Lee County Coroner and former Deputy Chief in the Smiths Station Fire Protection District Daniel Sexton addressed the widespread corruption plaguing the SSFPD at their special called board meeting on September 19th of 2023. Joseph Walden, disgraced ex-chief of the SSFPD and close personal friend of Lee County Commissioner for District 3 Gary Long, who had recently resigned his position in the aftermath of damning documents posted online which chronicled the pervasive fraud and abuse of power that occurred under his watch has inexplicably managed to retain his position as a board member overseeing the district. Walden yet again abused his position as a board member by attempting to block Sexton from speaking before the board even though the former deputy chief's appearance was included in the meeting's agenda. After a heated argument between Walden and Sexton, the assembled members of the public in attendance vocalized their support for allowing the former deputy chief to speak and through a show of hands they made it clear that they would not acquiesce to Walden's obstructionism. Walden became visibly agitated and walked out of sight down an adjacent hallway from the meeting while Sexton took to the podium.
Attempts by the Examiner to contact Commissioners Langley and Lagrand were successful with each of them responding that they had indeed read the original SSFPD complaint document, however, neither of them were aware of Sexton's statement at the board meeting nor the “Reorganization & Accountability Task Force” document that had been distributed online.
Excerpts from the verbal version of Sexton's statement before the board have been transcribed as follows;
I am here tonight to speak with you about a loss of public trust due to the recent allegations that have been circulated on social media and in the news.
For this department to survive, much less move forward, this loss of public trust must be addressed. It will not be easy, it will not be simple, but it can be done.
Before we can talk about how it can be done, let’s talk about how it cannot be done. For the most part I’m not going to spend much time hashing over the specific issues spelled out in the complaint, I think everyone knows what they are, and everyone knows that some of them are more than just allegations and innuendo.
However, I will say that continuing to ignore the problem will not restore public trust and may create more legal issues for some members of the board and employees of this department. Doing nothing will not restore public trust and may create more legal issues for some members of this board and the department employees. Pretending the problem does not exist will not solve the problem.
Finally, maintaining the status quo of what you have been doing that got you into this situation to start with will certainly not restore public trust and will certainly result in more legal issues for both members of the board and this department.
Let me say it again in plain English, keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing and you’re going to get more of exactly what you have. A huge mess of legal issues, some of them are criminal. This board and the majority of its members sat idly by while a handful of individuals got you into this mess.
As the complaint laid out, people who were not interested in what was right, what was legal, what was ethical or what was best for this department or what was best for this community, they were interested in what was best for themselves.
Whether it was buying department vehicles for personal use without following legally required auction process or big salaries and inordinate amounts of PTO (Paid Time Off) for employees, many of whom are friends and family, the primary focus of the folks running this place recently has been “what can this department do for me and how much money can I make from it". And as a board you have enabled this.
This board was warned multiple times about these issues. I personally tried to warn you about these issues. However, one or more of the board members sitting in this room tonight conspired with one or more other individuals who are now being investigated to keep that information from the board as a whole. Something that I ultimately believe the authorities will determine was the definition of "conspiracy to cover up other illegal acts.”
As noted in the widely distributed complaint from a former deputy chief, who was not me by the way, there is more than one former deputy chief, came to this board at a public meeting and tried to warn these very board members about this. The majority of the board dismissed him, ignored the issues, made excuses, and moved on as if they thought “maybe if we ignore it or pretend like we don’t know anything, it will go away”.
Well as we all know now, it didn’t go away and more than one of the members of this board is currently under active criminal and ethics investigation.
Believe what you want, but it is very likely that before this is over, some people will go to jail, and others will probably get the opportunity to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet. More important and more pressing than who goes to jail and who gets an ankle bracelet, the damage that has been done to this department’s reputation and the community it serves, while many of you sat idly by, is as incalculable as it is disgusting.
Based on the limited financial data that has been made available by this board, if just a fraction of the people who have said they will not pay another fire fee until these problems are fixed follow through with that this department may not survive financially.
Moving on to the question of “how can public trust be restored?” Two words: transparency and accountability. However, the caveat is you can’t just say it, you have to actually do it.
This means doing things differently than the way it’s always been done, it means doing things that have never been done before and it means brining sunshine to every corner of this department and its operations.
This board broke the law tonight right in front of each of our faces because they had a closed door discussion with ten members of this fire department, which they voluntarily announced because they are not smart enough to know that it was illegal. They cannot discuss things that are fixing to be discussed in an open board meeting. It's illegal.
At this point Walden had returned to the meeting, however, he was still visibly agitated to the point that he was unable to return to his seat alongside his fellow board members and instead remained standing in the belligerent posture and body language of a man who was barely able to maintain his composure. His temper boiling over, Walden again shouted over Sexton in a failed attempt to prevent him from exposing the corruption in the SSFPD in front of the public. Undeterred, Sexton resumed his statement while Walden wisely deescalated the situation and quieted back down.
The board's attorney recently quit because of all this mess, so they are without an attorney at this particular time because of this mess. It will be different, it will be uncomfortable, it will be hard work, it will take time, but this department can be saved from almost certain ruin and public trust can be reestablished through transparency and accountability.
For example, you’ll notice that we have a camera here tonight and this meeting will be posted online for everyone to see. Nothing about this department should be a secret, there should be zero reason the public can’t know where every cent of their money is being spent. If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide anything. Why do we need to have secret meetings if there is nothing to hide?
Tonight, I am proposing that this board form a “Reorganization & Accountability Task Force.” This task force will be charged with completing a top to bottom review of every policy, procedure, account, inventory, etc. of this department and reporting those findings both periodically and in a final written report to the board of directors and the public.
Before I go much further, let me take a moment to address some misinformation that has been spread on social media and directly to board members, in many cases by people who once again have a self-interest in sabotaging this task force before its work even gets started.
For instance by adding an accounting firm to the agenda tonight because they knew that was already in this task force. So they were trying to cut that off before it got started.
People spreading this false or misleading information are either incredibly misinformed or more likely trying to obstruct any hint of investigation to protect themselves and perhaps friends and family members. The issue with this is that no amount of obstruction or spreading misinformation and flat-out false information on facebook or via email is going to protect anyone from the criminal investigation process that is underway. Eventually justice will prevail, and people will be held accountable under the law.
Time for these three corrupt or inept (does it matter which?) Commissioners to be removed next election... Amazing to see some actual reporting/investigation in Lee County - well done E. AL Examiner