District 5 Supervisor Ray Boswell believes he was discriminated against by a fellow supervisor when he was excluded from an interview for the tourism office’s new director of marketing.
Boswell on Wednesday said he went to the supervisor’s board room at the Raymond P. Davis Courthouse Annex where the interview was taking place but was informed by Board President Jimmie Smith that he was not welcome. Boswell said Tourism Director Suzy Johnson, City Councilman George Thomas and MSU Marketing Director Penny Kemp were among those present at the meeting.
“Usually when there is an interview process, there are two board members present and I have been on the board’s tourism committee in the past,” Boswell said. “(Smith) has no authority to do that. I have a right to be in the meeting.”
Smith moved the meeting to the Lauderdale County Jail where he and others conducted the interviews behind closed, locked doors.
Jimmie Smith said he took matters into his own hands on Wednesday because Boswell was not invited to be a part of the committee conducting the interviews.
“We moved the meeting because we could not get any privacy,” Smith said. “I asked Ray to leave and he would not.”
Smith said Johnson asked him to appoint a board member to represent the county for the interview, and he said he chose to appoint himself. He said Thomas was there to represent the city and he was there to represent the county.
Chief Deputy Ward Calhoun with the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department said he received a call from Jimmie Smith early Wednesday asking him if the committee could use a meeting room at the jail for the interviews. He said Smith provided him with the names of those that were to be allowed to
the meeting and that Boswell was not on that list.
“Mr. Boswell was turned away,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun said he did not recall the county ever using the meeting room inside the jail for a meeting. He said the room is usually used by the jail’s chaplain and for functions within the facility.
County Attorney Rick Barry said he was contacted about the situation early Wednesday. He would not comment specifically about the matter, but he said that a county official should have the right to attend meetings held in a county-owned building. The county jail is a county-owned building but falls under the jurisdiction of the sheriff.
Smith said Wednesday afternoon that the committee returned to the supervisors’ board room after lunch to conclude the interview process. He said the committee interviewed seven prospects for the new marketing position.
Local News
Boswell locked out of tourism interviews
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City cuts payment to Watkins
The Meridian City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to cut their monthly payment to David Watkins, project developer of Meridian's new police station, by $9,999 until work resumes on the project.
The order, made during the Meridian City Council meeting Tuesday morning, included a mutual agreement between the councilmen and Watkins to reduce the project developer's monthly consultant fee of $10,000 to $1, effective Tuesday. -
Crews work on gasoline pipeline
If you hear a loud, booming sound early today, between 4 a.m.-10 a.m., there is no cause for alarm.
Workers with Plantation Pipeline will be performing maintenance work on their 30-foot gasoline pipeline in the Meridian area to accommodate the widening of Highway 493. The location of the work activity will be at Highway 493 North and Oak Hill Baptist Church, just inside the city limits. -
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High Honor
The flowers and balloons Crestwood Elementary School Principal Kimberly Kendrick received at school Monday were not an early Valentines' Day gift.
Kendrick has been named Meridian Public School District's 2012 Administrator of the Year – an announcement that both surprised and wowed the 17-year veteran educator when made by MPSD Superintendent Dr. Alvin Taylor. -
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Digital system promises better communication
Hopefully in the near future you won't hear someone in the emergency services ask over the radio, "Can you hear me now?"
A digital communications system, one which is being pushed by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), is a few months away and, in some cases, is already in the testing phase in Lauderdale County. -
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Mississippi Department of Corrections officials said Monday afternoon an inmate escaped from custody Friday and is still being sought.
Officials said Johnny Hall Jr. escaped from two Wilkinson County Correctional Facility officers’ custody while being escorted from his father’s wake at the Picayune Funeral Home in Picayune. Preliminary information indicates Hall left the officers and jumped into a waiting black vehicle with a white female driver. -
Citizen’s Police Academy begins today
The work law enforcement conducts on a daily basis is often misunderstood by the general public.
Officials at the Meridian Police Department developed a program to inform and educate citizens on what police do in serving and protecting the population. The program, The Citizen's Police Academy, has been gaining speed for a couple of years since it was first offered. Officials said it shows residents are interested in police work and how it is conducted. - Woman: decongestant brought meth charge in Alabama
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