The day before she accused Mike Rademaker of falsifying public records, Harbor Commissioner Annie Nehmer formally petitioned the courts to halt the release of a report looking into the harbormaster’s alleged misconduct.

Nehmer also states in her petition for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, filed Tuesday in Del Norte County Superior Court, that the Harbor District Board of Commissioners violated the Brown Act by not publicly reporting a May 13 vote to release the report.

The report is based on an investigation conducted by Sacramento consultant HRtoGO, and though Harbormaster Mike Rademaker states otherwise, it is not yet finished, Nehmer told Redwood Voice Community News on Friday.

“We have not received notification that it’s complete or final,” she said.

Nehmer also alleges that the Crescent City Harbor District Board violated the Brown Act by approving a five-year employment contract with Rademaker on Wednesday. She said the Board during a closed session meeting on Wednesday made changes to the contract and approved it before the public had a chance to view those changes or weigh in on them.

“There were members of the public there, they were told the closed session would last a minute or two,” Nehmer said. “When the Board went into closed session, they decided to review the contract and make several changes and those changes were made, but they have not been published for the public to review or for final review by legal counsel. So it violates the Brown Act.”

She said she filed a “cure and correct” demand on Thursday “so that they actually publish the contract for the public to view and revote on it after that time period.”

Nehmer’s petition for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction seeks to block the public release of the report after fellow commissioner Dan Schmidt, during an April 21 public meeting, referenced the investigation.

Nehmer said Schmidt’s statement prompted Linda Sutter, a vocal critic who has a writ of mandate pending against the Harbor District, to submit a California Public Records Act request to obtain the report.

“While the investigation was not complete, the Board [of Commissioners] voted to release the report to Linda per her request,” Nehmer said. “Kyler [Rayden], of BBK said that in order to stop the release of that report, we had to file a reverse PRA so I did so. Because the report for the investigation is still not complete, any report released at this time would not be an official one.”

BBK is Best Best & Krieger, the Crescent City Harbor District’s former legal representative. The Harbor is currently represented by Ryan Plotz, of the Eureka-based Mitchell Law Firm. 

According to Rademaker, the HRtoGO report is finished.

“I confirmed with our HR contractor just now that after their internal legal review, I am not currently under any type of investigation,” he told Redwood Voice via text Friday. “And, furthermore, I will not be subject to any reopening of the prior investigation.”

The Crescent City Harbor District was served with Nehmer’s lawsuit on Tuesday. The summons refers to Nehmer’s petition for injunctive relief and Sutter’s writ of mandate suit against the Harbor District, stating that they “involve overlapping facts, the same key parties and intertwined legal issues.”

Both complaints allege that Rademaker falsified and mishandled Public Records Act requests and that he falsified premature release of a harassment investigation references the same underlying events,” according to the summons from Nehmer to the Harbor District.

In the summons, Nehmer asks that both her request for injunctive relief and Sutter’s case against the Harbor District be heard by the same judge.

On Wednesday, Nehmer stepped down from the dais and stood at the podium to face her colleagues. She urged them not to approve Rademaker’s employment contract, saying he “remains under investigation for misconduct, including the falsification of public records.”

On Friday, Rademaker told Redwood Voice that Nehmer’s statement was inaccurate because he was not under any investigation at that time. According to him, Nehmer was referencing her attempt to have a previously-concluded investigation reopened.

“On May 8, 2025, she was formally notified that ‘any further investigation into the harassment claims will not be undertaken’ unless additional factual information was provided within seven business days,” Rademaker said via email, citing one of the exhibits in Nehmer’s court filings. “The HR firm involved, HRtoGO, later confirmed that her request to repen the investigation had been forwarded to legal counsel for review, not as part of a new investigation, but for clarification purposes.”

In her legal complaint regarding the HRtoGO report against Rademaker, Nehmer stated that prematurely releasing it to the public would cause her “immediate and irreparable harm.” 

“The report contains unverified allegations, lacks findings and reflects an incomplete investigation,” the complaint states. “Its publication will result in reputational damage, confusion among the public and a loss of confidence in my service as a public official. Once released, the damage cannot be undone.”

Nehmer further alleges that release of the investigation “appears retaliatory.” She refers to a January 2025 public records request from Sutter for text messages between Rademaker and other officials. According to Nehmer, Rademaker responded to Sutter with a “falsified summary omitting key messages related to harassment.” The falsification is the subject of Sutter’s writ of mandate against the Harbor District, Nehmer states.

“The investigation report the Board intends to release directly relates to the same allegations of falsified records,” Nehmer’s complaint states. “Releasing it before it is complete risks contaminating the pending writ case, undermining the judicial process and enabling further retaliation.”

Nehmer declined to comment further on the nature of the harassment she alleges in her complaint.

In his email to Redwood Voice on Friday, Rademaker said that Nehmer’s statements that he had omitted “key messages related to harassment” in response to Sutter’s CPRA request is a new allegation. According to him, in March, Nehmer had emailed the Harbor District’s attorney to report that the harbormaster had deleted “certain text messages,” though she didn’t remember the content of the messages.

At that time, Rademaker said, Nehmer did not mention harassment and “expressly stated that she could not recall the contents of the messages.”

On Wednesday, during a Board discussion about updating the Harbor District’s records management plan — which the State Archivist recommends to occur every five years — Rademaker said the messages in question were related to “things like nutritional supplements I’m taking.” Harbor District staff have retrieved the deleted messages and Rademaker said he’d be in favor of disclosing them “just so everybody recognizes there’s nothing scandalous happening.”

Rademaker said the updates to the plan include a reference to the RingCentral app for internal communications among Harbor District staff and officials. In his staff report, Rademaker noted that communication via RingCentral’s message platform is ephemeral, collaborative and is often revised or deleted in real time. He cited a 2017 California Supreme Court case, City of San Jose v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, which determined that the personal devices public officials use to conduct public businesses may be subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act. Purely personal communications may be segregated and deleted since they were never part of the public record, according to the case.

“Despite some misconceptions in the public arena, it is inaccurate to claim that deleted messages from personal phones result in the destruction of public records,” Rademaker wrote in his staff report Wednesday. “Messages, even when deleted from a phone, remain archived on servers to maintain the public records accessibility to the extent those communications are classified as public records in the first place.”

Later in Wednesday’s meeting, just before the Harbor District Board went into closed session, Rademaker’s then-pending continued employment as harbormaster drew mixed reaction.

Del Norte Triplicate editor and former county supervisor Roger Gitlin urged commissioners to stick to the five-year contract they had initially approved back in April. 

“Don’t be persuaded to make it a shorter contract,” he said. “There’s plenty being done and you know that there are savings going on and you know this is a slow process. He deserves a five-year contract. And if you don’t like what he’s doing after his yearly review, then you, the five Board members, can do something about it.”

Another former supervisor, Gerry Hemmingsen, a commercial fisherman, said that though Rademaker has been harbormaster since October, he hasn’t seen any accomplishments. He said that Rademaker’s contract shouldn’t be more than a year or two before coming back to the Board for evaluation.

“We’ve got grants, but I don’t see a crane here, I don’t see any dirt moving, I don’t see any pilings being replaced on our docks,” Hemmingsen said. “I understand it takes time and I’m all for that, but I don’t think we should have somebody who can sit back for the next five years and sit back and not have any accomplishments or not have any evidenced-based anything to go off of.”