NEWTON COUNTY – The Newton County Board of Commissioners have voted to appoint Charles Berry and Jackie Smith to the Newton County Board of Tax Assessors.
Both Berry and Smith – who has no relation to the county clerk with the same name – each received a split vote on their appointments, with Berry receiving a 3-2 vote and Smith receiving a 4-1 vote.
The appointments took place at the Jan. 16 meeting.
Back on Dec. 5, discussion first began over the appointment process of the board of tax assessors after some backlash from District 3 commissioner Alana Sanders and District 4 representative J.C. Henderson.
Sanders was set to appoint Cynthia Butler to the tax assessors board to represent her district, and in turn, remove Berry from the board. However, Butler’s name was pulled off of the consent agenda and instead replaced with an agenda item going over discussion of tax assessors board appointments.
This drew the ire of Sanders, in particular, as she stated that the tax assessors board has been formed by nominations from each commissioner and voted on via the consent agenda for “nearly 30 years.”
County attorney Patrick Jaugstetter stated at the Dec. 5 meeting that, while the county has conducted the per-district process for that period of time, state law does not require it.
“There is a provision in the county code that provides that the board of assessors is appointed at-large – which means across the board of county – not by individual districts, by the chairperson subject to the approval by the Board of Commissioners,” Jaugstetter said. “How you nominate members is really up to you. How you decide what the nomination process, who makes the nomination, how you decide among various applicants – that's entirely up to the board.”
Jaugstetter then made the recommendation that the board appoint nominees and that they all vote on the nominees one at a time – which is what the board chose to do at the Jan. 16 meeting.
Before a vote could get underway, Sanders opted to speak out against this new process.
“For almost 30 years, each commissioner had appointed [their nominee] to this tax assessor board,” Sanders said. “It was only just until it was time for District 3 – and it was evident that it was time for District 3 to appoint– that we’re now saying that we have been doing it wrong for
30 years when there’s evidence that was given to me by the county clerk that the board decided 30 years ago for equality and that each district had a representation from that board.”
Sanders then decided to read out the list of nominations that she acquired through an open records request with the county.
According to Sanders, District 1 commissioner Stan Edwards, District 5 commissioner Ronnie Cowan and chairman Marcello Banes nominated Berry. Sanders nominated Butler.
Other nominations, according to Sanders, included Jonathan Blackshear being nominated by Henderson, Keith Dalton nominated by Cowan and Smith nominated by Banes.
Banes stated that Sanders incorrectly read his name into the record.
“So since you’re putting it on record, let’s make sure you put it on record correctly,” Banes said. “My appointment was Mrs. Jackie Smith.”
The Covington News filed its own open records request to confirm the data that was read into the record.
All of the aforementioned nominations were correct, with the exception of Banes nominating Berry. The open records request mentioned that an error was made when the initial list was created, and that Banes had only nominated Smith, not Berry.
It was also confirmed that District 2 representative Demond Mason did not make a nomination.
Just before the vote, Mason wanted to explain to the audience and fellow board members that it needs to follow the procedures and laws set in place.
“Back in January of 2021, it was stated that this board tends to do what they want to do and not follow the policies or the laws that are currently in place. “It is amazing to me how that all of a sudden we don’t want to follow the policies, the procedures or the laws that are in place because we’ve been doing something for 20-plus years,” Mason said. “We can’t base this decision off of what has been done for 20 years. We base this decision and this process based off of what our county attorney presented to us…It would behoove this board to change how we’re doing it so we are following the law.”
The vote to appoint Berry passed 3-2, with Sanders and Henderson opposing. Butler’s subsequent appointment failed 2-3, with Edwards, Mason and Cowan opposing.
Henderson’s nomination to appoint Blackshear to the tax assessors board failed 2-3 – with Edwards, Mason and Cowan opposing – while Smith’s appointment to the tax assessors board passed 4-1. Henderson was the lone dissenting vote. Cowan informed the board that Dalton had declined his nomination.
Both Berry and Smith will serve a six-year term on the board of tax assessors, with both terms expiring on Dec. 31, 2029.
