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After almost two and a half hours in executive session Monday, the Barrow County Board of Commissioners took no action on the internal investigation report released last week.
County attorney Angie Davis said the board will meet again in executive session next week.
The commission-initiated report cleared the county of any state or federal violations related to Title VII and Equal Protection allegations. Cartersville attorney David Archer found no "preponderance of evidence" or corroboration to claims raised by the county’s human resources office against Chairman Danny Yearwood and Director of Community and County Development Lyn Clement.
The report did say that Yearwood violated one county policy. Archer recommended Yearwood and Clement be required to attend training courses – on anger management and county government, and courses that would assure "offending comments are not repeated," respectively.
The county announced the called meeting late last week.Yearwood excused himself from the executive session that began at 5 p.m. Commissioner Larry Joe Wilburn voted against meeting in executive session, but did participate in it. The commissioners returned to the board room about 7:25 p.m. and Commissioner Ben Hendrix reported that they had no action. There were an estimated dozen people waiting in the audience.
According to the 37-page report, Human Resources Director Norma Jean Brown claimed that Yearwood and Clement made racially offensive comments to her and employees in her department, that Yearwood had inappropriately touched her and that he had yelled at her, threatened to fire her and cussed her.
Archer concluded that evidence and corroboration only supported the latter of those claims and only to a certain extent in an Oct. 2 meeting.
According to other employees in that meeting, Yearwood did not curse or swear, but he was "’more loud and chastising’ to Director Brown than ever before."
Archer said Yearwood’s actions in that meeting did violate a county policy that prohibits conduct that is "offensive to supervisors, coworkers" and the "use of…abusive language or discourteous treatment to…other employees."
The Board of Commissioners is set to meet Friday at 2 p.m. with other elected officials and will hold its next regular meeting Feb. 9.
