The Statham City Council unanimously voted to ban Catherine Corkren from city property in a short, called meeting last Thursday.
The council followed the recommendation of city attorney Thomas Mitchell, who said Corkren’s attitude at the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office Aug. 23 “prompted” the action. The hearing for the called meeting lasted less than 20 minutes.
Corkren has attended all city council meetings for months. She has objected to a number of council actions, the latest having been its motion to continue its police department “as is” and her argument that the city should create an Ethics Board that does not include members who have relationships with city council members.
Mitchell’s letter to Corkren says, “If you are willing to treat court employees in such a manner and a Barrow County deputy sheriff in that manner in the offices of the sheriff, the city is concerned that you would have no compunction about threatening or even doing harm to a City of Statham employee.”
Corkren said several times during the short hearing that Mitchell “consistently lies to you and he provides information that leads you into lawsuits.” She said he was enriching himself with attorney’s fees at the expense of the city.
Mitchell introduced an email string of messages between Corkren and Heather Tarver, secretary for Judge Corrie Mingledorff.
He said Corkren accused Tarver of collusion and withholding information.
The attorney also said Corkren had accused Sandra Bennett, a city employee, of assaulting her, but he said a video of the encounter shows “that there was no contact.”
Corkren complained that Mitchell ended the city’s practice of emailing responses to open records requests she made.
That process “was working perfectly fine,” Corkren said.
See more in the Sept. 19 edition of the Barrow News-Journal.
I agree the lady (sic) is 50 cards short of a full deck. I agree the lady (sic) needed to be dealt with, but banning her from city properties is setting a bad precedence!
One cannot help but wonder - is the Statham city attorney working under yesteryear's "old" models?
For instance back in the older days, if a hospital or doctor accidently screwed up and injured a patient, the hospital attorney might have advised the doctor to not get overly involved with the family, "because they are probably going to sue us." Sometimes the staff was also cautioned to avoid making explanation of what happened to the patient and the family, "because they may sue us."
Those attorneys likely had good intentions - to protect the financial assets of the hospital.
But think about it...The patient and family may not have received all the information owed them in view of the medical error, because the staff were cautioned by "Legal" to back away. Most importantly, at the time when the patient needed support and understanding - the care givers distanced themselves.
Gradually, caregivers realized that while the attorneys might have meant well to protect the assets of the hospital and the medical people - - it would have been better all along to be completely open and honest with the patient.
So NOW, THANKFULLY, healthcare organizations try to "talk about mistakes" differently. NOW, most embrace that the patient is entitled to a transparent disclosure of anything that happened to their body while in the care of the hospital! An honest approach!
And EVEN IF the patient might sue, the hospital should STILL explain and disclose everything, even discussion of settlement dollars if needed. These days, the hospital WANTS to own the mistakes, learn from them, and make it right for the patient. In fairness. Because it is the right thing to do.
So back to Statham...
One cannot help but wonder - is the Statham city attorney working under yesteryear's "old" model - where transparency is unheard of, and stone-walling is the name of the game?
If YES, that would certainly answer the logical questions, "Why aren't Statham officials trying to make this right? Police mistakes were made - we see the Lofton videos and files. Why aren't the officials working to own this mistake, learn from it, and make it right for these innocent people?"
One hopes the officials remember that they have a responsibility to use their own critical thinking skills - - not just parrot the opinion of another. At the end of the day, the officials owe a duty to the people harmed by Lofton, as well as the rest of the town.
This is likely embarrassing for the officials. Understood.
It is OK to say - we made a mistake, and we want to make it right. That is far preferable to continuing this idiocy of banning, or trying to silence every dissenting voice in the universe. In fact it is the fair, just, and transparent action to take. One hopes the council can generate the will to make it so.