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  • Auditor issues county clean opinion and material weakness

    Audit Presented Late for Third Consecutive Year

    WINNSBORO – Fairfield County failed to follow “certain accounting, reporting, and reconciling procedures,” resulting in incomplete and inaccurate financial reporting, according to the 2023 audit.

    Mauldin & Jenkins, the Columbia financial firm that conducted the audit, issued a “material weakness” in the audit.

    The material weakness stems from Fairfield needing to perform $28.7 million in adjustments across five county funds in order to close its books for 2023, resulting in an internal control breakdown, according to the audit.

    An internal control safeguards “assets against unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition, and includes controls related to financial reporting and operational objectives.”

    “The County did not properly account for certain activities or prepare and review all reconciliations typically required as part of the financial close and reporting process,” the audit states.

    Further, the audit recommended the county adhere to internal controls, provide education to accounting personnel, and cross-train staff in accounting practices “to make the accounting function stronger and more capable.”

    Audit findings were presented at Monday night’s Fairfield County Council meeting.

    Grant Davis with Mauldin & Davis told council members the county is still in a far better financial position than during the 2022 audit, when the county reported $95 million in unrecorded activities.

    “If you read it carefully as compared to last year, you’ll note some important differences from 2022 to 2023,” Davis said. “Even though we did have internal control deficiencies, things are much more positive from an accounting and financial reporting perspective than they were as part of that 2022 report.”

    Davis said the material weakness noted in this year’s audit stems from the “over-recording” of debt payments associated with the Fairfield Facilities Corporation Fund.

    “There were some things that were recorded out of an abundance of caution to not be back where we were in 2022,” he said.

    The “over-recording” issue stems from bonds the Fairfield Facilities Corporation issued in 2013. Proceeds from additional bonds issued in 2021 were applied to repay debt on the old bonds.

    Davis said once debt payments are deposited with a trustee, it’s no longer the county’s money, though the payments were recorded as such.

    “The county recorded the proceeds of those cash accounts and we had to take them off,” Davis said. “That debt is not debt to the county anymore. The debt for all purposes is diffused.”

    Fairfield Responds to Audit

    Fairfield accepted the findings of Mauldin & Jenkins, attributing to negative findings to “numerous changes and challenges” in the county’s finance department that delayed the audit’s completion.

    “We will continue to review and improve internal control policies and procedures in an effort to eliminate errors and identify deficiencies from both operational and financial perspectives,” the county said in a statement.

    Fairfield has been tardy in completing its annual audit in 2022 and 2023.  State law requires counties to submit annual audits to the state Treasurer’s Office by December 31.

    For the 2023 audit, the state granted Fairfield an extension without penalty, moving the deadline to March 31. In 2022, the state withheld about $5 million in state funding from Fairfield County because of the late audit.

    Davis added that the negative findings in the 2023 audit weren’t serious, noting the audit document was completed before the extended March 31 deadline.

    “We tried to reword the verbiage in this controlled deficiency to reflect that there have been improvements,” Davis said.

    Councilwoman Peggy Swearingen asked if the audit would be published on the county’s website. Interim administrator Clay Killian said that it would be, and the document was accessible online later Monday night.

    Councilman Dan Ruff asked whether the 2024 audit would be completed on time.

    “Going forward into next year, are we going to be able to start on time to be on time? I was promised it [being late] wasn’t going to happen this time and it did,” Ruff said.

    Davis expressed confidence the audit would be done on time.

    “Given the time frame that we’re at now, there’ll be plenty of time to get any changes from 2023 closed out and be ready to rock and roll for 2024,” Davis said. “Of course, we’re open to starting sooner if the county is ready. I don’t see any issue with starting sooner and having it issued before December 31.”

    The audit reported the county’s fund balance at about $16 million, a decline of about $1.9 million from 2022.

    Davis attributed the decrease to several unspecified transfers between county funds. He noted the county has about five months of operating revenue in reserve.

    “Your expenditures for FY 2023 amounted to about $34.5 million, or about five months of fund balance in June 2023,” Davis said. “If you didn’t take in another dollar after June 30, you could operate for five months spending at 2023 levels, which is a pretty healthy place to be.”

    It remained unclear whether or not the $16 million included any restricted funds. Davis left the meeting after his presentation, and Killian said he’d inquire whether restricted funds were included in the balance.

    Other Business

    Council voted to purchase a new car for the Sheriff’s office for approximately $47,000. An additional $8,200 will be needed to upfit it for service.

    Council also voted to contract to pay the county’s auditing firm, Mauldin & Jenkins, $40,000 to help the county appeal some of the$1.4 million of fines and penalties levied on the county by the IRS.

    Deputy Administrator Synithia Williams said the short term rental issue update is being delayed until a new director of the county’s planning department is hired. Interim Administrator Clay Killian said he expects a director will be hired soon.

    Gregory Sprouse with Central Midlands Council of Government gave an update on the Comprehensive Plan.

    Councilwoman Peggy Swearingen questioned whether there is a timeline for implementing the plan.

    Don Goldbach, resident from District 2 said the Comp Plan is a big wish list of things the county wants to do, but said it lacks smart implementation guidelines.

    “The implementation has to do with who, what and when to do these things,” Goldbach said. “We need to transition from just a wish list to the specifics of implementing the plan.”

    Sprouse said the plan lays out goals for short term (up to 2 years), middle term (2 – 5 years) and long term (up to 10 years).

    While speaker Randy Bright, a resident from Ridgeway District 1, praised Sprouse’s presentation of the plan, he, too, called for the specifics of accountability – the who, what, when – of carrying the plan out.

    “It’s the same problem Fairfield County has always had with implementing the Comp Plan,” Bright said. “There’s no accountability.

    “For example, last year’s plan for population was the same as this year’s plan. The last one said, “Grow the population with economic activity and other stuff. But there were no specifics about how to do that. So, we shrunk the population and our economic activity was such that we still remain in the bottom 30% [of the unemployment rate] of all counties in the state.”

    A public hearing for the Fairfield County comprehensive plan, originally scheduled for March 25, has been rescheduled for the April 8, 2024, County Council meeting. This will also push back the tentative date of the final reading to April 22, 2024, for county council to adopt the Comprehensive Plan.

  • County hires auditor to appeal $1.4M IRS debt

    WINNSBORO – Following an update given by the county’s Interim Administrator Clay Killian concerning the county’s $1.4 million in IRS fines and penalties, council members voted unanimously to appropriate $40,000 to enlist the county’s auditing firm, Mauldin & Jenkins, to assist the county in erasing some of those tax penalties and interest owed to the IRS.

    The county accrued the debt from unpaid penalties and interest stemming from late, incorrect and unfiled healthcare tax forms, as well as financial reports, dating back to 2017.

    Former Interim Administrator Laura Johnson said the county received notification of those fines and penalties from the IRS in May and June, 2023, and that she paid them those same months. However, the public and county council were not informed about the issue until the Dec. 11, 2023 county council meeting.

    Johnson’s contract was not renewed in January 2024.

    Killian, who was hired in February, has been actively seeking ways to appeal the penalties in the hopes of canceling or reducing the debt.

    “There is an appeals process that we have not taken advantage of yet,” he said. “I’m working with our new auditors. They’ve given us proposals to consider.”

    Killian told council members that at least $400,000 of the debt is potentially recoverable. He said Mauldin & Davis has a dedicated legal expert on staff who specializes in appealing IRS debt.

    “All she does is track down mostly Affordable Care Act penalties and has a real high success rate getting that back,” Davis said. “Nothing is a given, but we feel pretty good about what we understand.”

  • Sheriff’s Office adds K-9 unit

    Sgt. Alan Cox with K-9 Deputy Dano, Fairfield County Sheriff Will Montgomery, and Sgt. Andrew Ellison with K-9 Deputy Gaia.

    AIRFIELD COUNTY – The arrival of a longtime expert at working with law enforcement’s dogs has led to the launch of a new K-9 program at the Fairfield County Sheriff’s office, with two dog handlers and their K-9 partners now operational and assisting with a variety of tasks.

    “It’s kind of unusual because we started this in the middle of a fiscal year, but it’s just a unique opportunity,” says Brad Douglas, chief deputy at the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office.

    “We’ve been able to do it at very low cost because of Sgt. Alan Cox, who is actually heading up this program for us. He has a very broad background in this and is very professional, very experienced in law enforcement K-9 programs.”

    Sgt. Andrew Ellison & K-9 Deputy Gaia

    Through Cox’s professional contacts, he says, the sheriff’s office was able to get trained dogs at relatively low cost, and a nonprofit sheriff’s foundation helped with some of the money that was needed to get the program started.

    After a brief training period to acquaint the dogs and handlers, two teams – Cox and his dog, a Belgian Malinois named Dano; and Sgt. Andrew Ellison and his partner, a Dutch Shepherd named Gaia – were operational by the start of February.

    “We have been planning long-term to get this program going,” Douglas says, “and the stars aligned, everything fell into place, and it was an opportunity that was just too good to pass up. And we were able to get started at very minimal cost.”

    Cox, lead trainer and supervisor for the K-9 unit, says the dogs are trained in several disciplines: They can find narcotics and discarded weapons, but they’re also trained in human tracking – whether that means finding a crime suspect, an endangered adult, or a lost child.

    “These dogs are an incredible tool that allow us to fill in the gaps of capability,” Cox says.

    “They’re a locating tool that is quite beneficial when the necessity arises, and whether that be drugs or explosives, a missing child – and that happens more than people realize – these dogs can perform in a capacity that humans aren’t capable of.”

    Cox, who served about two decades working with dogs for the Richland County Sheriff’s Office, says he handled a dog in Fairfield County years ago, before he left to pursue opportunities in the K-9 world that weren’t available locally.

    During those years, he says, he became a master police K-9 trainer and led the K-9 unit in Richland County. Now returning to Fairfield County because of his family ties, he says he hopes to bring the same level of professionalism to Fairfield County’s new K-9 unit.

    Sgt. Alan Cox and Dano

    “I was able to do a lot of good things in Richland County, and I hope I’ve left a legacy there now – and now it feels kind of the same to come here and put a professional program in place that will far outlive me because it’s a program that has staying power,” Cox says.

    “It’s a program that’s going to be structured correctly and deployed correctly and led correctly, so when the day comes that I retire, there will be somebody prepared to take over from me and another handler prepared to take a dog – or multiple handlers prepared to take dogs – to grow the team and watch it be successful long after I’m gone.”

    The life of a K-9 handler isn’t easy, Cox says. The dogs and their handlers are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

    “All the calls tend to come between 1 and 4 a.m.” he jokes, “and it’s always when you’re off, and it’s always on a holiday.”

    He says it’s a full lifestyle, living with a high-energy dog all the time with daily care and regular training tasks, knowing that your life will constantly be interrupted by calls, and often being unable to go out or on vacation due to the responsibilities of the job.

    But he says the work he’s done with these dogs over the years has made an important impact.

    Douglas says he’s looking forward to the benefits that Fairfield County’s new K-9 program will bring – and is extremely glad to have Cox on board.

    “We’re proud that we were able to get this at very minimal cost to taxpayers, to get this program going,” Douglas says, “and we’re excited about the capabilities that this is going to give us, which in turn will make our county a safer place and will make us a much more effective and efficient law enforcement agency.”

  • WDPS Chief Kevin Lawrence resigns

    Former Winnsboro Police Chief Kevin Lawrence and Deputy Chief Oren Gadsen | Barbara Ball

    WINNSBORO – Winnsboro Town Administrator Jason Taylor announced Thursday afternoon, March 7, that Winnsboro Department of Public Safety Chief Kevin Lawrence had resigned his post effective March 6. Taylor gave no details as to why Lawrence resigned.

    Lawrence was hired as Interim chief in September of 2022, after the Town’s former Chief John Seibles retired. Lawrence was elevated to WDPS chief in June, 2023. At the same time, veteran Winnsboro deputy Oren Gadson was named Deputy Chief.

    Taylor said Gadson will be the acting chief until the Town hires an interim chief or a permanent chief.

    Contacted by The Voice, Lawrence said he has taken a position in law enforcement in a nearby jurisdiction.

    This story was updated on March 13, 2024 at 7:33 p.m.

  • Mill Village facing waterline repairs, boil notice advisory

    WINNSBORO – The Town of Winnsboro experienced a break in a Mill Village water line on Poplar Street several weeks ago. Repairs of the waterline are set for next week.

    The area affected by the repairs will extend to all customers on both sides of Columbia Road from 2nd Street all the way to 11th Street.

    “The break is in a four-inch line which, given the age and nature of the Mill Village water system, needs to have a larger section of the pipe removed and replaced,” Assistant Town Manager Chris Clauson said. “The Town staff opted to delay the fix until such time that we could give the public adequate notice of the repairs since the water will be off for several hours while repairs are being conducted.”

    Water repairs should be completed between 9 a.m. and 12 noon on March 12.

    “After the repairs are complete, Town staff will flush the lines for an extended period in the Mill Village area,” Clauson said.

    “There is a minimum of 48 hours after the work is complete that a boil water advisory will be in effect as the Town is required to pull two separate water samples 24 hours apart before the advisory can be lifted,” Clauson said.

    Customers with questions can call Town of Winnsboro Water Department at (803) 635-4121 or email Trip Peak at Trip.Peak@townofwinnsboro.sc.gov. 

  • Man found dead Friday night on S. Zion in Winnsboro

    WINNSBORO – Fairfield County Coroner Chris Hill has released the name of the individual killed in a hit and run in Winnsboro at about 8:30 p.m. on Friday, March 1.

    Coroner Hill said Brian Kennedy, Sr., age 56, of Winnsboro, was found in an alley off of South Zion St. after being struck by an unknown vehicle. An autopsy is scheduled on Mr. Kennedy to determine the extent of injuries and the cause of death.

    At this time the fatality is being investigated by the Winnsboro Department of Public Safety, the S.C. Highway Patrol, and the Fairfield County Coroner’s office.

    Law enforcement is seeking information from anyone in the community who might have witnessed the incident. Report information by calling the Winnsboro Department of Public Safety, 803-635-4511 or 803-635-2222.

    This story was updated March 4, 2024 at 3:53 p.m.

  • Winnsboro bringing gas line to Ridgeway

    RIDGEWAY – A quarter-million-dollar gas line project being undertaken by the Town of Winnsboro will bring natural gas to Ridgeway – and Winnsboro town hall wants to hear from residents and business owners who are interested in connecting to the new gas line.

    “This is a request that the town council of Ridgeway has made, the mayor of Ridgeway has made, business owners and some of the residents have made,” says Winnsboro Town Administrator Jason Taylor, “and we’re glad to finally be able to move forward with this project to meet those requests that have been made.”

    The work will be completed over the next year by Winnsboro town employees, Taylor says, starting with the main line, which will run roughly 5 miles along existing road right-of-way, and then continuing with the addition of smaller lines to connect homes, neighborhoods, and businesses where the is the most demand. 

    “If you want gas service, please contact the Winnsboro town hall, and we would be glad to put you on the list to try to get you hooked up in the first phase,” Taylor says. “The most customers we have, that will dictate where we put lines, so if we have a neighborhood where a lot of people call, that’s where we’ll put a line; it’s very customer driven.”

    For connections close to the road, it will be possible to run a line and install a meter at the home or structure, he says. For connections far from the road, such as down a long driveway, landowners may need to run additional pipe from the meter to connect their buildings.

    Taylor says Winnsboro is one of few towns in South Carolina that have full-service utilities: water, sewer, gas, and electricity. Due to a gas allocation contract acquired years ago from a nearby pipeline, the town has a locked-in quantity of gas at a very low rate – and currently pays for storage of a lot more gas than its current utility customers use.

    He expects that, with new customers added to the system, the investment in this gas line project will pay for itself in 4-5 years – and potentially in half that time if the availability of natural gas also prompts business growth in the area.

    “We have a crematorium over there that wants the gas,” Taylor says, “and I think Ridgeway, with all the growth that’s coming – that should come associated with Scout [Motors] – they’re ground zero for growth, and so we want to try to get ahead of that growth.”

    He says it’s often easier to put in utilities before large tracts of land are subdivided into lots – and adding more customers to the system can also help bring down rates because it spreads out the cost of operating the system among more customers.

    “Gas is… the easiest of the utilities for us to expand. Water and sewer are, as far as DHEC regulations, very permit-intensive, and very engineering-intensive,” Taylor says. “To expand gas, for the most part my crews can go with a backhoe or a trencher, dig a hole, and start laying pipe.”

    And, while providing an additional utility service to existing residents and businesses, he says it also opens opportunity for future development, which can generate revenue for the town in a variety of ways. “We’re always looking to try to grow our budget in a way that we can have more revenue to improve service,” Taylor says, “and the only way that you can grow and become more prosperous is not from higher fees or taxes or cutting services, but from growing – and so we’re

  • Celebrating Black History: Looking Back – Reaching Forward

    Presenters during the Blythewood Historical Society’s Black History Month program on Saturday were, from left: Roddy Egister (opening remarks), Jim Felder (civil rights activist speaker), Councilwoman Andrea Fripp (appeared on stage); Alex English (sports legend speaker), Blythewood Mayor Sloan Griffin holding his son (welcome comments), and Malcolm Gordge, president of the Blythewood Historical Society and Museum. Not shown: Margaret Kelly, (recognition of former Town Councilman Larry Griffin).

    BLYTHEWOOD – The annual Black History Month Celebration organized each year by the Blythewood Historical Society, lived up to its theme last Saturday – ‘Looking Back – Reaching Forward’ – with two locally and nationally recognized speakers who did just that.

    Jim Felder, a political and civil rights activist from Sumter, S.C. served as pallbearer and head of casket at the funeral of President John F. Kennedy, and served in the S.C. House of Representatives. Felder, an attorney, took the audience through several firsts for African-Americans in South Carolina, which came about as the result of the organization of the S.C. chapter of the NAACP in the basement of Benedict College in 1939, and with the assistance of famed black attorney Thurgood Marshall.

    Some of those firsts, he said, included: a lawsuit in South Carolina in 1941 for equal pay for lack teachers; a 1947 lawsuit that led to black students being admitted to law schools in South Carolina; a 1947 South Carolina lawsuit that was a precursor to another lawsuit that led to the integration of public schools; an unsuccessful attempt by a black man to run for office in South Carolina in 1948 that led to the doors of the S.C. legislature opening up to blacks, and a voter registration push in 1967, that Felder headed up.

    “In 1967, there were 50,000 black registered voters,” Felder told the audience. “Today there are 1.1 million. In 1967, we only had eight black legislatures. Today we have 928 elected officials in every office in South Carolina from school board to the legislature.

    A second speaker on the program was Blythewood’s own NBA legend Alex English.

    A native of Columbia, English and his wife Vanessa and their five children settled in Blythewood more than 30 years ago after his retirement from professional basketball.

    English, who grew up in poverty, living with his grandmother and 12 other kids in a three-room house and sometimes subsisting on one meal a day, went on to be a star basketball player for Dreher High School and the University of South Carolina where he was the first African-American sports star at the school.

    Drafted into the NBA, he was the star player throughout the 1980’s for the Denver Nuggets. When he retired, he held nearly every Nuggets team record – including most career points, assists, and games.

    English has been praised not only for his pioneering sports prowess as a young black athlete in the wide world of sports, but as one of the most respected, well-rounded and dominant players in the game. It has been written that, “he was a coach’s dream – confident and quiet, coachable and prepared, and always ready to play.”

    Outside of sports, English, who holds a bachelor’s degree in English, is a published author, poet and has acted in several movies, two of them produced by his oldest son, Alex, Jr.

    See English’s Black History program presentation.

    • Mayor Sloan Griffin
    • Pastor Eddie Davis
    • Alex English
    Mt Zion Baptist Church singers
    • Margaret Kelly and Malcolm Gordge
    • Alberta Lewis and Pricilla Hunt
    Sandra D. Young, Charles and Jim Felder | Photos: Barbara Ball
    • Teresa McFadden registering guests
    • Alex and Vanessa English

  • Town of Winnsboro awarded additional $1.8M grant for Fortune Springs Park

    A view of a water feature in Fortune Springs Park after it was completed. Taylor said the newly awarded funds will help to ensure that the underlying drainage issues in the park are addressed before the restoration of the features begins.

    WINNSBORO—Winnsboro Town Manager Jason Taylor announced last week that the Town of Winnsboro has been awarded the South Carolina Office of Resilience (SCOR) grant of $1,859,744.90 for the Fortune Springs Stormwater Project and a $54.886.28 Parks and Recreation Development (PARD) grant for restoration work in Friendship Park at the corner of Garden and Moultrie Streets.

    Fortune Springs Project

    SCOR had previously awarded the Town a grant of $440,825.00 for Fortune Springs Park. Combining the current and previous SCORE awards, the Town now has a total of $2,300,569.90 to apply toward the Fortune Springs Park project.

    Taylor said the newly awarded funds will help to ensure that the intent of the project, of addressing the underlying drainage issues that undermined the original park design, can be more fully realized.

    “This money is primarily geared towards drainage and things like that. We hope we can include curbs and gutters and some sidewalks, but we have to explore what we can do beyond just site work,” Taylor said.

    “This money,” he said, “is not for building pretty things – like fountains and such – it’s for the substantive things like foundational work that makes something be able to stand the test of time. Drainage is not a safety issue,” Taylor said, “but if you don’t deal with drainage, your project is going to be washed away because water’s going to do what water’s going to do.

    “This newly awarded grant from SCOR will help to further the goal of revitalizing Winnsboro, making it a better place for its citizens, and more attractive for those considering to make Winnsboro their home.

    “We want to thank the South Carolina Office of Resilience for recognizing Fortune Springs as a project worthy of investing in,” Taylor said. “These will have a long-lasting positive impact on the Town of Winnsboro.

    Friendship Park Project

    Tayor said the Friendship Park is a well-used and well-worn park that needs some attention.

    “We’ll replace the concrete basketball courts to begin with and maybe take care of some fencing that a tree fell across,” Taylor said. “Then I hope we will be able to work on some of the parking lot pavement.

    “Revitalization of the Town has been made a top priority by the Mayor and Town Council, and it has been strongly advocated by others such as State Representative Annie McDaniel,” Taylor said.

    The same view after the design was destroyed by underlying drainage issues. | Martha Ladd

  • Fairfield’s Interim administrator Laura Johnson’s contract not renewed

    Deputy Admin Named as Acting Administrator for Two Weeks

    WINNSBORO – After 13 months and three tries, Fairfield County Council has failed to put a new county administrator in place.

    Instead of voting for one of three candidates – the current Interim Administrator Laura Johnson, Matt DeWitt, former administrator of the City of Newberry; or Frank Hart, former supervisor of Union County – council members voted Monday night to name the county’s deputy administrator, Synithia Williams, to serve as acting administrator for only two weeks.

    Williams

    Chairman Doug Pauley did not comment after the vote as to council’s next step moving forward, but did say that Johnson had left the county’s employ and wished her well in her retirement. Pauley had continued to support Johnson, praising her for the job she has done. Johnson was paid $150,000 for the past year. The Voice has not been able to review Johnson’s contract to know if that was her entire compensation during the 13 months she served the county as interim administrator.

    A statement was issued by the county on Wednesday stating that Johnson’s contract had expired. One council member told The Voice that there was not a majority consensus to renew Johnson’s contract.

    The council member said Pauley planned to instruct the County Attorney Tommy Morgan to find – during the next two weeks – a qualified person to serve as interim administrator until a further search can be conducted for a permanent administrator. At press time, Pauley had not responded to an inquiry from The Voice seeking confirmation of this information.

    The vote naming Williams as acting administrator following executive session Monday night followed two failed votes taken at a special called meeting on Wed., Jan. 17. At that meeting, council was considering the same three candidates for the administrator position: DeWitt, Hart, and Johnson.

    At that meeting, Councilman Clarence Gilbert made a motion to hire Johnson. Councilman Dan Ruff offered a substitute motion to hire DeWitt. The vote for DeWitt was 3 – 3 with Councilwoman Shirley Greene abstaining, saying she supported starting the hiring process over.

    Voting for DeWitt were councilmembers Dan Ruff, Tim Roseborough, and Peggy Swearingen. Voting against were Pauley, Gilbert and Councilman Neal Robinson. A tie vote is a failed vote.

    The vote for Johnson was also a 3 – 3 tie vote with Greene abstaining again. Pauley, Gilbert and Robinson voted for Johnson and Ruff, Roseborough, and Swearingen voted against.

    Some council members said privately that they did not consider Hart because of his preference to not relocate. It is a requirement of the job description for the county administrator to live in Fairfield County.

    The two tie votes during the special called meeting set up the vote on Monday night.

    Five citizens made comments on Monday night concerning the administrator search.

    Donna Wilkins urged council to make a selection from the applications they have and not to restart the hiring process.

    “We have an applicant with a lot of experience. We need someone with experience to help us grow,” Wilkins said. “Please look again at the man with 16 years of experience and hire him and not the person who has not much experience.”

    Don Goldbach also called on council to not start the process over.

    “Starting over is a waste of money,” Goldbach said. “You have the information to make an informed decision. You’ve listened a lot to your attorney, but how much have you listened to your constituents?”

    Gene Stephens, who was hired by Johnson three months ago as the county’s public information officer, chastised council for not hiring Johnson.

    Stephens said he was speaking on behalf of the county’s employees and that the employees were happy with the county’s leadership.

    “The employees are busting their tail with a smile on their face,” Stephens said. “They’re excited because the county is doing great things.”

    He said he has a long list of the county’s accomplishments since Johnson came, though he said he didn’t bring the list with him.

    He also claimed that council members had told employees they don’t matter.

    “Now employees don’t feel supported,” Stephens said. “They feel lost, because you all say they don’t matter …you told us you don’t care about employees.”

    Stephens claimed employees are afraid to say anything for fear of retribution.

    “I am very good at my job,” he said, “but as a county employee and all the rest of the staff, we feel you don’t support us.”

    No other employees or staff spoke out on the issue.

    Ruff countered Stephen’s accusations that council had told employees they don’t matter.

    “That is not true,” Ruff said.