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June 13, 2007

Boswell locked out of tourism interviews

By Georgia E. Frye / staff writer

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.

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