Doug Cody was quite clear in his request to the Jackson County Commissioners when he showed up at their meeting this month. He likes serving on the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority board, and with his term set to expire Dec. 31, he wanted to be reappointed.
“I feel that I bring a technical skill set to the TWSA board that allows me to relate to issues from a different perspective than is commonly found on such boards,” the former county commissioner and veteran engineer told commissioners. “My feedback from other members of the TWSA board has always been positive.”
Ralph Slaughter, chairman of the Jackson County Republican Party, backed Cody up, asking commissioners to make appointments based on qualifications rather than political affiliation, while Carl Iobst, a frequent commenter in commission meetings, voiced the opinion that Cody is “extremely competent” and should be reappointed. TWSA Director Dan Harbaugh had earlier emailed County Manager Chuck Wooten asserting that Cody had “represented Jackson County well” on the board and that TWSA was “confident he would continue to contribute in the future.”
But when Commissioner Charles Elders, the sole Republican on the board, moved to reappoint Cody, nobody provided a second and the motion died on the floor. Instead, Commissioner Boyce Dietz nominated Joe Ward, a Whittier farmer and former planning board member. Commissioners, including Elders, voted unanimously to appoint Ward.
The decision left Cody crying foul, saying that the board will now be left without anyone to replace the technical skill he’d brought to the table. Cody’s worked in engineering for almost 40 years, 35 of those years in positions dealing with issues related to water.
“I realize that politics plays a big role in lots of things, but just because you have a certain letter after your name, be it a D or an R, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily the right person for the job,” said Cody, a Republican who lost reelection as commissioner in 2014.
Finding the right person for the right job is important, Commission Chairman Brian McMahan said, but at the end of the day board appointments are political appointments. As a commissioner, he’s looking for someone who will represent his views on the board.
“Doug Cody was representing Jackson County on that board, and I’ll be very clear that Doug Cody was not reelected as a county commissioner and Doug Cody does not represent my views on that board,” McMahan said. “Doug Cody, if he had done like the other commissioners that had been defeated in previous terms, would have resigned and allowed the board to choose a replacement for him, but he chose not to do that.”
“The tradition has been when a commissioner is no longer in office that he resigns from the position that he was appointed to based on him being a commissioner,” agreed Commissioner Vicki Greene.
That’s what McMahan did in 2010, when he lost reelection to the board seat he’d held at the time. And it’s what Jack Debnam, McMahan’s predecessor as chairman, did when McMahan beat him in 2014. The convention extends beyond the county commission.
When Nick Breedlove resigned his post as mayor of Webster earlier this month to take a job as the county’s tourism director, he also divested himself of his seats on the TWSA and Southwestern Commission boards, to which he’d been appointed in his capacity as mayor.
“Consider doing the gracious thing when a board’s composition changes and resign, and don’t expect to be reappointed if you have chosen to continue that position,” Greene said.
Cody sees it another way. In his view, he was appointed to the seat on the basis of his ability to contribute. With him gone, the board will not have anyone on it with a substantial background in infrastructure development. Holding a commissioners’ seat was not a condition of his appointment to the board, he said, and anyway the thing that matters should be his qualifications as a board member.
“I think if you don’t look at it from that perspective then you’re shortchanging your citizens,” he said.
But according to McMahan, the citizens are in no way getting short-changed. Ward’s a quality candidate, he said, with experience in agriculture, railroad management and on the planning board. He has “good common sense” and lives in the Whittier area, which is not currently represented on the TWSA board. TWSA does not own the facility that serves Whittier but manages it for the Whittier Sanitary District.
“He per say may not have a water and sewer background, but I don’t think that’s really that important sometimes,” McMahan said. “I think it’s good to have people from different types of backgrounds to complement each other.”