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2008-12-04  FORSYTH HERALD | Forsyth County staff ordered to aid in office switch
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| | by Logan Thomas | | |
December 02, 2008
FORSYTH COUNTY - County staff will now be helping move contents from one office to the other.
The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners had previously voted to change Commission Chairman Charles Laughinghouse's office to be that of the county manager by Nov. 15. The board voted 3-2 Nov. 25 to have staff assist with the move with Laughinghouse and Commissioner Jim Harrell voting against.
Commissioner David Richard asked Nov. 25 why the "will of the board" had not been carried out.
"I'd like to see the commissioner actually follow the will of the board but apparently he is above the will of the board," he said. "That is a dangerous precedent to set."
Laughinghouse said he was ready Nov. 15 and is waiting on the office to vacate.
"I will get it done when it gets done," he said. "I'm not making the move. I'm not physically capable of doing it. You are welcome to do it or get staff to do it. I will not ask staff to do that."
Harrell said Richard should not say that Laughinghouse was "unwilling" to move.
"He's physically incapable of doing it," he said.
Richard said that was a "convenient excuse."
"The reality is that the chairman is ignoring the will of this commission," he said.
Richard made the motion to "allocate resources to move to the vacant office."
"It's a shame it has to come to this," he said.
Laughinghouse agreed.
"You're right," he said. "It's a real shame it has to come to this."
The commissioners fired former County Manager Rhonda O'Connor in September and will now be searching for a new county manager. Commissioner Brian Tam said he believed this was the perfect time to make the larger office that of the county manager.
"We sat in this very office two years ago to make an offer to a county manager," he said. "The primary reason for declining was the office."
Laughinghouse said that was not true.
"The reason was David Richard's Web site and Linda Ledbetter's comments in the paper," he said.
Ledbetter said she "resented" Laughinghouse's comment.
Tam said he wanted to give the new county manager all the "tools they would need."
"We have to hire another one," he said. "We've heard all these creative reasons as to why it didn't work out."
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