The Clayton County Commission voted Tuesday night to create a county manager position that will pay between $140,000 and $150,000 a year.
The controversial decision passed in a 3-2 vote after a lengthy round of questions from the two dissenters over whether the job would usurp and effectively weaken the commission chairman’s role.
“We’re going to have two cooks in the kitchen,” said Commissioner Michael Edmondson, who voted against the position. Chairman Eldrin Bell also voted against it.
But Commissioner Wole Ralph said Clayton is one of the few counties in the region without a county manager, considered by some local government experts as the preferred form of government. He noted that Gwinnett, Fulton, Cobb and Fayette have county managers.
“It’s high time Clayton steps into the future and moves into a more professional form of government,” Ralph said.
Rosa Barbee, a Clayton resident who regularly attends commission meetings, said Tuesday's action "proves to citizens every time we have meetings there's a lack of communication."
The county has been without someone to handle the day-to-day administrative tasks since December, when Alex Cohilas retired as chief of staff to the commissioners.
Cohilas wielded a lot of influence in the county, but his job wasn't universally accepted at first. Bell sued Cohilas and the commissioners, saying they violated the county charter and were trying to usurp his power. That matter was eventually resolved.
"Here we go again," Bell said Tuesday night. "I ran for county chairman in order to administer the people's government. This is the second term people have voted me in as chairman. But my board at every turn has tried to take those powers away. This is one more attempt at that."
Bell raised questions about the newly created county manager's job Tuesday evening. "A county manager could put the county in legal jeopardy without proper policies to guide his behavior and decisions," he said. "I firmly believe that the General Assembly should define the responsibilities of local government to be voted upon by the people and only changed by that process."
Edmondson peppered interim county attorney Jack Hancock with questions aimed at differentiating Bell’s duties from those of a county manager.
Hancock assured him the county manager “would not be permitted ... to take away executive authority.”
Hancock said the county manager would oversee staff, budgets, departments and other day-to-day duties, but would not have the authority to sign contracts or checks or make other such executive decisions. Those duties would remain with the chairman.
At one point before the vote, Edmondson hinted that the matter was already a done deal by holding up a copy of the ordinance and saying, “My colleagues already have signed it. Does that matter?”
After the vote, Edmondson said creating the post “clearly changes how we operate." He added that the chairman’s role had essentially “been stripped of every function with the exception of signing checks.”
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