Anonymous letter fires up Jefferson mayor’s race

An anonymous letter designed to slam Jefferson mayoral candidate Darren Glenn hit the homes of many registered voters Wednesday and immediately ramped up the tone of the race.

Glenn, a former Jefferson Police Chief, is facing Roy Plott in the contest to replace retiring Mayor Jim Joiner. Early voting in the race starts Monday.

The anonymous letter takes a smattering of old news articles and twists their meaning in an attempt to make Glenn look as though he had been involved in corruption.

Although it’s not clear who sent the letter, Glenn supporters claim Plott had been making some of the same accusations to people in one-on-one discussions.

The Plott campaign immediately denied having anything to do with the letter.

In a post on his campaign Facebook page, Plott said: “We have just been notified that someone has sent out an Anti-Glenn letter to voters. The Plott campaign had absolutely nothing to do with this and we would have intervened had we known. Roy Plott is a very ethical man and would NEVER condone such a letter being sent.”

Glenn called the letter “cowardly” in a post on his campaign Facebook page.

“Many of you may have received a letter about our campaign and once again someone has decided to dig up old news in a ‘letter’ that is filled with allegations, innuendos and outright lies. This libelous, cowardly and scurrilous missive is an anonymous attack on my character by people who would prefer to dredge up old, false news rather than deal with real issues and face towards the future.”

BACKGROUND

Plott was reportedly picked by Joiner to be his successor as mayor and was shocked when Glenn entered the race. Joiner has openly endorsed Plott and has been actively campaigning on his behalf.

When Joiner defeated incumbent Byrd Bruce for mayor, Glenn was police chief in Jefferson and openly worked for Joiner in that campaign. But the two later had a falling out that dates back to 2005-2007 when Joiner supported action by former city manager David Clabo and then assistant manager John Ward to fire Glenn as police chief. (Clabo later resigned after the city went through a financial crisis and Ward was promoted to city manager.)

Glenn had demoted an officer in the JDP that year and the officer hired a lawyer who sent multiple letters threatening to sue the city if his client’s job wasn’t reinstated.

To avoid a lawsuit, city officials eventually agreed to reinstate the officer to his former position and then they fired Glenn, saying he had mishandled the situation. But Glenn later won an unemployment compensation hearing after the city failed to prove Glenn had violated any city policy in the demotion of the officer. City officials were upset that Glenn won that hearing, a situation that called into doubt their handling of how Glenn was fired.

That split between Glenn and city officials only got worse over the next two years when a state probe into allegations against several JPD officers expanded to include Glenn. Between 2006 and 2007, state prosecutors tried three times to indict Glenn.

The first time the allegations were thrown out after Glenn’s lawyer found state prosecutors had made up a law code that didn’t exist in its allegations.

The second time, a judge tossed out indictments against Glenn because state prosecutors had refused to allow Glenn to attend and speak at a Grand Jury hearing, as is required by state law when a public official is under threat of indictment.

The third time in December 2007, the Grand Jury refused to indict Glenn after it heard both his testimony and the testimony of some 20 witnesses in the case.

See timeline of the events here:

http://www.mainstreetnews.com/2008/01:02:08/J0102Aaa.html

Although Glenn was vindicated in the end, some city leaders including Joiner, Ward and police chief Joe Wirthman, who had replaced Glenn in that position, had all openly pushed for his prosecution from 2006-2007. Ward testified against Glenn before the Grand Jury and both Joiner and Wirthman supported state efforts to indict Glenn.

Plott was not on the city council during the time when Glenn was under fire by city and state officials, but Plott has been a close supporter of Joiner since he joined the council in 2008. Glenn alleges that both Joiner and Plott have been dredging up those past events while campaigning in an effort to make it look like Glenn was part of corruption.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Jacksonheraldtoday/~3/1Ej3LyQSUUk/8991-Anonymous-letter-fires-up-Jefferson-mayors-race.html
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