Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry implied that a water district employee that was suspended without pay for two weeks wasn’t suspended for “just one violation” and that WZQZ News used the wrong email address to request information from his office.
WZQZ News reported last week that the commissioner had ordered Kim Alexander to be suspended for two weeks without pay.  That suspension came after Alexander posted on social media about the poor conditions of work trucks at the county water district.

WZQZ asked the commissioner’s office for a comment about Alexander’s suspension early last week.  The county clerk responded with a message saying the commissioner had “no comment” about the suspension.  But after WZQZ ran the story about Alexander’s suspension, Commissioner Elsberry issued a lengthy response.  (See the commissioner’s complete statement below).

This past week, the commissioner told the local paper that WZQZ’s reporting was inaccurate because Alexander wasn’t suspended for posting on social media alone, and implied that she had other infractions that he did not detail.  The commissioner didn’t enumerate those infractions, and said the original response to WZQZ through the county clerk was because WZQZ emailed him on the official email address, instead of using his personal email address.

Yet, February 23rd of this year,  the County Attorney Chris Corbin sent an email to WZQZ saying: “Please direct questions/open records requests of the County to chattcom@windstream.net”, which is the email WZQZ used to request a comment about Alexander’s suspension.

The local paper pointed out that the employees suspension came just after the post about the water district work trucks appeared on social media.

 

Commissioner Elsberry’s comments to WZQZ from last week:

I think there needs to be some clarification on your article on the water department that was posted today 4/13/2022.
1. You received your response for comment from Martha Tucker because that is the email you sent it to, and I gave her a verbal answer. You have my email and are welcome to send me emails directly if you so choose to.
2. I feel that is not professional or in the best interest of any employee’s privacy to discuss any issues dealing with a direct employee unless lawfully warranted. That being said, no employee would be suspended for one disciplinary infraction. If an employee is suspended or terminated, it would be for multiple and/or serious infractions.
3. I believe in a strict chain of command and our county directors are empowered to run their departments the way they feel is best and with my full confidence and support in their abilities as director of their respective departments.  Any important decisions that are going to be made for a specific department are made with myself and with that department’s director working together.
4. The water board/authority no longer exists so there are no separate policies for the water district.
5. We have been actively looking for a replacement vehicle for the water department and have test driven several but have not found a suitable replacement as of yet.
Commissioner Elsberry released  this email on the county commissioner’s Facebook page on Wednesday afternoon.