavioral health director and I was not sure how to proceed. Someone gruffly stated that we could table it and it was never brought up again. I spent the better part of a year trying to convince myself that it was a misunderstanding. And, as I am wont to do, I assumed it was my fault (old programming, recently got an upgrade—I went Open-Source). I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, however I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being bullied throughout my life—it is less impactful than it once was, but it stings. I am always working on being brave, speaking honestly, holding myself and others accountable. I had hoped that in civil service, there would be other leaders like me. I’m still waiting. I never got an apology or an acknowledgement, just a ‘request to speak’ by my manager the next day. Instead, I wrote an email asking for accountability and respectful behavior to the County Administrator’s office. The email was acknowledged. Bullying gets old quick, but I stuck it out—this work is important to me. My job is important to me. I did what I was taught to do and I pretended it never happened even though I was sick to my stomach every meeting following.
Earlier this year, I submitted a proposal to overhaul the site visit protocols to include more data collection, standards, naming conventions and accountability, in addition to input from the workforce and community members with equal weight. At what would become my final meeting, a fellow Board member stated that I had not requested assistance in developing my proposal. I had. I have the emails documenting those requests. After months of working to improve the Board’s site-visit protocols, I found myself once again having to defend my own conduct rather than discuss the substance of my contribution. The proposal passed, but something else had change I witnessed my last fuck fly away from the barren field that was once overrun by them. I refused to allow myself to be bullied. Period. No more. That decision prompted one link to break, in a chain of events that led to complete disengagement. This is not civil service. This is not social justice. This is not representative governance. I had reached the point where I could say, “fuck around and find out” and back it up with 30 years of work, research and lived experience. To me, these experiences illustrated something deeply troubling about public institutions: conduct that undermines participation can go unaddressed, even when those institutions publicly champion inclusion, accountability, and representative governance. At some point, enough is enough.
What does an institution communicate about civic participation when an appointed community representative can be challenged this way, publicly, by an official of the very department the board is supposed to advise? What happens when a minoritized civil servant attempts to address inequity in the workplace?
I didn’t leave because I didn’t care enough to participate—I doubled down, I engaged—if I tried harder, it would get recognized. <insert eye roll of empathy here>
I left because participating required accepting treatment I would never tell another community member or member of the county workforce they should have to endure. How can a public agency extol virtues it does not embody and continue to do so with no accountability? This is the crux of my academic work. Just who counts when decisions are made? Just how much is swept under the rug in the name of business as usual (aka don’t mess with my ego, I won’t mess with your job.) Workplace bullying needs to be addressed across the board and bullies need to be held accountable for their actions, especially when they are the ones in power.
Appointment is not the same as participation. Participation is not the same as influence. And influence is not the same as institutional accountability.
