Wednesday, December 3, 2003
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Wednesday, December 3, 2003 |
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Rutherford to quit, unquit By J. FRANK LYNCH Peachtree City Post 1 Councilman-elect Judi-ann Rutherford will quit her job as office manager of the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater effective Jan. 2, 2004, a necessity if she is to be sworn into office the following Monday. Her unemployment might be short-lived, however: Rutherford plans to reapply for the job once the venue management transfers from the city to the hands of the Peachtree City Tourism Association, possibly as soon as Jan. 16. The contract between the employees and city is good only through Jan. 17. “I will resign effective Jan. 2,” said Rutherford on Tuesday, the day after she and more than a dozen other full-time former employees of the city Development Authority found themselves reclassified as contracted city workers. City statutes prohibit employees from serving on the council. The transfer in employer status was made necessary when council members Annie McMenamin and Dan Tennant derailed efforts to get the PCTA up and running by midnight Dec. 1. The two council members declared their intent Nov. 20 to be absent from the remaining two meetings of their terms if PCTA items were included on the agendas, effectively forcing any official action on the tourism association into next year. Rutherford bears no grudge. “Nobody knew this was coming,” she said. “It’s just another thing that’s happened in a long line of things, and it’s not over yet.” In the days leading up to the Nov. 4 election, and then again in the three weeks of campaigning in a runoff against opponent Lee H. Poolman, Rutherford insisted time and again that her potential conflict was very clear: She was not a city employee, and she could not vote on issues related to the finances of the amphitheater. That position was backed up by City Attorney Ted Meeker, who wrote in a legal brief requested by City Manager Bernard McMullen prior to the election that the potential for conflict can’t overrule the rights of a citizen to run for public office. She will still abstain on business items related to the venues and the tourism association, even during the time she is unemployed, Rutherford said. “I do intend to reapply for my job,” she said. Rutherford had to travel to Massachusetts for a funeral over the weekend and missed Sunday’s council meeting, at which the reality of her situation came into focus. McMullen thinks that two quick council sessions after the first of the year, one on Jan. 5 and another on Jan. 16, can handle the remaining business items that must be addressed on a council vote. If that’s successful, the PCTA will assume the employees with the start of the next pay period, Jan. 18. That would leave Rutherford out of work for about two weeks, but she says she can “survive.” Still unclear were the legal issues involved with a “temporary” resignation, should Rutherford be rehired by the PCTA after being sworn onto the council.
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