County moves not honorable

For 10 long minutes Monday night, deposed Cherokee County Board of Health chairwoman Mary Miller presented county commissioners several things that should have caused them considerable concern. They sat and listened politely as Miller talked about missing meeting minutes, meetings being changed with little notice and a potentially damning allegation against the county manager.
Immediately after Miller finished, Commission Chairman Jonathan ****ey could have at least tried to pacify her and the restless audience by saying her allegations would be investigated. He even could have told Miller that he didn’t care about anything she had to say. Instead, he proved the latter by referring back to an earlier item of discussion, saying, “Let’s talk about this litter sweep again.”
That statement sums up everything that has been wrong with the county commission for the last five months. If they want something, they’ll push it through regardless of the facts. And if they don’t want something, they’ll ignore it.
For those who haven’t been reading their local newspaper closely enough, here’s the condensed version of the story so far: The Cherokee County Health Department and commissioners have been under fire for the last two years over the backlog of septic permits, in part because the state found a former registered sanitarian so lax in his duties that they demanded that more than 400 permits he approved be re-examined. Despite that and several studies showing that the health department, particularly environmental health, is understaffed, commissioners have refused to heed the state’s hiring recommendations, instead supporting the fired sanitarian while Commissioner Dana Jones calls it a “time-management problem.”
After repeated rumors that commissioners are out to get Health Director Elaine Russell, they took aim at the health board, which has the authority to hire and fire the director. Before the November general election, they sent a letter to Miller saying they intended to remove her as chairwoman. After she sent them a letter asking why and didn’t receive a reply, she presented a large volume of information to the health board’s executive committee in December. That spurred commissioners to send another letter, this one identifying six areas in which Miller allegedly brought the board into “disrepute.”
When Miller again asked for specifics, in an act that can only be described as outrageous, ****ey and Jones voted to refuse her request – Commissioner David Sumpter, an attorney by trade, was the only voice of reason in not voting with the other two. That means the foundation of the entire U.S. legal system was overlooked in the commissioners’ zeal to get rid of Miller as well as hard-working board members Porter Owen and Barry Watson, who apparently also did not agree with firing Russell.
That brings us to Monday’s meeting, which was uneventful until Miller stood up. While everything she presented has merit, let’s focus on the most important revelation, that County Manager David Badger may have used his influence to get a personal septic permit completed in less than three months and initially paid only half of the standard $300 fee.
For his part, Badger said he did nothing wrong – he claimed a former health department worker told him about the “county employee discount” and several other people also got their permits in about three months during that time. While that may be true, if three months had been the average wait, there wouldn’t have been anywhere near the level of controversy about the issue last year.
For example, a friend of mine, like Badger, also applied for a permit in January 2006. All he needed was to add more field lines to an existing septic system since he was expanding to a double-wide mobile home. However, his last name apparently doesn’t have the same pull as others, because he didn’t receive his final permit until September – almost three times the wait as our county manager.
Since one of the reasons Miller was removed was because she allegedly pushed one person’s permit to the front of the line – it was later revealed that former commissioner Barbara Vicknair sent an e-mail asking for the permit to be pushed up – you’d think commissioners would take action on any dispute of this matter. Not so. In fact, in the first health board meeting without Miller, member John Bruce – an ally of Jones’ – proposed allowing the board to move up to 10 people a month to the front of the line, essentially codifying corruption.
While Bruce’s untimely proposal was withdrawn – my initial reaction was, “You’ve got to be kidding me” – the fact that he even suggested it should be met with contempt. How can commissioners talk about keeping “integrity” under these less than honorable circumstances?
Miller has backed up her claims with documentation and witnesses, while the county has offered little to no specifics. On Monday, Miller said, “Injustice for one is injustice for all,” and, “We should be leading by example.” And she’s absolutely right; Cherokee County taxpayers deserve much better than this.


David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. You can reach him by phone, 837-5122; fax, 837-5832; or e-mail, dbrown@thecherokeescout.com.