Assistant fire chief Jeff Taylor has been appointed as acting fire chief for Banks County, while acting public safety director John Creasy’s contract ends on Monday.
The Banks County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the appointment of Taylor as the acting fire chief at a called meeting on Monday.
BOC chairman Milton Dalton, who has not been at work due to health reasons but attended the meeting, said he asked that this item be put on the agenda.
“I feel like we have gone long enough without a chief,” Dalton said. “Our policy manual says that we can appoint someone from within, since we have the hiring freeze.”
The county has been without a fire chief since Gary Pollard resigned after Creasy was appointed in January of this year to serve as public safety director for 90 days. Creasy and Pollard had earlier conflicts in 2008 when Creasy and some volunteers stepped down after their demands that Pollard be fired were ignored.
At the meeting on Monday, commissioner Rickey Cain made the motion to appoint Taylor. The motion was unanimously approved.
“When the hiring freeze ends, we will open this for applications,” he said.
persons applying, let's not get a reject from Rabun or any other county including ours. Let Milton make the final decision, he is the chairman. He did not vote because the paper cannot get any thing straight that they report.
I heard they want a small department guy who can Just get along" ...that is the wrong approach hire a qualified outside candidate and let him take a look at the situation from a fresh perspective. If that means a handful of paid and volunteers need to be replaced so that we can all move on so be it.
Time for the BOC to keep there hands off of Emergancy services and let the new Chief manage it.