Barrow Journal

A detention officer at the Barrow County Detention Center has been suspended without pay after drug investigators found him inside a Hoschton residence during a search.
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Are Barrow County leaders considering farming out prisoners to other counties in a bid to cut costs associated with the recent opening of the new county jail?

The Barrow Journal has confirmed that BOC chairman Danny Yearwood has inquired with Oconee County about possibly housing Barrow inmates.

Oconee BOC chairman Melvin Davis said late Tuesday afternoon that Yearwood approached him at a recent meeting they both attended.

Yearwood has also been making inquiries with Walton County about how their sheriff’s department is set up.

For the full story on this and other Barrow news, see the July 29 issue of the Barrow Journal.

Chairman Danny Yearwood on Tuesday night agreed to allow the Barrow County Board of Commissioners to begin looking for a top administrator to help him run the day-to-day operations of the county government.

The position of “chief of operations” has been vacant since Keith Lee’s resignation in early February, but Yearwood has resisted board members’ private inquiries about hiring anyone, saying it would be a waste of money because he didn’t need the help.

The issue became public last week after four commissioners, led by Ben Hendrix, asked for the issue to be put on the board’s meeting agenda.

Hendrix said that with the resignations of the county’s top administrators and the departure of other managers, that left no less than 10 vacancies in senior staff positions.

He said he doesn’t want to hire anyone “to circumvent his authority or to run the county for him or this board,” but he thinks Yearwood needs assistance. [Full Story »]