The president of the DeKalb County Commission is asking the Alabama Ethics Commission to look into what he says is the sheriff’s political use of a county website.
Commission President Sid Holcomb claims that Sheriff Jimmy Harris’ re-election website was hosted on the sheriff’s official county-owned site. But the sheriff says the allegations are part of a larger effort to undermine him and support his political opponent.
“As commission president, Holcomb has used his position to pursue a personal agenda against Jimmy Harris,” the sheriff said in a statement. “Clearly, when one of his tactics fails, he tries another, all at taxpayer expense.”
The Ethics Commission has assigned an investigator to the case, according to The Associated Press.
Harris said an investigation is a waste of taxpayer money, since he already has removed the re-election website. It was put there by an outside website designer who designs both the county website and the sheriff’s re-election site, he said.
“There was no ethical violation, no intentional use of county property for political gain,” Harris said in his statement. “The sheriff welcomes an ethics investigation because they will be able to confirm the truth – there was an error, a mistake and nothing more.”
Holcomb forwarded his complaint and printed pages from the offending website to the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Wednesday. In the letter, he confirms there were no links from the sheriff’s official page to the election page.
“There are no tabs between the campaign web page and the business web page; however, as noted, they are both being hosted on the same public site,” Holcomb wrote.
County officials recently have sparred with the sheriff over several issues. On Tuesday, the commission scrapped plans to sue Harris over a contract to house federal inmates in the county jail. Commissioners say he improperly contracted with the federal government.
Contact Adam Crisp at acrisp@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6323. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/adam_crisp.