On Oct. 1, Mayor Frank Melton announced that he was dissolving the city's Crime Prevention Unit with only days' notice. Charging that the members were not doing their jobs—despite the workers collecting hundreds of hours in comp time—Melton dismissed the division as inefficient, vowing to replace them "within days" with his Quality of Life Division, staffed with volunteers.
Crime Prevention Unit employees, like many city employees, are protected by Civil Service, and on Dec. 8 members of that unit pled their case at a Civil Service Commission hearing.
The former employees claim the city violated several of their rights when they were abruptly dumped from city payrolls.
City attorneys are battling the charges, not directly, but by stalling the process. The city refused to provide the information requested by attorney Sharon Gipson, who is representing the former employees, in time for the Dec. 8 hearing, in violation of public records law, forcing Judge Breland Hilburn to move the hearing to a later date.
Pursuant to the Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983, government agencies have 14 working days to comply with info requests by forking over either the information or at least a reason why the information was withheld.
The city was already in violation of this law back in December. Today, however, in late February, one former Crime Prevention Unit employee says the city is still stalling.
"Our attorney says the city still hasn't given us the information. I guess they plan to delay it as long as they can," Sharon Sims said.
Judge Hilburn could not be reached in time to comment on just how long he would allow the city to delay the civil service hearing. City Attorney Sarah O'Reilly Evans did not return calls for comment.
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