WHATCOM COUNTY, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – The Whatcom County Council has decided to open an investigation into the county’s handling of a recent sexual harassment settlement.

The council spent over an hour in an executive session during its special meeting on Tuesday, April 30 where they discussed confidential details regarding the case.

It comes after a recent story by Crosscut.com detailed reports of three different women being sexually harassed by Jon Hutchings between 2020 and 2022 while he served as director of Whatcom Public Works.

The county ended up settling with one of the women for $225,000, which council was not informed about.

Council member Todd Donovan said the council isn’t looking to have made a final decision regarding the settlement, but that it at least wants transparency over matters of that magnitude.

“We can look at a list and know how often our chip seal program is damaging vehicles and we have that information and a sense of how that program is working,” Donovan said. “We don’t have a sense of how much this county is paying out for personnel matters. We have zero sense.”

Council member Ben Elenbaas echoed Donovan’s sentiments at the meeting.

“The fact that we didn’t ever get informed, even just a heads up … that’s appalling to me,’ said Elenbaas.

Elenbaas went on to say he believes that an incident like this should cost some county employees their jobs.

The meeting comes a day after County Executive Satpal Sidhu sent a public letter to county council members and employees.

In it, he apologized for a favorable letter of introduction he wrote to get Hutchings a job as Lynden’s new Public Works director.

Sidhu said he now recognizes that signing it was “inappropriate and misguided.”