Catoosa commissioners uphold firing of 911 director
Catoosa County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday night, May 7, to uphold the termination of its former 911/ EMA director, Dennis Thayer, after hearing his grievance appeal three weeks earlier.
Thayer, who was hired in March 2018, was fired by County Manager Alisha Vaughn March 11 on the grounds he allegedly failed to develop departmental policies as instructed and that he failed to cut back on the amount of time he was spending on out-of-town training sessions.
County policy allows terminated employees the opportunity to have their grievances heard. Thayer laid out his side of the story during an April 16 public hearing, which was followed by Vaughn’s rebuttal.
Vaughn claimed Thayer hadn’t developed any departmental policies as instructed. However Thayer contested that on the day he was fired he had approximately 30-40 policies available in draft format based on the November conversation he and Vaughn had about developing such policies. Thayer also claimed that 23 policies have been enacted since he took over the position.
One of the biggest incidents that Vaughn claims led to the firing was an instance where she denied Thayer permission to attend a training session, but claims he wound up going anyway without telling her.
“I told him he could not attend and he attended anyway,” Vaughn said during the April 16 hearing. “I was not aware that Mr. Thayer attended the training. I heard that from a third party.”
After the hearing, the board had 30 days to contemplate a decision and voted in the May 7 open meeting rather than an executive session due to Thayer’s insistence that the grievance be made public.
“The grievance appeal, at Mr. Thayer’s request, was held in the open public portion of the board’s meeting,” County Attorney Chad Young said. “Under our personnel policy, we owe him a decision one way or the other, and since his request for this grievance appeal hearing was in public, this matter is before the board in public to vote on a decision.”
Commissioners unanimously (5-0) approved upholding Vaughn’s decision to fire, but didn’t publicly comment on the decision before or after the vote. However, resident George Battersby defended Thayer by criticizing Vaughn’s handling of the termination.
Battersby claims Vaughn acted unprofessionally by not administering a protocol of reprimands, and also questioned commissioners about her power as city manager.
“The county manager cannot hire a department head. The commission does that, but yet she can fire them,” Battersby said. “That’s a very redundant rule.”
Thayer was not in attendance at the May 7 meeting to hear the outcome of his case. He will have to be notified of the decision in writing as stipulated in the April 16 grievance hearing.