Fairhope’s Personnel Board will seek a meeting with Mayor Karin Wilson about a disagreement between the board and the mayor over a recent board decision.

Personnel Board member Lorenzo Howard said Wilson had sent the board a policy page from the Alabama Ethics Commission that she felt applied to a recent board decision.

In that case, the mayor had terminated a city employee for what she felt had been a violation of state ethics law, but the Personnel Board reversed the decision and gave the employee a different set of discipline.

“The person was given time off without pay and a probation period of a year,” Howard said.

The portion of the ethics law sent to the board involved the usage of equipment and facilities for private benefit by public employees.

“No public official or public employee shall use or cause to be used equipment, facilities, time, materials, human labor, or other public property under his or her discretion or control for the private benefit or business benefit of the public official, public employee, any other person, or principal campaign committee,” according to the underlined portion of the policy sent by Wilson.

Howard said he felt the board was justified in the decision made despite the opinion from Wilson.

“The personnel board decision was meted out and it was accepted,” Howard said. “It was questioned by the mayor in terms of the validity of the decision that was meted out. No one questioned that the personnel board has the ability or the authority to do that. It was just thought by the mayor that the person probably should have been terminated.”

Board member Rob Stankoski agreed.

“The personnel board’s function is to take the charging instrument and work with that,” Stankoski said. “That’s all we’re stuck with. It’s not our job to look for crimes or ethics violations. We’ve got the charging instrument in front of us. That’s the information we go on.”

Board member Scherry Douglas said the board had weighed the options they had before them in terms of discipline and handed down a decision she felt had been fair.

“We had the options to discipline the person or fire the person, and there were some steps in between,” Douglas said. “Given the information we had before us, I still do not think termination was warranted.”

Board Chairman Diane Thomas agreed with Douglas that and said she felt the situation did not immediately warrant termination.

“It was a first offense for that employee, who has a good employment history,” Thomas said. “This is a valued employee who has done a really good job.”

Douglas said if the mayor wanted to discuss the decision further, she hoped Wilson would come to the next personnel board meeting and talk with the members personally.

“The case is closed,” Douglas said. “We’ll take it under advisement. At this point, if she still pursues it and wants to have a discussion, we’ll have one. I worry, though, that it sets a precedent because we’ll have to sit down with someone on every decision whether they agree with it or don’t agree with it.”

In a statement sent to Gulf Coast Media July 28, Thomas said there was no disagreement between the board and mayor, but that the board was seeking to clarify its job and the city's role in responding to potential ethics violations.

"The conclusion of the Board was that two different issues are involved," Thomas wrote. "The Board carried out its role in conducting a pre-disciplinary appeal hearing as outlined in the Personnel Handbook. The Board does not address violations of the Alabama Code of Ethics. It is the responsibility of the Mayor to report any suspected violations of the Alabama Code of Ethics to the Alabama Ethics Commission and the Commission investigates those charges, not the Board. The Board and the Mayor have separate roles and there is no conflict between the Board and the Mayor in carrying out those roles."