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All three black county employees in the Barrow County Administrative Annex have hired employment law attorneys.
Daunte Gibbs and Sebastian Ododa have hired attorneys at Buckley and Klein, the same law firm representing Human Resources Director Norma Jean Brown, an attorney at the firm confirmed Tuesday.
Sophia (Tonie) Russell has hired an attorney with Tanya Andrews Tate and Associates.
Russell, GIS manager, and Ododa, senior network engineer, were both demoted during the reduction in force earlier this year. Gibbs is a planner.
All three of them report to Lyn Clement, Director of Community and County Development – a position that didn’t exist prior to the restructuring and reduction in force. Clement oversees the GIS, planning, network services, licenses and permits and buildings and grounds departments.
Prior to the restructuring, Clement headed the latter two departments.
Attorneys representing Gibbs, Ododa, Russell and Brown filed open records requests with the county earlier this month, seeking almost 100 items, including access to Clement’s personnel records.
One of the requests submitted by Buckley and Klein seeks access to "any and all personnel records of Lyn Clement, including but not limited to any complaints brought against Mr. Clement by any person or party either formally or informally and any documentation concerning the complaints and any form of disciplinary action taken against Mr. Clement."
Steven Wolfe, an attorney with Buckley and Klein, said he could only explain the purpose of the information requests by saying, "We’re investigating our clients’ situation."
He added, "We haven’t filed anything of public record yet, so I can’t comment on the nature of the cases."
Danielle Berry, who’s representing Russell, said, "the purpose of my submitting the open records request is just to gather information regarding Ms. Russell’s allegations. I’m still in the information-gathering stage."
She also said filing open records requests is a way to obtain pre-litigation documents.
The attorneys’ information requests also seek access to documents, letters and memos regarding their clients and any complaints they have made that were sent "to, from, or copying" Clement, Chairman Danny Yearwood and the commissioners since the beginning of the year.
The attorneys also seek access to any requests made by Yearwood, any county commissioner and County Clerk Michelle Sims for personnel or other documents from the Human Resources Department since Oct. 26, the day Brown discovered a threatening voicemail on her work phone. It’s also the day before Brown brought allegations of racial and gender discrimination to the Board of Commissioners, and the board subsequently voted to hire an outside investigator to look into those allegations.
The investigator hired by the county is also listed among the attorneys’ request letters.
The letter by Buckley and Klein requests access to documents, letters and memos reflecting how the outside investigator was selected, as well as all documents provided to the investigator.
According to County Clerk Michelle Sims, the county will likely have the attorneys’ requested information available within a week.
The Barrow County News has also requested access to all of the same information.
Clement did not return a request for comment.
