County road chief resigns

At the end of the Dec. 3 meeting, commissioner Mike Youngblood asked for a meeting with Temple and assistant road department director Tony Maddox to discuss road department issues.

That meeting was then postponed until Thursday, but Youngblood and BOC chairman Anthony Dove spoke with Temple and Maddox Wednesday.

At the beginning of Thursday’s BOC meeting, Dove announced that Temple’s resignation was official.

“I’ve spoken with him twice and he said that (his resignation) is still the case,” said Dove.

The chairman also said that county building supervisor Alan Lapczynski will serve as the interim road department director, until a full-time replacement is hired. Maddox will take off the rest of the year. Dove said Lapczynski will receive $2/hour in extra pay while he handles road department duties on top of his regular job.

Dove said that there have been issues between the road department and sheriff’s department on vehicles. The chairman said that the sheriff’s department and road department will now each have a “point man” who will handle all interactions between the two departments. Lapczynski will handle the duty for the road department.

“If it goes further, then it will go to myself and the sheriff,” said Dove.

Commissioner Jim Escoe questioned why a BOC meeting was necessary on Thursday. He said Dove, Youngblood and the road department employees handled everything Wednesday.

“It seems like everything was decided yesterday to me,” said Escoe. “I thought everything would be talked about in this meeting.”

Commissioner John Pethel agreed with Escoe, saying he thought the road matters would be discussed before the full board.

“If it was important enough to call the meeting then the board should know what it was about and discuss it,” said Pethel.

Youngblood said his issues with the road department were cleared up Wednesday.

“With the resignation of Charles and with what’s going to fall into place by the first of the year, that pretty much solved my issues,” said Youngblood, who said he made it clear to the road department that he wants to be made aware of citizens’ calls on road issues in his district.
Pethel said he felt that should be true for every district commissioner.

Dove said the discussion with Temple Wednesday was necessary to see whether his comments from the Dec. 3 meeting — in which he said he planned to resign — were going to hold true.

“Nothing had been settled,” said Dove. “It’s a pretty big deal with the road department director who has been here 23 years. Has he resigned or not?”

Dove issued a letter to the editor this week (on Page 5A) praising Temple’s service to the county.

“He is a long-time resident, hard working, always dependable attendance, arriving to work on time, opinionated, loyal to his workers and he has a working knowledge of about everything historical to do with the roads, culverts and bridges all in his head,” said Temple.

Madison County commissioners plan to go over job descriptions at an upcoming meeting for the next road superintendent.

OTHER BUSINESS

In other business, the commissioners discussed the state’s plans to convert Whitworth Detention Center to an “all female” facility. The county has contracted with the detention center for inmate labor for several years, with inmates picking up trash on county roads. Dove voiced concern Dec. 3 about having male prison guards supervising the inmates in remote areas of the county and suggested that female work crews from the prison have female supervisors. But he was informed that female supervisors won’t be available.

Madison County officials plan to write the governor with their concerns and their desire to still have male prison labor.

Commissioner Stanley Thomas said that the county contracts with two work crews at $75,000 a year. He said that works out to roughly $1.50 an hour per inmate.

“You can’t replace that with workers,” he said. “… Any citizen that wants to write a letter would help too.”