It seemed that the culmination of a lawsuit spelled the end to a bit of drama at the Jefferson County courthouse, but then, haha, of course not. It’s Jefferson County.
The lawsuit was filed against Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson by County Assessor Gloria Tillman and her daughter who works for Tillman in the assessor’s office.
It was Robinson’s contention that the daughter couldn’t be employed in the assessor’s office because it constituted nepotism. Robinson thought so strongly about the situation that, when he approved payroll awhile back, he left off the pay for the daughter and another person. That threw a monkey wrench into pay day, but eventually county employees got their checks.
Recently, a special judge ruled that Robinson was within his rights as a county judge to take the action that he did. Hence, the idea that normalcy was right around the corner.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
But not so much. Despite a letter from County Attorney Terry Wynne to Tillman to remove the daughter from the payroll, the daughter is still there. As the story went, the woman called mom and her mom said don’t leave your job.
This being a legal matter, it would seem to be that one way to address the matter for Tillman would be to get her attorney to appeal the special judge’s ruling and to ask for an injunction to the ruling until the appeal can be considered.
But in Jefferson County, it seems that another option is to contact Justice of the Peace Lloyd Franklin Jr. to speak on one’s behalf in bad-mouthing the county judge, a practice he has quite a bit of experience at even if he himself is not an attorney. We wonder if Franklin will stay by Tillman’s side if things get legally ugly.
Robinson said he would consider bringing in the law to remove the daughter from her position. That conjures images of Robinson calling the Pine Bluff Police Department and an officer from that department in a standoff with a deputy from the sheriff’s office, the head of which is as equally unhappy with Robinson as Franklin is.
Hey, it’s Jefferson County. Anything can happen. Anything except calm.