The ethics complaint case against City Manager John Mauro has been dismissed by Phil Olbrechts, the city’s hearing examiner.

Olbrechts announced the dismissal in an email June 30, bringing the case to closure after nearly four months.

“As in so many of her ethics complaints, Reverend Cox has again flooded the ethics review process with dozens of irrelevant pages detailing her grievances about choices made by city appointed and elected officials over the YMCA transgender incident,” Olbrechts wrote in his ruling. “Reverend Cox could very well have the moral high ground on those issues. However, those grievances concern policy and management choices made by city elected and appointed officials. They aren’t relevant to the city’s ethics code.”

Since Jan. 1, Reverend Crystal Cox has filed ethics complaints against Mauro, Mayor David Faber, council members Amy Howard, Owen Rowe, Libby Wennstrom and the city’s public records officer, Haylie Truesdel.

With the exception of the complaint against Faber, all of Cox’ ethics complaints have been withdrawn or dismissed. Olbrechts said he is addressing the Faber complaint last “because one of the issues may involve some cross-referencing with the final City Council report on the Cox ethics complaints.” 

Cox, of the Universal Church of Light, responded to a request for comment that “the evidence was abundant. What Mauro did was not legal, moral or ethical, and in no way his duty. And violated the contract with the YMCA.” She had predicted the result, she said, but her mission was accomplished: “Creating a public record of all that really happened was my goal.”

Cox filed the swath of complaints against individuals in the larger group in early March in anticipation of city council adopting a new ethics policy, stating its new constraints would limit her ability to file complaints in the future. The city passed the new, more stringent policy on March 24.

Her initial complaint against Mauro on March 2, alleged six ethics violations, all of which were related to Mauro’s alleged actions following a transgender incident at the Port Townsend YMCA pool in July 2022.

In his June 30 summary report, Olbrechts added, “Making management and legislative decisions on the YMCA incident in a manner that is disagreeable to Reverend Cox is not an ethics violation,” Olbrechts wrote. “No court opinion or attorney general opinion has ever found an ethics code violation similar to those advocated by Reverend Cox in any of the complaints she has filed thus far. Reverend Cox’s issues are political issues that should be addressed in a political forum. The ethics review process is not a political forum.”

Olbrechts issued an order of partial sufficiency on May 11. The order found one allegation sufficient to move forward and gave Cox the opportunity to provide more detail on two other allegations. Olbrechts dismissed the remaining three allegations at that time.

Cox then amended her complaint on May 21 by consolidating two of the outstanding allegations into one. She dropped the third. Olbrechts issued a second order of sufficiency on May 31, finding the consolidated allegation sufficient to move forward to hearing or summary judgement. Cox filed a motion for summary judgement on May 31, which dug into details, such as the city’s lease with the YMCA and whether Mauro had overstepped in intervening in the incident. Mauro filed his own motion for summary judgement on June 5, noting that the city was responsible for the building.

The one remaining allegation asserted that Mauro used his position as city manager to grant special privileges to pro-trans, pro-YMCA persons in the aftermath of the Julie Jaman incident at the YMCA pool in July 2022. The allegation went further in that it asserted Mauro used his position to grant the same people privileged and preferential access to a city council meeting.

“Mr. Mauro’s use of city resources to get involved in the YMCA incident did not constitute a special privileges violation,” Olbrechts wrote. “As the head of the city’s administrative branch Mr. Mauro had the authority to oversee city resources. The YMCA pool is a city resources because that pool was leased by the city. It was managed by the YMCA under a city/YMCA operating agreement in which the city shared responsibility in public outreach in use of pool facilities.”

When asked to quantify the cost of Cox’s summer 2024 ethics complaint against Mayor David Faber, Adams estimated the tally at 75 staff hours and about $6,000. Adams said the city pays Olbrechts $165 an hour for his services. For 2025, Adams did not have a tally.

Cox’s claims have run the gamut from allegations of special privilege, to violations of open meetings and public records laws, harassment, intimidation, bullying, defamation, perjury and myriad others. Cox has built her ethics cases on emails, text messages audio and video obtained via open records requests.

The Olbrechts’ dismissal marks the end of Cox’s efforts at the city level, according to her June 30 email response to the dismissal: “As for the sham of the ethics complaint process, I am done forever.”

In 2024, Cox’s requests amounted to 17.8% of all requests filed or 83 of 464. In 2023, Cox’s requests amounted to 21.87% of all filings, or 117 of 535 requests.

Cox wrote in the June 30 email response to the dismissal that the process was a “sham” and that efforts to file complaints with the city were “done forever.”