Hamilton County commissioners’ recent vote not to fire a judicial commissioner over poor job performance hasn’t settled his fate.
Stuart Brown’s departure seemed inevitable before the Aug. 29 vote, given a raft of paperwork documenting his errors and his supervisor’s statement that extra training hadn’t made him competent.
But the motion to terminate his contract failed 5-4 after Brown’s attorney, Hank Hill, said his client wanted to stay on until Dec. 1 so he could keep his health insurance until the first of the year.
Since the vote failed, Hill said Friday, Brown “doesn’t have any reason to resign. He’s not going to.”
But Chairman Sabrena Smedley said the risk to the county if someone is hurt or killed because of a mistake on a bond or an order of protection means it’s vital for magistrates to be up to the task.
“I think we’ve been extremely fair with Mr. Brown, I think we’ve gone over, above and beyond our responsibility to ensure he has been properly trained,” Smedley said. “I think the writing’s on the wall.”
She’s not sure exactly what the next step will be but the first thing is to bring the three new commissioners – Chip Baker in District 2, Katherlyn Geter in District 5 and David Sharpe in District 6 – up to speed on the twists and turns of the monthslong drama.
How it started
The county commission created the magistrate program in the 1990s to have someone at the county jail on nights and weekends to set bonds and sign warrants. The county now has four full-time magistrates and some part-time fill-ins.
This spring, county commissioners voted to raise magistrates’ pay from less than $65,000 a year to $80,000, and extend their terms from one year to two. Then they hired Brown and Lorrie Miller, terminating contracts with former chief magistrate Randy Russell and Brandy Spurgin-Floyd, and named Miller chief magistrate.
Within just a few weeks, Miller reported Brown was performing poorly. She recommended he be terminated but commissioners instead hired Spurgin-Floyd to give him 30 days’ additional training.
In August, Miller said again that despite the extra time, Brown had not become competent in the job.
The showdown
A day before the scheduled termination vote, Brown sent a text to commissioners saying if they would pay him half his remaining salary, he would resign and not sue the county.
The prospect of avoiding an expensive lawsuit was persuasive to Commissioners Warren Mackey and Greg Martin, who were among the five votes against termination. The other three were Greg Beck, Jim Fields and Joe Graham, who were not re-elected and were attending their final meeting.
“It makes more sense to me to let him resign in three months instead of terminate him today and have a lawsuit over the next several years that potentially will cost taxpayers thousands of dollars,” Martin said Friday.
Mackey called it “the path of least resistance” and added, “I just felt we’re doing ourselves a favor.”
After Hill said Friday that Brown has no intention of resigning, Martin said in a text that, “If his position has changed, I would expect the Commission will reconsider his employment at sometime in the near future.”
Mackey did not respond to a texted request for a follow-up comment.
Smedley, who just moved up from vice chairwoman to chairwoman on Wednesday, said she’s less worried about being sued by Brown than by someone being injured as a result of a magistrate’s mistake.
“During the extensive interview process, Mr. Brown indicated he was ready for the job on Day One. That just wasn’t the case,” Smedley said.
After 30 more days of training with only moderate improvement, “at some point in time you have to face the reality that Mr. Brown can’t do the job,” she said.
Smedley voted with Chester Bankston, Tim Boyd and then-Chairman Randy Fairbanks to terminate Brown’s contract at the August meeting.
Fairbanks said the loss was disappointing and he hopes the new commissioners will study the record so “maybe we can address it in the future.”
Hill said Fairbanks was the architect of his own downfall, trying to silence him at the meeting and acting “very unprofessional.”
Brown’s offer at the meeting was to resign Dec. 1 so he could keep his insurance through the end of the year. He didn’t ask for severance.
“They refused the proposal,” Hill said. And no one made a motion to withdraw or amend the termination resolution, he added.
“Commissioner Fairbanks got exactly what he wanted,” Hill said. “What he didn’t want that he got was his motion did not carry. It failed. It’s over, period. He didn’t want any compromise, and if you lose, you lose. This is a resolved issue as far as Mr. Brown and I are concerned.”
Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.