Saturday, March 20, 2010

March 20, 2010 Scott Purkey Resigns One Position After Serving Illegally on Civil Service Board for Months

At the Thursday county commission meeting (March 18), I passed out a section of the Civil Service Act to all commissioners and to the press. After reading TCA Section 8-8-406 aloud, I pointed out the obvious, this one-sentence section says that a Civil Service Board member can NOT hold any elected or appointed office within the county.

Click here for my previous post and to view the state law (TCA 8-8-406) that I handed out to the press and to the commissioners.

I then informed the commissioners that Civil Service Board member Scott Purkey has been serving illegally as a member of the Civil Service Board for many months because he is not only on the Civil Service Board but he is also on the Board of Construction Appeals.   [Maybe it is just coincidence, but the Scott Purkey who has been allowed to serve illegally on the Civil Service Board just happens to be the nephew of County Mayor David Purkey and former Sheriff Otto Purkey and is the son of Junior Purkey a/k/a the Purkey Posse.]

I was told today that Scott Purkey hustled to the Courthouse and resigned from the Board of Construction Appeals yesterday, one day after his nearly 6-month violation of the Civil Service Act was made public. One has to wonder if Purkey ever read the Civil Service Act--either before or after he was appointed to the Civil
Service Board. The law that he was to uphold and administer clearly says that you can't be on the Civil Service Board and hold any other elected or appointed office.

UPDATE: Purkey's rush to resign from the Board of Construction Appeals is an obvious attempt to preserve his position on the Civil Service Board where he can continue his partisan activities. David Purkey will try to keep Scott in that position even though there is support for the proposition that Scott already gave up his position on the Civil Service Board automatically on the day that he accepted appointment to the Construction Board of Appeals.

If you are thinking that you didn't see any report of this in the "news"paper, it's because the local "news"paper didn't report it.  Now we'll have to wait for Sunday's paper to see if the "news"paper bothers to report that the allegation was made, that Purkey was in fact in violation of the Civil Service Act for about six months, and that he then resigned from the Board of Construction Appeals to try to keep his Civil Service Board seat. Do NOT hold your breath on this one.

It would be a real shocker if the "news"paper actually did some follow-up and asked Scott Purkey about this and whether he has ever read any part of the Civil Service Act. Nah, that won't happen. The local "news"paper follows a Don't Ask & Don't Tell policy on "news" about elected and appointed officials. 

"News" doesn't exist unless it is "news" that has been pre-approved for publication by the powers-that-be.

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