Serving papers to commissioners was ‘payback’

By JOHN THOMPSON
jthompson@TheCitizenNews.com

Last week’s budget hearings produced a remarkable admission from one of Sheriff Randall Johnson’s employees.

During deliberation on the sheriff’s field operations budget, the County Commission asked Maj. Tommy Nations if it was his division that recently served the commissioners with lawsuit papers.

After Nations admitted it was his staff, Commission Chairman Greg Dunn asked why it took two cars and three deputies to serve each commissioner.

“It’s not often you get to serve a county commissioner,” Nations said.

Nations also said the county had served Sheriff Johnson during the Christmas holidays.

“It was payback,” he said.

“So, you were paying us back to intimidate us?” asked Dunn.

Dunn added that he was served at 10:30 p.m. and has pictures of all the vehicles at his house.

Nations said that some commissioners didn’t answer the door when the deputies arrived to serve the warrants.

“This is still America and we can do that,” said Commissioner Linda Wells.

After the discussion, the board discussed Nations’ request for six new patrol officers. The major said the departments’ response time was increasing and that additional officers could reduce the response time by 20 percent.

But the County Commission denied his request, and Dunn said the department has less land to patrol these days.

“With the thousands of acres being annexed by the cities, you’ve get less to look after,” Dunn said.