Verdict decided, still unknown, in fired Forsyth Planning director case

While rumors and speculation swirl around Forsyth County over whether fired planning director Jeff Chance will get back his $92,000-a-year job, the Civil Service Board has already decided. But it isn't saying.

Civil Service Board clerk Charity Clark confirmed the three-member panel reached its decision in executive session Dec. 7, after an eight-day-long appeal hearing. Chance’s attorney, Eric Chofnas, argued the planning director lost his job over politics and should be reinstated without punishment.

The Civil Service Board met Dec. 3, the day after the hearing, and continued its deliberations in a second executive session Dec. 7. The board has 30 days from the end of the hearing to deliver its decision in writing.

Chance was fired last August after revelations last spring that his office e-mail contained sexually explicit exchanges with his girlfriend and racially charged e-mails from at least one county employee. That employee's punishment was a three- day suspension without pay.

Following a county investigation, the County Commission fired Chance based on those e-mails and what it alleged were numerous other violations of county policy.

Chance, a 15-year county employee, said he was targeted because he disagreed with Planning Commissioner Brant Meadows over a zoning matter. Chance testified that Meadows threatened to fire him; Meadows testified in the hearing that he did not.

Another witness, deputy county manager Tim Merritt, testified he believed he heard Meadows threaten Chance. Merritt  said he did not recall the exact words of an exchange between Meadows and Chance in an April 23 meeting.

“The words were something to the effect of, ‘I’ll have your job’ or something to that effect," Merritt testified.

In his closing argument at the appeals hearing, the county’s attorney, Tim Buckley, said Chance broke so many county regulations and created such a permissive culture in his department the county had no choice but to fire him.

“If the general is not leading his people properly, then he needs to be removed, and history shows that,” Buckley said.

On Dec. 7, the night of its executive session, the Civil Service Board notified Meadows by e-mail that it had filed an ethics complaint against the planning commissioner, whose four-year term ends this month.

In the complaint, the Civil Service Board accuses Meadows of making threats against Chance and two other county employees: Simon Wilkes, a senior inspector and supervisor with the county engineering department, and Gary Smith, a former director of elections in the county.