‘I want to be treated fairly’: Loveall opens up about his frustrations

Lane County Commissioner David Loveall says it was never his idea to call anyone a stripper.

He makes no apology for using religious language in a birthday card. He concedes he used salty language, but was “blowing off steam” in a private meeting. He also wonders why months-old human resources complaints about him entered into the public sphere in the first place. 

Again and again, Loveall defended himself in an extraordinary Nov. 20, 2025, email to County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky. The 8-page email, much of which Mokrohisky says is false, offers another window into Loveall’s unraveling relationship with the administrator. 

Lane County provided a redacted version of the email to Lookout Eugene-Springfield in response to a public records request, citing attorney-client privilege as the reason for the redactions. Lookout obtained an unredacted version, one that sheds greater light on how Loveall views his county experience and his justifications for his actions in the months before an outside investigation concluded he broke county policy and retaliated against Mokrohisky and two other staffers.

In an interview with Lookout, Loveall reflected on his three years as a commissioner and the controversies swirling around him.

“What I want is, I want to be treated fairly,” Loveall said Thursday, Feb. 12. “I want to be treated honestly, and I want to be treated the same as every other commissioner on the board. In my experience, that’s been different.”

The county’s stormy relationship with Loveall rages on. A county press release said commissioners will consider the investigation’s findings in a closed-door executive session Wednesday, Feb. 18. That meeting could mark a culmination of issues with Loveall that spilled into public when Lookout first reported the existence of a Sept. 4, 2025, email Mokrohisky sent to Loveall.

Through a spokesperson, Mokrohisky declined to comment on specific portions of Loveall’s Nov. 20 email. 

Devon Ashbridge, a county spokesperson, said in an email that Mokrohisky “maintains that many of the statements made in the November 20 email are demonstrably false, as sustained in the investigation summary released on Tuesday.” 

Two incidents in May 2025 generated separate complaints against Loveall. One unnamed staffer complained after Loveall described a community member as a “stripper on a strip pole, her hands moving like this,” the report said.

Another employee complained when Loveall signed their birthday card with “religious language,” which included thanking them for “kingdom work,” records show.

In June 2025, Loveall walked into Mokrohisky’s office and demanded he make the complaints stop, the county’s report found.

Loveall told the administrator to tell the employees needed to “f— off,” adding that “commissioners can do what they want and there’s nothing anyone can do about it,” the report said. At the time, Loveall threatened Mokrohisky’s job, the report said. 

Loveall: Trust is needed

In the interview with Lookout, Loveall said private meetings are supposed to stay private. 

“There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes meetings and discussions that people have that the public shouldn’t know about, because people are either blowing off steam or making a point,” Loveall said. “But what has to happen is there’s a level of trust in a closed-door meeting with an individual, and that level of trust keeps open and honest dialog between the parties, but yet it’s not for the public’s consumption, because it gets played out differently in the public court.”

Loveall said he had an “honor agreement” with Mokrohisky to have open and honest communication. And he believes that complaints that surfaced with human resources should have been resolved privately.

Loveall said the county administrator’s Sept. 4 email was unnecessary.

“We have no real reason to air dirty laundry of people,” he said. “We’re after doing the best job for the constituents.”

The report the county released Tuesday is a summary, not the full version, of an outside investigation that examined the complaints against Loveall and determined whether they had merit. Loveall wrote the Nov. 20 email to Mokrohisky at a time when the county’s report was still being compiled. 

“I’d like to remind us both that every accusation you’ve leveled against me has more context and/or missing information that should be considered for the purpose of understanding instead of your email simply trying to impact my re-election,” Loveall wrote in the Nov. 20 email.

‘Not a word that originated with me’

That email, in unredacted format, offers the fullest picture of Loveall’s take on events.

The county redacted Loveall’s defense of the “stripper” remark in his email. In it, Loveall stresses he didn’t come up with that wording to describe a community partner.

“Let’s now address the ‘stripper’ comment,” Loveall wrote in the Nov. 20 email. “Let me be very clear: I never referred to anyone as a ‘stripper’ and it’s not a word that originated with me. It’s a word that came from a conversation I had with a few individuals.”

In that email, Loveall said a few people, including himself, “were extremely uncomfortable with the manner with which the presenter delivered the presentation.”

The account in the county’s summary report doesn’t include that level of detail. 

According to that report, Loveall told Mokrohisky in a June 23, 2025, meeting that he used the word “stripper” to describe the presenter’s delivery, but added another person did as well. Loveall said the person’s “behaviors and gestures are weird,” according to the report.

‘Kingdom work’ 

Loveall defended his use of “thanks for doing kingdom work, blessings” on an employee birthday card he signed. 

He said he’s religious and has signed other cards with “blessings” or similar language. 

“It’s no secret I’m a person of faith, and certainly not perfect or ‘good’ in any stretch of the imagination, but alas, I’m grateful and repentant that Christ died for derelicts like me,” Loveall emailed. “I’ve signed many of these birthday cards since taking office.”

Loveall recounted a visit from County Counsel Rob Bovett about the card salutation that prompted the complaint. 

“Acting as the messenger from you, he reminds me to please be ‘mindful of other people’s feelings and to perhaps not use that kind of religious type of signature from here on,’” Loveall emailed Mokrohisky. 

That issue, Loveall wrote, was the “final straw.”

“The pettiness of this complaint and the direct attack on a person’s first amendment rights stewed sour in me,” he wrote. “This is what brought me to your office in such a huff on June 17, 2025.”

Loveall also later defended the card signature in an interview on a podcast without naming the staffer. That also drew another complaint from the staffer.

In his email, Loveall said the potential human resources complaints are bad for the workplace culture with people walking on “egg shells.”

“Have you noticed we no longer circulate birthday cards or have our monthly cake and singing ‘happy birthday’ for folks in the back staff area?” Loveall wrote. “One more item of team building cancelled for fear of weaponization.”

‘I’m a warrior’ 

In his Thursday interview with Lookout, Loveall pondered a question about what he would have done differently. 

“You know, I’m really direct,” he said. “I want to fight for the little guy. I mean, I’m a warrior.”

Loveall also noted that this is his first time in elected office. A developer and businessman who owns downtown Springfield buildings, Loveall’s past experience is more in the business world and six years in the Navy.

“I think my trust would have been less naive,” he said. “I think in politics, trust only goes so far, and that’s unfortunate. Whereas I’ve never been in politics. When people say I can trust them, I generally do until there’s a good reason why I shouldn’t. I think I would have been maybe a little more discerning in the last year and a half.”