Oak Ridge Today

Oak Ridge mayor to give ‘State of City’ talk at Lunch with League on Tuesday

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Warren Gooch

Warren Gooch (Photo by Savanna Schubert)

Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch will give his “State of the City” address at the next Lunch with the League on Tuesday, May 3. The talk is scheduled to start at noon in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, located at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

Gooch was elected to the Oak Ridge City Council in November 2014 and later selected by Council members to serve as mayor.

Gooch received his undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee with high honors, and he has practiced law with the Knoxville firm Kramer Rayson since completing his legal education at the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1977. [Read more…]

Sheriff intervenes in standoff between mayor, HR director over computer hard drives

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Cathy Best of Anderson County Human Resources Department

Human Resources Director Cathy Best is pictured above in the Anderson County Human Resources Department on Wednesday afternoon. With Best’s agreement, the passwords to the department’s computers had been changed, and a few Anderson County Sheriff’s Department deputies were stationed near the entrance to the HR office as Best and Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank sought to resolve a dispute over how to copy two computer hard drives in the office.

 

CLINTON—After the sheriff intervened, the Anderson County mayor and human resources director remained at a standoff Wednesday afternoon over how to copy the hard drives of two computers in the county’s Human Resources Department.

The hard drives could contain personnel records related to building inspector Lisa Crumpley, who was terminated on October 9 and has threatened to sue the county. Her personnel file has been reported missing.

Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank said she wants to preserve records related to Crumpley’s wrongful termination claim, as instructed by Knoxville law firm Kramer Rayson LLP, which represents Crumpley.

On Tuesday, the day after Human Resources Director Cathy Best announced her resignation, Frank proposed sending the hard drives used by Best and Human Resources Generalist Kerri Ashley, who has also resigned, to a Knoxville company to have copies made.

Terry Frank

Terry Frank

But Best objected, Frank said, and the mayor had a technician from Computer Systems Plus come to the Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton on Wednesday morning to make copies on-site. The county consultant had started disassembling the computers when Sheriff Paul White showed up, and the technician quit working because he believed he could be arrested if he continued, the mayor said.

Best said she does not object to copying the hard drives, but she wants to ensure that the proper procedure is followed. She said her department’s hard drives could contain health information that is not public, conversations with attorneys during the past 10 years, and information that might relate to an investigation by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department of Crumpley’s missing personnel file.

“I have a right and a duty to maintain the security of these files,” Best said. [Read more…]