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Landfill, rights on agenda

By Max Hrenda

Tonight’s County Commission meeting will focus on topics ranging from guns to garbage.

Chief among those may be the commission’s vote on a private act which would transfer the supervision of the Carter County Landfill and its director from the county mayor’s office to the county’s Landfill Committee.

Although the commission passed the act by a vote of 17-5 during its last meeting on Jan. 22, County Mayor Leon Humphrey vetoed it the following day.

“I don’t think the commissioners have thought this through,” Humphrey said after the veto. “It’s not being done for the right reasons.”

Commissioner Sonja Culler, who asked for the drafting of the private act, said during the commission meeting that Landfill Director Benny Lyons told her he was uncomfortable working for the mayor.

“The mayor is scrutinizing him and making him feel like he’s not doing a good job,” Culler said. “I contacted the (county) attorney and asked if I had the right to bring this before the commission. He said I did.”

Lyons would later say that he felt like his job would be more secure if he reported to a committee of eight, rather than just one person.

Humphrey denied mistreating or scrutinizing Lyons, while maintaining that the commission’s reasoning did not warrant a change in state law.