Clark County’s planning director has filed whistle-blower and harassment complaints against Councilor David Madore, citing the councilor’s involvement in the county’s 20-year growth plan and his accusations that planning staff lied to promote their own agenda.

The five-page complaint, filed on Oliver Orjiako’s behalf by Vancouver attorney Greg Ferguson, describes an environment of discrimination and harassment against the community planning director, who has been with Clark County for more than 25 years.

In the complaint filed March 15, Ferguson accuses Madore of “single-handedly commandeering the usual functions of the planning department,” of using a “bully pulpit” to harass and intimidate Orjiako, and of treating the planner, a dual Nigerian-United States citizen, “less favorably than other white male department heads.”

Speaking with his attorney this week, Orjiako told The Columbian he feels he’s been unfairly targeted for simply standing up to Madore through the county’s Comprehensive Growth Management Plan update process. Madore’s controversial zoning proposal, Alternative 4, and related planning framework introduced by the councilor violate the Growth Management Act and “cannot be supported” by state law, Orjiako said.

But Madore, who did not return a request for comment, has accused Orjiako and county staff in Facebook posts, from the dais and in a Jan. 27 op-ed piece in The Reflector, Battle Ground’s weekly newspaper, of providing false data to the county council in order to promote an anti-rural growth agenda.