Three members of the Housing Authority of Clayton County board of directors who recently tried to get rid of the agency’s top executive were themselves ousted this week.
Michael Bryant, James Fambrough and Karen Linnear voted last month to suspend executive director Wade Starr without pay because they say he breached his contract by taking a $3,000-a-month consulting job with the county without their prior approval.
Starr, a former county manager, appealed to the county commissioners to step in on his behalf. On Tuesday, the commissioners, who appointed the trio to the board, removed them by a 3-2 vote. Commission Chairman Jeff Turner and Commissioner Shana Rooks voted against removal.
The departures end a six-week-old fight among the five-member housing board over how to deal with Starr's decision to take the consulting job. Starr was reinstated as executive director on July 12 - six days after his suspension - when the board reversed its decision. He was allowed to return on the condition he either leave the housing authority or quit the consulting job within a month. Starr still holds both jobs.
“I think they were doing a good job,” Turner said of the ousted board members. “They were moving the housing authority objectives along. It’s ironic. They tried to hold him accountable then all of a sudden they became a liability. It’s a disservice to the citizens of Clayton.
The dismissals also end the contentious relationship between Starr and some housing authority board members since his arrival as a consultant in the spring of 2013, shortly after he was ousted as county manager by Turner, Rooks and Commissioner Michael Edmondson. (It was Edmondson who approached Starr in June about becoming a county consultant.)
Starr, who has been the authority’s top officer since April 2014, declined to comment about the dismissals - an action sparked by Starr’s July 8 email asking commissioners to consider removing the three. Starr said the decision to suspend him without pay “was in clear violation” of his housing authority employment contract. He accused the trio of “purposely ignoring the law and the contract, neglecting their duties and misconduct in office.”
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