Consider the honeymoon over.
The McComb city board took no action Tuesday following a 40-minute executive session to discuss an alleged confrontation between Community Relations and Tourism Director Tasha Dillon and City Administrator Quordiniah Lockley.
The incident during the McComb NAACP Youth Council’s annual Martin Luther King Day prayer breakfast at Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in January prompted Dillon to file a grievance at the board’s Jan. 18 work session.
Dillon shed light on the matter later outside city hall, alleging that Lockley approached her at the hospital and put his finger in her face as he lectured her in the presence of several others.
Lockley has declined comment, saying it is a personnel matter.
At the same January work session, the board conducted a lengthy discussion about the grievance policy. Lockley is Dillon’s supervisor, and the policy mandates all grievances be submitted to Lockley.
Selectmen requested adjustments to the city’s grievance policy be placed on Tuesday’s agenda.
At Tuesday’s 21/2-hour meeting, Selectman Melvin Joe Johnson questioned the matter’s absence from the agenda. Mayor Whitney Rawlings said the board would discuss the matter at the end of the meeting. Lockley later advised the board to discuss it in executive session.
As board attorney Wayne Dowdy exited the room to review executive session law, McComb NAACP President Anthony Witherspoon requested to address the board. Rawlings called the lull in the meeting the “perfect time” for a public comment.
“We know there is an issue — a question as to whether there is a conflict of interest that exists if the grievance policy is against the city administrator,” Witherspoon said. “What makes me believe there is even more so a conflict of interest is, during the work session, it was reported that certain selectmen asked that this be put on the agenda, and it’s not on the agenda. And the city administrator was asked to do that, and that speaks pretty much to a possible conflict of interest.”
Lockley later said the mayor controls the agenda.
Witherspoon’s wife, Selectman Tammy Witherspoon, later disagreed with the statement, saying, “Mr. Lockley, I did witness you getting back to (City Clerk Jeanette Butler and deputy clerk Sherry Spears) telling them to put that on the agenda.”
“I don’t control that,” Lockley said. “Even though I tell them to put it on the agenda, when the mayor looks at the agenda, the mayor can tell them to take it off the agenda.”
The board voted 5-1, with Johnson opposed, to enter executive session to discuss the matter. Johnson said he opposed the executive session because he wanted Lockley answer a personnel policy question in public.
Citing a draft of an updated personnel policy Lockley distributed to the board in January, Johnson quizzed Lockley about Dillon’s right to submit a grievance to the human resources director as a “third step” of the grievance policy, and asked if that was done.
“The whole process was not followed properly. I don’t know what part of the policy you want to pick at Mr. Johnson,” Lockley said. “If you go in our grievance procedure, it says the first step of any grievance is to go to that person whom you have a grievance with and you try to work it out with that person. ... The process was not followed initially.”
Lockley joined the board and Dowdy when the session began at 7:05 p.m. Twenty minutes later, he exited and Dillon entered. She left 10 minutes later, and the selectmen returned at 7:45.
Details of the executive session were not disclosed to the public, and Rawlings moved on to the announcements.
As he read through them, resident Eddie R. Smith tried several times to get the board’s attention to offer a public comment. Selectman Tommy McKenzie made a motion to adjourn. After the rest of the board members voted to adjourn, Witherspoon interrupted the vote to recognize Smith.
“He can speak after this meeting,” Rawlings said. “It’s time to go home.”
The board voted 5-1, with Witherspoon opposed, to adjourn the meeting. Rawlings invited Smith to speak at next week’s work session.
“I want to speak to everybody,” Smith said. “I wanted to comment about some things that are happening that didn’t seem real fair.”
Selectmen and audience members remained in the board room as Smith presented a copy of an e-mail the mayor distributed to board members, and alleged Rawlings “wanted to nominate different people for different positions” and said “the deck has already been stacked here.”
In the e-mail, which Rawlings read aloud, the mayor suggested the board discuss appointments to other city committees and boards at next Tuesday’s work session. Smith pointed out that Rawlings suggested appointees in the e-mail.
“When you do that, that’s the same thing we took away from the previous mayor, the right to do certain things.” Smith said.
Rawlings later said he did suggest names to fill vacant positions in the e-mail, but that will not preclude board members from offering their own suggestions and debating his at the work session.
Among Rawlings’ nominations:
• Susan Hedges to fill a a position on the McComb School District board, which Dr. Kent Kebert plans to vacate when his second term expires.
• Re-appointments for hospital board members Renan Richmond and Steve Blue. Their terms expire in February, and have asked for re-appointment.
• Re-appointments for planning commission board members Watkins “Noggin” Wild, Charles Crossley and Phillip Thompson. Wild and Crossley have requested re-appointments to the board, and Rawlings recommended Thompson’s re-appointment if he requests it.
• Rawlings did not recommend a candidate for an airport board seat vacated by Selectman Michael Cameron. He did inform selectmen that the city has received a nomination for Jeff Daughdrill. He added that he requested Daughdrill to submit a letter and biographical information to the board.
