Franklin Co. Searching For Attorney … Or Not

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

They’re searching for a new county attorney, but they’re not. …officially.

Franklin County’s Board of Commissioners have decided to form a search committee to review applications for the County Attorney position – but they claim they are not looking for a new county attorney.

Current county attorney Bubba Samuels’ contract is up the end of December.

All of the Commissioners say Samuels is doing a great job and they have no issue with his work – noting at one point – that he has won every case the County has been involved in.

Franklin County currently pays Samuels $100 an hour for his legal services.

Despite that, the board agreed last month to send out request for proposals to local law offices, according to a directive from Commission Chair Thomas Bridges, just to see what kind of offers come in and to see if they can get a better deal.

At their work session recently, County Manager Beth Thomas recommended from there, the Board create a selection committee to review the proposals.

“We said in our RFP we would have a selection committee that would score each proposal based on the matrix I provided,” Thomas said. “There’s no voting by the subcommittee. My recommendation is to have the Chairman, myself, Commissioner Wester and the Planning Director on a five-member committee.”

A fifth member would come from the community.

Discussions regarding the RFP’s and the search in general became heated when Commissioner David Strickland said Chairman Bridges should not be on the selection committee.

“I personally believe, knowing how things have been the last three years with our Chairman being more toward trying to do away with the current attorney, seems like there would be prejudice,” Strickland said.

Bridges said while he likes Samuels’ work, he has always been concerned with one aspect of the attorney’s contract.

“All this chairperson has done is ask why the previous commission had this attorney on a $10,000 a month retainer,” Bridges explained. “Basically, I just questioned how we’re spending our money.”

Samuels said Thursday, however, he has not received a $10,000 a month retainer from Franklin County since 2013 and only bills by the hour, which is now $100/hour.

But Strickland insisted Bridges should not be on the selection committee.

“I just disagree with you being on there,” Strickland said.

“Excuse me, I am the chairperson,” Bridges retorted.

“That’s right, and we saw what mess we had with the (county) clerk, with all that that happened. If you want to get your panties in a wad, I’m sorry,” Strickland replied.

“Mr. Chairperson, I’m calling for a point of order,” Commissioner Jeff Jacques interjected.

“Good,” Bridges said. “Thank you. It is done. Said. We’ll move on to the next issue.”

No vote was taken and the County attorney matter will be taken up at a future meeting.