Aragon’s city clerk resigns in protest
The City of Aragon will be bringing on a new City Clerk to take over after the former clerk called it quits this week.
Sandy Norman, who had held the position since 2015, left her job after working out a twoweek notice for the city, according to Mayor Garry Baldwin.
He said that she did not provide a reason for leaving the city when she gave her resignation.
Norman said after initial publication of the news of her departure that wasn't the case.
According to the resignation letter she provided in an email, she left after she received a bad review on her performance evaluation, one she felt was "directly in response to my role in the removal of the former City Clerk
from staff."
"It is my belief that I no longer could, nor would be allowed to, effectively perform my duties as City Clerk," Norman said over the weekend in the email. "I feel that it was in the City's and my best interest to tender my resignation."
Her resignation letter was dated June 27, and she worked a two-week notice before she left the job. It stated the performance review had been completed a week earlier.
She said she did not have another position at this time.
Baldwin said that current court clerk Christie Langston is expected to take over the job if she is approved by the council for the promotion during their session on July 20. Amy Liggoms is expected to become the new court clerk under those circumstances.
Norman has been the city clerk since 2015, when she took over the role after previously being named the assistant city clerk.
In past months, Norman was elected to serve on the 2017 Georgia Municipal Clerks and Finance Officers Association (GMC/FOA) Board of Di- rectors, and had also been serving as the District 1 director for Northwest Georgia as well.
She also previously held jobs with the Polk School District as well.
Norman was the latest employee to leave the city in the wake of Baldwin's election and his swearing-in as Aragon's mayor, completed in November 2016 as he was voted into city government to replace Curtis Burrus in the job.
Former finance clerk Hal Kuhn tendered his resignation shortly after Baldwin took office as mayor, and his daughter Lori Dunn also resigned from her role in the city amid an investigation being conducted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
It was this investigation and Dunn's subsequent resignation that Norman said she believes was responsible for her negative evaluation.
Due to the late nature of Norman's comments, the Standard Journal was unable to seek further comments from Baldwin, or seek her performance review via an open records request to the City of Aragon.
Look for further updates on the story after that request is made and fulfilled by the city, and for further comments from officials.