Monday, June 27, 2011

Mayes calls out Salter. Again.

I guess county solid waste director Tom Salter thinks he’s a funny guy.

You know, supposedly making up email accounts, pretending he’s his own arch nemesis Brad Mayes, then sending a note to an attorney.

Funny stuff, I tell you.

Until you get caught.

And in one of the most ironic/dumbest ways possible (not that emails can’t be traced anyway).

You see, Brad Mayes, pictured above, talked (and still does) some trash about Salter. And Salter, I presume, got tired of it.

In fact, he got so tired of it, he decided to sue Mayes for slander. And therein lies the problem.

Lawsuits require depositions. And attorneys can pretty much ask anything in a deposition, even if it really isn’t that germane to whatever the heck the lawsuit is about. And you don’t want to lie in a deposition. Because then the opposing attorney gets you on the stand and – sort of – asks you the same question later on. And your answer better match up. (Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said if you never lie you never have to remember anything? But I digress.)

Anyhoo,Salter sues Mayes. Then Mayes' attorney turns the whole thing around on Salter.

Salter pretty much had to confess that he’s the one who sent out the email that was supposedly from Brad. It was back in 2008, under the fake account: brad@plumbcreek.com.

It was sent to David Draper, the attorney for Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee, the county’s mulch operator. Mayes, right or wrong, has been pissing off NRRT and solid waste director Tom Salter for quite some time.

So, Mayes during today’s county commission meeting turned over part of that deposition to commissioners. The one where Salter – when asked about the email – said “I just thought it was funny.”

Heh. Heh. Hahahahahahaha.

Oh man. That’s rich.

Here’s the email along with a page of the deposition. You can decide whether it’s funny.

In response to Brad’s presentation, commissioner and good doctor, Richard Briggs, said:
“(Brad) has been criticized by members of this commission as being inappropriate . . . and I’d like to point out that in the (Pam) Reeves report (which laid out all sorts of screw-ups going on in the solid waste department – albeit mostly under Salter’s predecessor) and the audit report we received April 26, we found almost 500,000 the county did not receive that was pointed out by Brad Mayes, and Brad is like a rock in your shoe if you work for Knox County because he’s pointed out a number of things people are uncomfortable with, but he pointed out that there was 500,000 that is owed to the county . . and I know a lot of people make fun of him, but that is a fact.”
Here’s a story I wrote about NRRT and the solid waste department. It details that fairly scathing audit. Most of which Mayes investigated and found on his own.

Also during today’s meeting, Commissioner R. Larry Smith – just as county Mayor Tim Burchett was approaching the podium to address the commission on an unrelated matter – said: “We’ve got some real hard evidence about some things and we’ve had some hard evidence (in the past).”

He then asked Burchett what he was going to do about it.

The mayor, who had nothing to do with this mess because it happened before he took office last September, said: “We’re not stalling and we’re not covering up for anybody, commissioner. I ran on transparency and we’re going to get it. We’re going to get it all resolved.”

Said Smith: “We need to send some messages out to county employees. We’ve had some other things happen during this past week and this seems to be a lot more damaging.”

Yeah. No kidding.

14 comments:

  1. UNBELIEVABLE !!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm still waiting for the second installment of "you're not from around here."

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the legal disclaimer from CareerBuilder about its Monk-E-Mail feature on page 2 of the PDF. Nice ironic touch. It's as if CB knew in advance that Salter was screwing himself six ways to Sunday by sending this and didn't want any part of the resulting lawsuit.

    Good move by CareerBuilder. Still an inexcusable move by Salter that should get his sorry ass canned.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous, it's coming
    Brian, yeah, I thought that was funny, too

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brad, vindication is spelled with a "v", as you well know.

    ReplyDelete
  6. vandevate needs to be on the chopping block also....anyone who heard him defending the situation, attacking Mayes, and claiming it was all cleaned up and did not need an audit will agree.

    He was the one who also knew about this whole situation and contributed to the cover up in no uncertain terms.

    ReplyDelete
  7. NRRT will be paying regardless of the business they generate....so why not just buy the land and continue operations with no tipping fee?

    There remaining will give an advantage and it is obvious the Commissioners do not expect anyone but a similar company to purchase the land.

    Does any one wonder what Salter and Vandevate have to do with advising Burchett to sell this and drop the low bid they previously agreed to this spring?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm shocked. Simply shocked.
    Salter was dumb to send this, but who is dumb enough to take Monk email seriously?
    It's clearly marked as a gag, and it's right comical to see the likes of Donila, Paone, Zito and Mitchell clutching their pearls over it. It was discovered during (heh) discovery – something Mayes and his compadre sidestepped – Mayes with a convenient fire, Greaves an "innocent" deletion – just as the subpoenas were arriving.
    Claiming this as a serious attempt at impersonation/identity theft is dumber than a tub full of monkeys.
    This is the most tedious local issue since Rocky Golden's conspiracy theories, not that Donila would know anything about that. He's not from around here.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jesus, Donila, Paone, Zito and Mitchell are in on this? Uh, who is the hell are these people? Sounds like a circus act or a New York accounting firm.

    And what do pearls have to do with this dire conspiracy? And who is this Monk person?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great comments. But . . .

    Actually, yes Salter was claiming it as a serious attempt at impersonation (although not neccessarily identity theft).

    ReplyDelete
  11. "Actually, yes Salter was claiming it as a serious attempt at impersonation (although not neccessarily identity theft)."

    Not according to the deposition page you posted. He claimed he was trying to be funny. I doubt anybody would choose Monk email to convey a serious message.
    And to my Anonymous brother – I don't think Jesus was involved in this. It was probably Amy Broyles' fault.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 6th anonymous comment, in order:

    * You should be.

    * It doesn't matter. The guy was involved in a lawsuit against the county and Salter's department was directly involved in it. The two have had fairly heated exchanges over this issue.

    It doesn't matter if it was a joke. It was fucking stupid to do, period. Just like the Cox nonsense. Somebody's idea of humor turned into bigoted nonsense that had no business at the table. Salter's senseless nonsense exposes the county and its taxpayers (you know, the bosses that pay the bills) to an unacceptably large amount of legal liabilities.

    Pretty expensive joke. I don't feel like paying for it.

    * Poor timing and the "joke" label don't excuse the fact that a sitting department head decided to disparage an individual involved in a number of legal actions concerning the county (and, again, its taxpayers) in just about the most ignorant and inflammatory way possible without talking about banging anyone's mom.

    We need much, MUCH more from our employees.

    * Defending it's about as bad as sending a traceable email disparaging... look, if you don't get the damn point by now, you'll either never get it or you might even be Salter himself.

    And if you are, let me know when you're ready to get the aerial photo of my house. I've always wanted to moon a plane.

    Finally:

    * Well, harf harf harf. Too bad your argument wasn't anywhere near as clever as the punchline. (Which isn't saying much, but still better than the argument you present.)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Mayes law suit is not against the county....Paone.

    the law suit is against NRRT in an attempt to collect tipping fees they were contractually responsible for.

    this was an attempt to collect this money for the taxpayer.

    Mayes was offered a settlement and refused

    when salter wrote the email it was just before mediation and the county them dropped their participation (I believe this was the intent) but Weaver found the law suit did in fact have merit

    does anyone wonder why salter and vandervate are still involved along with holt?

    and why, when the low bed was not by NRRT did they all decide to sell the land instead?

    perhaps they intend to continue business with NRRT. After all they are still the same players.

    ReplyDelete