Commissioners exchange harsh words at meeting

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / News Editor for the Southern Standard

PRATER

Tempers flared at a meeting of the Nominating Committee Tuesday night when a discussion on appointing the county commission’s standing committees for 2003-2004 veered into a disagreement between two commissioners on how the actions of some of the committees were being reported in the Southern Standard.

Safety Committee member David Grissom expressed concern about the coverage of the Safety Committee’s efforts to cut the Sheriff’s Department budget, which Grissom appeared to think was predominantly negative. This was opposed to coverage of the county paving controversy, which Grissom viewed as positive.

This generated a heated exchange between Highway and Bridge Committee chairman Gary Prater and Grissom, during which Prater pointed out he had no control over what was printed in the paper.

Grissom had noted in previous meetings he felt Safety Committee members were simply doing what they had been instructed to do in an effort to avoid raising taxes, and was obviously frustrated committee members had received little support for their actions.

Also at issue was a movement within the commission to develop a system that would require a yearly revamp of committees rather than keeping them static.

Nominating Committee chairman George Smartt noted that the new system would “dictate that we are supposed to realign, or consider realigning, our committees every year, whereas in the past we have done it every four years.”

This change was set out in a document drawn up last year by the Rules Committee which, in part, stated all standing committees would be nominated in July, and elected annually at the regular September meeting of the full commission, leaving the makeup of the committees essentially open-ended.

“In talking to some people, there are some members that are not particularly comfortable with their current committee assignments,” Smartt said. “And there are probably some commissioners who would like to be on committees they are not on.”

Smartt then pointed out experience plays a big part in the effectiveness of committees, noting commissioners should try to stay with their committees if at all possible.

But some commissioners indicated they supported the change.

“Yeah, I’d like to see some of them changed,” said Commissioner Danice Taylor. “I think there’s a conflict with some of them.”

Other commissioners felt committee members shouldn’t be able to switch committees at will, since doing so could result in having to move members in several other committees to accommodate the changes.

Even so, one commissioner pointed out if a real conflict of interest should develop, such as a spouse getting a job in one of the departments controlled by a committee the commissioner was a member of, the system should give them the option to withdraw from that committee.

In the end, the Nominating Committee voted to allow committee members to contact commission chairperson Sally Brock prior to the September meeting if they wished to be removed from a committee, but only if they felt they had a conflict that affected their ability to function within that committee, and Brock would make an effort to accommodate them if possible. The resulting committees would then be approved at the September meeting of the full commission.