The City of Guyton is working to manage some personnel turnover issues that have bedeviled city operations over the last month.
The city administrator, the city clerk, and the solicitor for municipal court all resigned from their posts within a 30-day period.
City Administrator Bill Sawyer abruptly resigned on Sunday, March 14 – effective immediately – citing health issues. Sawyer’s abrupt resignation was a breach of his contract signed less than a year earlier which required at least 30-days notice to the city in the event of separation.
City Clerk Tina Chadwick resigned unexpectedly at the end of March, also citing health reasons. Her departure was immediate as well and left the city without an appointed individual or employee to handle the day-to-day operations of the city. Mayor Russ Deen assumed the positions and began corresponding on official city business from the email accounts of the former employees.
Additionally, Duff Ayers, Solicitor for Guyton Municipal Court, resigned effective April 30th.
The City is slated to take up the issue of city clerk during its April city council meeting by appointing an interim city clerk and simultaneously contracting with Linda Rineair for ‘clerking support services.’ Rineair has also been managing city operations and responding to emails on behalf of the city since the departure of Tina Chadwick late last month. Council is also expected to take up a number of appointed positions for boards and commissions which currently have vacancies.
In the interim, the city has defaulted to using the city attorney to review open records requests filed by citizens, resulting in cost estimates based on his billable hours fee and totaling thousands of dollars for single requests.
