Barrow County Chairman Danny Yearwood in a statement to the media early Wednesday made his first public comment about the ongoing EEOC controversy involving race and gender allegations.
He also called into question the veracity of two of the people who have raised the discrimination allegations: Human Resources Director Norma Jean Brown and senior IT network engineer Sebastian Ododa.
And he refuted a recent complaint by Commissioner Ben Hendrix about the lack of communication over filling the CFO position that has been vacant for five months.
Brown said after reading the statement that the employment law attorney that now represents her, Ododa and two other employees, would respond with a statement this week.
Commissioner Steve Worley said Wednesday morning that during a two-hour closed session Tuesday night, Yearwood said he planned to release the statement the following morning. But Worley said Yearwood didn’t elaborate on what he was going to say.
Asked if he felt the statement was accurate, Worley said: “No comment on the rest of it. I am going to be meeting with him face to face about it.”
This is the second time a board member appears to have violated its own agreement not to communicate publicly about the ongoing race and gender allegations while a private attorney investigates the allegations.
Worley said he could not comment any further about Yearwood’s statement because he personally is not going to violate that board action.
Commissioner Larry Joe Wilburn late last year apologized for talking about the case to a private citizen. Wilburn publicly criticized recent news coverage during the “citizen comment” time at the board’s meeting Tuesday night, but did not again mention the EEOC allegations.
Yearwood’s statement confronts the issue head on. He said the 2009 reduction-in-force resolutions passed in 2009 by the commissioners had “no underlining (sic), racist or gender, implication in them whatsoever & nobody has been discriminated against.”
The statement says all of the commissioners met with Brown, whom he says “put the RIF together” and that “she went over all of them, one by one, with every one of them.”
The statement says Brown “stated we were in compliance with all state & federal regulations.” The statement adds: “In fact she actually asked me to go to (Association of County Commissioners Georgia) to receive an award because of the way we did the RIF’s.”
PAY DELAY
Yearwood’s comments appears to place the blame for another recent controversy — the delay of county employees’ final 2009 paycheck until early 2010 — on Ododa.
The paychecks were delayed until the start of 2010 because they were the 27th paychecks county employees would have received and would have pushed their salaries higher than has been approved. The issue is technical, having to do with the calendar, not a matter of not having enough money for payroll.
“I have been trying to fix this since I took office,” Yearwood said. “I have met with Finance over & over & have talked with Sebastian Ododa in our IT department on numerous occasions. He informed me several times that it would not take anything to fix this. All we needed to do was to change our pay schedule & we could do it in 3 to 5 days. When I addressed this with him again in December in front of Mr. Hohe, he again stated there was no problem ‘we’ll fix it in 5 days.’ Well, come to find out we can’t fix it in 5 days; it’s going to take several months & not only that it’s going to cost possibly up to $30,000 to fix it.”
Yearwood’s statement also places on Brown some of the blame for the delay in the hiring of a CFO. The statement says “the job was advertised incorrectly & if someone had been hired at that time we probably would have been sued so the only option I had was to start over.”
He said the county doesn’t need a certified public accountant, only a “finance manager.”
“I am meeting with our attorney today about the CFO position to see what our options are.”
Yearwood wrote that everything had been discussed with the commissioners, and he took a swipe at Commissioner Ben Hendrix for a recent newspaper interview complaining about a lack of communication.
“My door is always open however Commissioner Hendrix hasn’t contacted me or any other staff member as to his concern.”
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the IT department has nothing to do with payroll other than maybe entering their own hours if they don't punch a clock. So Please Yearwood, explain to me how it is Ododa's fault.
OMG - you really are an idiot.
The solution lies within the BOC with a change of POLICY, not with IT and an unauthorized computer alteration.
It is odd that the two people singled out are both Plaintiffs in actions against Barrow County. There are many differences between the Chairman and Mrs Brown. Mr Ododa is singled out, not because he did anything wrong, but rather because he refuses to cave in to racial discrimination.
We have all become aware of Mr. Yearwood's value of the truth. The most glaring example was his testimony under oath that he had been misquoted in the Barrow Journal. When this statement was challanged, Yearwood apologized for having said he was misquoted.
This "Press Release" obviously written and typed by the Chairman is poorly composed graphically incorrect and factually inaccurate.
It is an insult to the employees and the other elected officials and to the intelligence of our citizens.
The Chairman has shown his willingness to ignore votes taken by the BOC. His "RELEASE"
is in direct conflict with the Board's vote not to comment until their expensive investigation is completed. His actions illustrate the Chairman's credo that he isn't
accountable to anyone. We cannot afford to allow him to continue to serve.
I work in IT in the private sector. My area of expertise is the financial modules (IE... payroll, accounting etc...)in the software the company is using and I CAN TELL YOU IT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE POOR IT PERSON.
Yearwood is trying to COVER HIS ASS and he's doing a poor job of it.
Usually both at the same time...
No more voting for campaign slogans or good ol' boys. And yes, I voted for Yearwood and regret it now.
He is spending OUR money WITHOUT a care in the world as to HOW he is spending it. Just like most lottery winners, he will be bankrupt or in this case bankrupt the county before the end of his term.
The man is an idiot. When your choices at the poll are dumb and crooked, you pick what you hope is the lesser of two evils. In this case crooked would have been better than dumb.
the time to put your money where your mouth is so to speak.
Speak up -- Talk to your neighbors -- Get the word out. On the 26th let's
all be there wearing green. Why green? Can't use black for being in the
black, don't want red for being in debt, green stands out.
On the 26th, I want to see the BOC meeting room a sea of green. Can we do
that?
If you are serious about this and I really don't understand how one can't
be, blog and let me know. Let's keep a tally of people who plan on being
there. Let's try for 200 people showing up.
SPEAK TO YOUR NEIGHBORS, FRIENDS, AND CO WORKERS.
LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN
let's make this happen.