Don’t be surprised by the Kelley ruling

Former county tax assessor Barry Kelley had a grievance hearing last week, which, as we understand it, is supposed to allow him to present his case to a formal panel, which in turn will recommend to uphold or overturn the decision to fire him.

The results are supposed to be in Thursday. Don’t fall out in the floor if you learn that interim administrator Ben Clary’s decision to fire Kelley is upheld.

Why?

Because the panel that heard Kelley’s side of the story is made up of county employees. That’s right. Every person in that group works for the very individual who fired Kelley in the first place. Whose side do you think they’re going to be on?

What happened to Barry Kelley is a downright shame. Clary claims he fired Kelley for insubordination. He claims Kelley failed to deliver required reports on

timely basis. As we understand it, these so-called “required reports” were not

required” of the previous tax assessor.

Kelley’s life started to become very diffi-cult shortly after he announced that hun-dreds of thousands of tax dollars were going uncollected because a number of property owners are inappropriately get-ting an agricultural use tax credit — a farm tax discount for land that is not being used for farming.

Clary can claim whatever he wants in regard to why he fired Kelley.We believe the tax assessor was fired because he tried to collect the unpaid taxes. We theorize that somebody complained about losing their tax break and it resulted in the person threaten-ing to take away that tax break being elimi-nated. Kelley was the squeaking wheel. But sometimes the squeaking wheel doesn’t get the grease — sometimes it gets replaced.

The plot thickened at a Cherokee County Council Finance Committee meeting last Monday when a county employee claimed Kelley removed public files from the tax assessor’s office when he was fired. Kelley adamantly denied that accusation and Clary was quick to point out a short time later that the so-called missing files had been located and the situation “had been resolved.”

With the firing already a questionable action, does the county really want to com-plicate the situation by accusing Kelley of something he didn’t do?

This wretched situation stinks. It’s a black eye on county council — whose members are supposed to be Clary’s bosses — and it sets a bad example for every individual who works for the public and is paid with tax dollars. If this can happen to Kelley, it can happen to any one of them. Who would want to work for an entity that treats its employees this way?

If Kelley’s replacement doesn’t pursue collecting the “ag use” tax money, then we will all know the real reason Kelley was fired.

We’ll be watching to see what happens.