The Marion County Board has appointed a three-person committee to find out who placed a copy of a Facebook post critical of the county’s response to a recent audit on the county board secretary’s desk. The post was later shared with the rest of the board by Board Chair Debbie Smith, which drew concern from a member of the taxpayers group who posted the comment since his name was displayed on top of the copy.
“The only thing that I used of county money was time on the fax machine to transmit it,” Smith said. “It’s miscellaneous information. We have miscellaneous information on various issues going out. This wasn’t targeted at anybody. This was just to make board members aware that there are some people out there that do not like what we’re doing, and that maybe we can do it better, sir. That was the only purpose of it.”
But board member Brock Waggoner looked at it differently and was unhappy when Smith ended the conversation to go on to other matters. Waggoner accused Smith of attacking the taxpayers by the action she took. Smith denied this and insisted the board was addressing questions and restated that the board was holding an investigation, at which point Waggoner stood up and left the meeting.
The taxpayers asked for the investigation which will be headed by Board Member Steve Whritenour, who is also a Lieutenant at the Centralia Police Department.
“The courthouse is full of elected officials that are honest, hardworking, transparent people,” Whritenour said. “I’m going to send out an email to all of them and just ask, ‘Hey, did somebody drop this off on the board’s desk?’ Hopefully that person will come forward, and we’ll present the findings at the next county board meeting. Hopefully the concerned citizens that wanted to know where this information came from would get their source. But again, when you put something on social media, it’s for everybody to see.”
The committee, suggested by the taxpayers group, will also include Waggoner and board member Tracy Murray.
