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(Jim Wozniak / Johnson City Press)

Two Unicoi County election officials resign over retention of administrator

By Jim Wozniak
Erwin Bureau Chief
jwozniak@johnsoncitypress.com

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Unicoi County’s elections administrator was retained Monday, less than an hour after two Republican election commissioners resigned in letters that blasted the chairman, a member of the GOP, and Democrats who originally hired her.

Sarah Bailey, who has been administrator since 2005, was allowed in a 3-0 vote to keep her job until the next appointment of all five election commissioners occurs in April 2011. She will be eligible then to be reappointed to a new term. The same vote also enabled Deputy Teresa McFadden to stay in her post.

Chairman Tom Reeves and Democrats David Logan and Marvin Rogers cast the votes in favor of retaining Bailey, a Democrat, who had been at risk of losing her job when Republicans gained control of the state Legislature in the November elections. Those results meant three of the five seats on every county Election Commission in Tennessee would be held by Republicans.

The vote brought a standing ovation from the audience, which had come to the meeting in support of Bailey. A handful of people, including county officials, and former Republican Election Commissioner Jim Buchanan, spoke up for her.

“It’s a been long wait, but I’m so glad that the decision’s been made,” Bailey said afterward. “As we said in the meeting, there are so many things that need to be taken care of and need to have work done on them. I think it’s reassuring to the community, to the commission, to the office staff that things will move forward. I’m very excited to get to work with the Election Commission and serve the voters of Unicoi County here in the future.”

There were times she thought she would lose her job. That was especially the case, she said, when state Rep. David Hawk, R-Greeneville, wrote a letter to the Unicoi County Republican Party urging that a Republican be named as administrator and when three Republicans not recommended by the local GOP were not named to the Election Commission.

Reeves said voting to retain Bailey was “the right thing to do.” During lunch with former Congressman David Davis, R-1st, in May, the legislator urged him to “do what’s right.”

“She has the experience, she has the demeanor,” Reeves said. “She has the authenticity, the objectivity, and she’s a very honest and ethical person.”

The chairman talked to many people, including Bailey’s peers, at the Tennessee Association of County Election Commissions meeting in June in Memphis. He also spoke to experienced Republican election commissioners who kept Democratic administrators and listened to state election officials.

One message he received is that election offices are not political organizations.

Reeves hoped the commission would decide Bailey’s fate at Monday’s meeting, but he did not know that Charles Apple and Rick Parshall, his two fellow Republicans on the panel, had quit beforehand. Parshall brought their resignation letters to the Election Commission office before departing.

“I’m disappointed,” Reeves said. “I wish they had at least discussed it with me. I feel like they’ve embarrassed the Republican Party of Unicoi County, but that’s their decision.”

Apple called Reeves egotistical, and Parshall accused him of orchestrating with Democrats in possible violation of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act to stop any discussion of a previous commission breaking that law when it hired Bailey four years ago. Reeves said he has had no discussions with Logan and Rogers outside of a meeting.

“I seriously underestimated the extent of his ego and the depths that he would take to feed that ego,” Apple said of Reeves in his resignation letter. “He kept the real Mr. Reeves hidden from all who knew him until after he was voted in as chairman. His ego now drives all his actions, even at the expense of the Constitution and laws of the state of Tennessee and the citizens of Unicoi County.

“I always turned away from and disassociated myself from, what I considered was unethical illegal or just plain wrong,” Parshall said in his letter. “My honest opinion is that because of past, and possibly continuing, Tennessee Sunshine Law violations, the state Election Commission might do well to dismiss all the remaining commissioners on the Unicoi County Election Commission and start over with five new average citizens recommended for appointment.”

Referring to Bailey’s appointment in 2005, Parshall referred to Dr. Joe Chambers’ decision not to be reappointed in 2007 as a Republican member of the Election Commission as a way to protest.

Chambers was upset then that Republicans were left out of the loop in Bailey’s nomination. Apple had placed on Monday’s agenda a reconsideration of the issues surrounding her appointment. Then, on July 12, he wrote a letter withdrawing that and two other issues from the agenda. Reeves did not think the Election Commission was authorized to resurrect that issue.

Parshall described a couple of conversations he and Apple had, including one in which Apple said he had withdrawn the motions and was resigning.

“Commissioner Apple and I now make the count of Unicoi County election commissioners lost over the appointment of Sarah Bailey three, and I personally am proud to be one of them.”

Asked about the allegations leveled against him, Reeves said he did not know what Apple and Parshall were saying. He was looking forward to seeing who the Tennessee Election Commission appoints as their replacements.

“I hope the state Election Commission gives us a couple of team players that if they have a concern about my ego or leadership style, maybe they might want to talk to me before they accept this position,” Reeves said. “I want to be firm but fair. This is not an ego trip for me.”