Ethics panel won’t hear complaints

By Joel Davis
of The Daily Times Staff

The Blount County Ethics Committee on Monday voted not to consider complaints against four elected officials, citing a lack of legal authority to hear the specific allegations.

Ultimately, the committee voted not to hear complaints against County Mayor Jerry Cunningham, County Commissioner Wendy Pitts Reeves, District Attorney Mike Flynn, and Circuit Court Clerk Tom Hatcher. Only a complaint against Commissioner Mike Lewis is still outstanding, pending another opinion from the State Attorney General.

Linda King of the Citizens for Blount County’s Future alleged that Cunningham violated the county ethics policy by pressuring the South Blount County Utility District to begin fluoridating the water treated at its plant. She alleged this amounted to an exchange of gifts — a swap of support from the utility’s Board of Directors in exchange for Cunningham’s appointment of these officials.

Committee Member John Davis made the motion to not hear the complaint against Cunningham. Commissioner Ron French seconded. It passed by voice vote.
According to state officials, the section about “gifts” only concerns actual monetary gifts or objects of value that could be sold for money, County Commissioner Ron French said.

“I don’t think (the allegation) comes under our consideration,” he said.

Cunningham wasn’t surprised with the decision.

“That’s what I thought would happen from the get-go,” he said during a telephone interview on Monday. “It’s just unfortunate that these kinds of frivolous things are filed. It takes a lot of time and energy for the committee to have to address this kind of foolishness — frivolous complaints. There should be some way that when folks file something without merit that they are taxed with the cost. If we did that, it would make folks thinks twice about frivolous things for media attention.”

These comments echoes those of Davis, who said something similar during the meeting. His motion to ask the County Commission to investigate whether it would be allowed to charge legal costs to people filing the complaints died for lack of a second.
“Is it fair to ask the taxpayers to bear (the expense)?” Davis asked. “I don’t think so. I think it ought to be borne by the person who files it.”

Commissioner Ron French made the motion to dismiss the allegations against Flynn, Hatcher and Pitts Reeves. He said the ethics committee can only hear complaint violations that allege either perceived conflicts of interest or involving gifts of value.
French said the allegations against these three officials did not concern the items that the Ethics Committee is charged to review.

“If it does not address the two issues, the Ethics Committee does not need to look at it at all,” he said. “The state made it clear we’re not to look at anything else.”
Pitts Reeves, who is the chair of the Ethics Committee, had recused herself from the deliberations concerning her.

“I had confidence that the committee would handle this appropriately,” she said afterwards.

Blount County Sheriff’s Office Assistant Chief Deputy Jeff French had filed the complaint against Pitts Reeves, alleging she made false accusations toward him at the Feb. 21 commission meeting.

Lewis decision deferred

The committee also voted to defer consideration of a complaint against Lewis until it receives an attorney general’s opinion.

“I believe Mr. Lewis himself requested it,” French said.

In the complaint about Lewis, King referred to the status of shares of stock that Lewis once held. In a 2007 opinion, Tennessee Attorney General Robert E. Cooper Jr. indicated that Lewis, under the letter of the County Purchasing Act of 1957, could face possible ouster from the commission because he held shares in GreenBank, which provides financial services for the county.

In response, Lewis transferred ownership of the stock to his wife to remove the possibility of a conflict of interest. King, however, alleges that the ownership swap doesn’t resolve the conflict.

Wendy Gail Roseburgh, 45, LeConte Drive, Maryville, had filed the complaints against Flynn and Hatcher. Roseburgh and her husband, William Albert Roseburgh, 57, Montgomery Lane, Maryville, are accused of operating a plant nursery at 510 Montgomery Lane, Maryville, without proper state certification. They were indicted on multiple charges in February.

In her complaints, Roseburgh alleges that registered mail sent to Flynn’s office, apparently addressed to grand jury members and others, was not delivered. As for Hatcher, Roseburgh alleges that he illegally entered a “scheduling order” on March 10, when she did not attend a hearing until March 11.

Bound by policy

Earlier in April, the County Commission voted unanimously in a voice vote to scale back the scope of complaints that can be heard by the Ethics Committee. Commissioners had voted to delete the phrase “or of any violation of state law governing ethical conduct” from Section 5 of the county’s Ethics Policy to “take out the phrase that was causing us so much difficulty last time we met,” Pitts Reeves said.

“We are now properly, by policy, bound to do what we thought were supposed to do all along, which is top deal with conflicts of interest or gifts.”
There was a lengthy discussion about who would review complaints to determine if they were frivolous. Davis said he wouldn’t be comfortable without legal guidance from an attorney.

Finance Director Dave Bennett commented that some people were uncomfortable with the idea of the County Mayor’s attorney reviewing these complaints and said “maybe the County Commission could allocate some money for an independent attorney.”

Pitts Reeves said it would be a better process if complaints were not public record until it was determined that committee could actually heard them.

“I wish we could wait for the committee to deal with it because it ends up being tried in the press, which muddies the waters,” she said.