For the second time in two months, the Barrow County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday night to censure Chairman Danny Yearwood – this time for refusing to take anger management classes recommended by an attorney who investigated recent discrimination allegations.
In a pair of 4-2 votes, with commissioners Larry Joe Wilburn and Eva Elder voting no, the board also withdrew the authority it had given the chairman 14 months ago to temporarily change employees’ duties without following all of the provisions in the Barrow County Employee Handbook.
Since the county’s finances have stabilized, diminishing the need for such administrative placements, the removal of that authority likely will have little impact at this point.
However, there was indication Tuesday night that some of the commissioners may be planning to try to further erode Yearwood’s authority by transferring additional responsibility to operations development manager Bob Hohe.
At least that is how Yearwood, who initially appeared nonplussed by the censure vote – calling it “just another good day in paradise” – reacted when the second motion was amended to direct county attorney Angela Davis to rewrite Hohe’s job description.
The motion by commissioner Ben Hendrix called for the board to amend a Jan. 13, 2009 resolution freezing wages and hiring by deleting a provision that gave Yearwood temporary authority to make administrative personnel changes without following all of the provisions of the Barrow County Employee Handbook.
Worley requested that the motion include an amendment directing Davis to rewrite Hohe’s job description to reflect his additional supervisory responsibilities over Geographic Information Services and Management Information Services.
Yearwood, sensing something afoot, asked Davis and Hendrix for clarification about what the motion and amendment would do.
“Angie, what is the motion actually asking here?” he said. “What is the motion actually asking, Ben?”
When Hendrix said the motion would remove a “broad sweep of powers” the board gave him last year and that Hohe’s job description would be re-written, Yearwood put one and one together and came up with a little more than apparently was intended.
Believing the board was actually intending to diminish the authority granted to him by the county’s charter, he asked Davis to take the matter to a judge.
“I am requesting in an open meeting that the judge see if this is a legal process that is being done,” he said.
When Davis asked which aspect of the motion he was referring to, Yearwood responded: “To take departments out from under the chairman if he is a CEO.”
Davis said she understood Yearwood’s concern, but said she did not hear that in the motion.
She said the board was asking her to bring back to a future meeting a revised job description for Hohe that would include his expanded supervisory responsibilities over GIS and MIS.
“I think it would be premature to file a lawsuit to ask the court to rule on a motion for declaratory judgment,” Davis said.
However, Yearwood’s comments may have unintentionally opened a door – or at least accelerated a future discussion – about the chairman’s power under the charter.
Davis said that because of the chairman’s expressed concerns, she would research the charter’s language “as to what is feasible and is not feasible.”
Worley also disclosed during the discussion that he has talked to Yearwood about having the county departments report to Hohe about personnel issues and for Hohe and HR Director Norma Jean Brown “to handle those personnel issues in regards to take that load off the chairman…”
It was Hendrix who asked the county clerk to place the issues on the agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting. As the chairman pro tem of the board, he has been responsible for meting out discipline following the recent discrimination investigation by Cartersville attorney David Archer.
Hendrix introduced his motions by reading a statement in which he noted that the board had adopted Archer’s report and recommendations but that Yearwood had not only failed to sign up for the recommended anger management classes but had told the commissioners to their faces that he would not attend them.
Hendrix noted that since the conclusion of the investigation, Yearwood had had a subsequent altercation with a sheriff’s deputy “in which the Sheriff had to intervene.”
Hendrix stated: “This conduct is continuing and it is of great concern to me and should be of concern to this county. I am shocked and saddened that the chairman not only refuses to attend the recommended training but then continues with conduct that does not indicate a change in behavior for the better.”
Saying “enough is enough,” but acknowledging that the BOC could not force Yearwood as an elected official to obtain the additional training, Hendrix asked the board to censure Yearwood and “once again ask that he comply with the Archer recommendations and the board’s vote.”
This is the board’s second public shaming of the embattled county chairman. The first censure, on another 4-2 vote, was on Jan. 19 for his distribution of a statement to the media that included matters related to the investigation that had been discussed in executive session.
It's a called meeting for litigation & personnel.
Will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of it. Maybe they will take away more of King Temperwood's power.
(a) Every public official who holds elective office, either by election or by appointment, is subject to recall from office by electors who are registered and qualified to vote in the recall election and who reside in the electoral district from which candidates are elected to that office:
(1) In the case of a state officer whose electoral district encompasses the entire state, the number of electors necessary to petition the recall of the officer shall be equal to at least 15 percent of the number of electors who were registered and qualified to vote at the last preceding election for any candidate offering for the office held by the officer. At least one-fifteenth of the number of electors necessary to petition the recall of the officer must reside in each of the United States congressional districts in the state as said congressional districts may now or hereafter exist; or
(2) In the case of a state officer whose electoral district encompasses only a part of the state or in the case of a local officer, the number of electors necessary to petition the recall of the officer shall be equal to at least 30 percent of the number of electors registered and qualified to vote at the last preceding election for any candidate offering for the office held by the officer.
(b) No recall petition shall demand the recall of more than one public official.
(c) Every public official who holds elective office, either by election or by appointment, is subject to recall on the grounds that such public official has, while holding any public office, conducted himself or herself in a manner which relates to and adversely affects the administration of his or her current office and adversely affects the rights and interests of the public if one or more additional grounds for recall exist as set forth in subparagraph (B) of paragraph (7) of Code Section 21-4-3.
If you are thinking of recalling a commissioner, if would have to be Wilburn, Elder or Worley.
Of those three, Wilburn is the only one who could possibly be recalled. He's the ONLY commissioner who abstains from votes, sits out executive meetings and whines about having to show up to do the job he was elected to do.
Elder is a simple do-nothing. Can't recall a commissioner for being stupid or lazy