The full Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Commission will meet at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday to hear Saracen Landing manager Trudy Redus’ appeal of a two-week suspension without pay determined by the body’s personnel committee.
The personnel committee on May 4 voted to suspend Redus for two weeks without pay and place her on a one-year probationary period during which she can be fired by department Director Angela Parker if she is involved in an accident or other incident. Redus had an accident April 28 in a utility vehicle owned by the Parks Department. Her son Tre’ Redus was also on the vehicle and was injured in the accident.
According to a report by Parker that was submitted May 4 to the personnel committee, Trudy Redus was instructed after the accident to take a drug test as required by city policy, but failed to do so. Parker also stated in the report that at one point on April 28, Redus said she had already taken the test, although it later turned out that she had not.
In a written statement from Redus to The Commercial on May 9, she gave her version of the events surrounding the accident and stated: “I deny that I was insubordinate, refused or avoided taking a drug test following the accident. I have not been untruthful in any statement made to my supervisor or anyone else regarding this matter.”
According to Redus’ statement, she attempted to take the drug test but was not allowed to do so by Jefferson Regional Medical Center staff because she did not have authorization from a physician or agency and because she did not have a list of the drugs for which she should be tested. Redus stated that her first priority was her injured son, who was undergoing surgery, and she assumed Parker would take care of the necessary steps to authorize the drug test.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Redus’ account does not include the phone call on the day of the accident in which Parker alleges that Redus told her she had already taken the drug test.
Parker’s account states that she contacted the JRMC nurse who spoke to Redus about the drug test. According to Parker, the nurse disagreed with Redus’ account of the conversation. Parker said the nurse said that if the staff needed authorization, they would call the agency involved and that there would not have been a conversation with the patient about what drugs the test should include.
Trudy Redus is married to Mayor Carl A. Redus Jr.
According to the city’s drug and alcohol policy manual, which was passed out by Parker to the press and the personnel committee members on May 4, an employee who fails to report to testing immediately after being told to do so “will be terminated” because the “city of Pine Bluff has adopted a policy of zero tolerance.”
The vehicle, a Toro Workman MDX, was one of several new vehicles the department purchased with funds from the city tax increase approved by voters in February 2011. According to the bid sheet from August 2011 on the vehicle, it cost $10,430.
According to a police report, it sustained damage that appeared to include a bent front axle and a broken brush guard. A quote by the company that sold the department the vehicle estimated the cost of repair at $4,042. Because the amount exceeds a certain threshold, the department will be required to solicit bids for the repair work, so the actual final cost may differ.
Redus was hired as Saracen Landing manager in September 2010 by the Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Commission, one of the city’s independent commissions. Carl Redus does not have direct supervisory powers over the department, but appoints the commissioners who do and suggests to the City Council how much in sales tax dollars the department should get for its budget.
Two commissioners — Teki Jimenez and Jeffrey Pulliam — participated in the May 4 personnel committee vote. The full commission also includes Abel White, Kami Hunt and Carson Fields.
Parker declined to comment Monday on the appeal, but explained how the process would work. Parker said Redus will state her appeal in public open session and then the commissioners will go into a closed-door executive session to deliberate. They may uphold the discipline, overturn it or choose some other form of discipline. After reaching a conclusion, they will return to open session and hold their vote in public.