Chattooga County Commissioner Blake Elsberry suspended a longtime employee of the Chattooga County Water District, apparently for comments she made on her personal social media page.

WZQZ News has learned that Kim Alexander, the office manager for the Chattooga County Water District, made some comments on Facebook last week about the poor condition of the water district’s work trucks and water district employees having to “jump” their trucks off every morning when they came into work.

Commissioner Elsberry suspended Alexander for two weeks without pay after the post was made.

WZQZ requested a comment from Commissioner Elsberry about the suspension.  The commissioner’s office confirmed the suspension.  However, the commissioner had the county clerk, Martha Tucker, respond to WZQZ’s request with the following e-mail:

WZQZ has requested information from the commissioner’s office to see if the water district’s employee handbook’s procedures were followed in suspending Ms. Alexander.

Those procedures were put in place and were updated when the county had a water board that assisted the commissioner in running the county’s water district.

Update:

Commissioner Blake Elsberry responded to the article published earlier today by WZQZ.  You can read his response below:

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.

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Blake ElsberrySole CommissionerChattooga County Georgia