Former Humboldt County Employee Claims She Was Fired for Reporting Sexual Harassment

Dianna Rios spent nearly four years as an Economic Development Coordinator for Humboldt County, helping run a county initiative to bring new business and air service to the county’s airports. According to a legal claim filed against the county this spring, she reported that a colleague had sexually harassed her during a work trip — and she was fired before the county’s own investigation closed.

Rios was terminated Oct. 1, 2025. The following day, according to the claim, HR Director Zachary O’Hanen sent her a memo stating her harassment allegation had been “sustained” — meaning the county’s investigation found it more likely than not to be true.

Her attorney, Bryan J. Lazarski of Lazarski Law Practice, P.C. in Los Angeles, filed a notice of claims on her behalf seeking damages in excess of $10,000 from the County of Humboldt, with the full amount to be determined at trial. It was received by the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors on April 6, 2026, and appeared on Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors closed session agenda, where members confer with legal counsel on pending or anticipated litigation. Under California law, the county had 45 days from receipt of the claim to respond — a deadline that falls May 21, eight days from today. If the county does not act, Rios can file suit in Humboldt County Superior Court.

According to the claim, Rios traveled on county business Dec. 2-4, 2023, with a county employee and at least one other person, both of whose identities are redacted in the publicly available document. During the trip, the claim alleges, the unnamed individual committed acts that caused Rios “extreme embarrassment, humiliation, loss of reputation, and emotional distress.”

She did not report it right away. The claim says she feared retaliation from the alleged perpetrator, who she describes as having friends in positions of influence at the county.

Rios came to the county in 2021 after a 12-year run as Executive Director of the Fortuna Business Improvement District, a city-contracted nonprofit that promoted local businesses. Her departure coincided with significant financial turmoil at the organization, according to city documents. The FBID was left without staff, with about $15,000 in the bank, a six-year audit still incomplete, and a $25,000 grant from the Humboldt Lodging Alliance that had been spent on overhead rather than its intended tourism purpose and was returned. Bank account signers had not been updated, financial records going back to 2015 were still being assembled for auditors, and questions remained about how grant money had been spent in prior years. The situation was significant enough that the Fortuna City Council convened two special workshops — in June and October 2021 — to determine the FBID’s future. The city eventually wound down the FBID’s nonprofit structure and brought operations in-house under city staff. No public record attributes financial misconduct to Rios. In the same city documents, the city manager credits Rios with the development and implementation of a COVID Relief Loan Program.

At the county, she was assigned to Project SOAR — Sourcing Opportunities for Airport Revenues — a Board of Supervisors-approved initiative to grow revenue and air service at Humboldt County’s six airports. Scott Adair, who was Economic Development Director during that period, confirmed to the Redheaded Blackbelt that Rios’s work regularly placed her in contact with Aviation Department leadership, including then-Aviation Director Cody Roggatz. The program was built on a formal inter-departmental agreement under which Rios managed day-to-day work including airport marketing, conference attendance and airline recruitment, spent time working out of Aviation’s offices, and traveled to industry conferences as a standard part of her job. Adair said he had no knowledge of any harassment allegation or incident during the December 2023 trip and noted that he left the county around the same time Rios filed her formal complaint and was unaware of it at that time.

On Aug. 23, 2024, Rios reported the conduct to O’Hanen, who opened an administrative investigation. It is also worth noting what else was happening at the county that August. Roggatz, as Aviation Director, had been the public face of the successful inaugural Rumble Over the Redwoods airshow at the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport on August 10-11, 2024 — less than two weeks before Rios went to HR. After the show, his county email began auto-replying that he was “temporarily unavailable.” He stopped responding to media. A special closed-session Board meeting on Sept. 16, 2024, ended in a 3-2 vote to accept his resignation, effective immediately. No public explanation was ever given. The claim does not name Roggatz, and no public accusation has been made against him.

According to the claim, after Rios filed her HR complaint, staff were pulled from her projects, and she was subjected to heightened scrutiny from county management. Then in April 2025, the claim alleges a county administrator accidentally copied Rios on an internal email discussing how to build a disciplinary case against her — while the harassment investigation was still open and while her projects, by her account, were on track.

It is also worth noting that the formal SOAR agreement between Economic Development and Aviation had lapsed in July 2024 — one month before Rios filed her HR complaint — and according to the county’s own response to a Civil Grand Jury inquiry, had not been renewed. The Aviation Department has cycled through three directors in the 18 months since Roggatz’s departure, and the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury flagged the department’s ongoing instability in a July 2025 report, warning it was putting millions in federal grant funding at risk.

On Sept. 15, 2025, the county issued a Notice of Intent to Terminate Rios, accusing her of insubordination, inefficiency in budget and project management, discourteous conduct and failure of good behavior. Rios’ claim states no specific examples supported any of the allegations and characterizes the action as retaliation dressed up as discipline. The termination took effect Oct. 1.

Rios’ claim cites California Labor Code section 1102.5, which bars employers from retaliating against employees who report potential violations of law, and the Fair Employment and Housing Act. Under section 1102.6, if she can demonstrate in court that retaliation was a contributing factor in her termination, the burden shifts to the county to prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have fired her regardless — meaning for legitimate, independent performance reasons. A sustained harassment finding does not automatically establish retaliation. Whether the county has documentation to support its termination decision — and whether it holds up — is a question for the courts. Claims like this don’t always go to trial. Counties routinely settle employment retaliation cases to limit legal costs and public exposure.

The county has not publicly responded to the claim. If no action is taken by May 21, Rios can move forward with a lawsuit.

Redheaded Blackbelt reached out to Rios for comment on this article, no response was given prior to publication.