Ethics board finding OKs promotion of mayor’s brother-in-law

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Wednesday, June 1, 2016, 8 p.m. — The Joint Ethics Board accepted an advisory opinion Wednesday that allows Tom Blair — Mayor John Royalty’s brother-in-law — to receive a promotion he was seeking as a member of the Bardstown Police Department.

The ethics board was asked to determine if the promotion of either of two city police officers would violate the city’s ethics guidelines on nepotism. The questions arose after the city police department moved to create four supervisory positions, each of which would hold the rank of sergeant.

Tom Blair — one of the officers who applied for a sergeant’s position — is Royalty’s brother-in-law; a second applicant for a sergeant position has a brother who is also a Bardstown Police officer.

The ethics board was asked to determine if either or both would constitute nepotism under the city’s ethics ordinance.

The board’s advisory opinion — written after it sought the legal opinion of Jason Floyd of Fulton Hubbard & Hubbard — noted that the city ethics ordinance does not include brother-in-law as a prohibited family relationship in its section on nepotism, and therefore, promoting Blair to a supervisory position would not fall under the ordinance’s nepotism definition.

But in the case of the other officer who has a brother who is an officer in the same department, Floyd noted that the ordinance has language that would prohibit a promotion of one brother to a supervisory position because he would likely supervise his brother at some time.

OFFICERS PROMOTED. The ethics board’s decision cleared the way for the promotions to sergeant for Blair and three other officers: Kyler Wright, Jeremy Cauley and Michael Medley.

Creation of the four sergeant positions was part of Mayor John Royalty’s restructuring plan that created controversy when it was implemented while former Chief Rick McCubbin was recovering from surgery.

The promotions mean an improvement in officer supervision for the department, Assistant Chief McKenzie Mattingly said after the board’s meeting.

The sergeants will replace the practice of designating the senior officer on a shift the “Officer in Charge,” or OIC. The OIC was the supervisor for the shift, and that title changed as the shift line up changed.

Mayor John Royalty said the new system will provide more consistent hands-on leadership within the department. Royalty said he had approached McCubbin with the concept of creating the leadership positions early in his administration but nothing became of it.

Mattingly said when he was promoted to assistant chief, filling the four positions was one of his top priorities.

City police officers who were interested in the leadership positions were asked to apply by April 29. Those applicants were the interviewed by a three-person panel selected by Mattingly and Lt. Brad Gillock. The candidates were scored and those scores were then turned over for final selection by the city’s selection committee consisting of Public Works Director Larry Hamilton and HR Director Larry Green.

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