The Mayor and City Council of Georgetown (M&CC) has been officially informed of the vacancy in the position of Town Clerk and is now expected to advertise for Royston King’s replacement.
Speaking with Stabroek News last evening Chairman of the Local Government Commission (LGC), Mortimer Mingo, indicated that while the LGC will appoint the new Town Clerk it is expected that the full council will select and recommend the candidate.
“They have to advertise and then their Human Resource Committee will make a shortlist and conduct interviews. Following these interviews they will make a selection which full council will ratify and send to us for an appointment,” Mingo explained.
At yesterday’s Statutory Meeting acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry-Monroe read to Council a letter sent to King which indicated that he failed to respond to the charge proffered against him either in writing or orally.
Further according to the LGC, King did not “deny the charge of gross misconduct led against him” and therefore had been terminated with immediate effect.
King was dismissed via letter, dated Wednesday, January 23rd, which was successfully delivered on Thursday.
Disciplinary action against King, a forensic audit and a criminal investigation are three of the 31 recommendations made by retired Justice Cecil Kennard, who conducted a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the financial affairs of City Hall.
As part of his findings, Kennard had charged King with gross misconduct, abuse of office, recklessness, and conspiracy, among other things. The report, submitted on November 30th last year, specifically identified as questionable the manner in which King leased lands and awarded contracts.
Kennard stressed that documents provided “indicated that contracts were awarded to friends and associates of key officials of the council, such as the son of the mayor, the son of the chairman of the Finance Sub-Committee, a friend of the son of the mayor, Ingrid and Brian Chase, who were embroiled in a land saga with the Town Clerk, and friends of the Town Clerk and the Mayor.”
Further, he found that the documents shown to the CoI by the acting City Treasurer indicated that the Town Clerk was reckless in granting leases to several persons for below fair market prices while attention was also drawn to the fact that the council’s revenue and tax collecting officers were completely unaware of the agreements for the leasing of the council’s reserves.
Additionally Kennard said it appeared that the Town Clerk operates in isolation of the council and beyond the scope of his Terms of Reference.
“He seemed to be doing the work of the Treasurer, Engineer and Human Resources Manager… It also appears that the Town Clerk’s office does most of the work which is to be carried out by the Treasurer’s Department. The tax collecting officer said that she is not empowered to speak to defaulting taxpayers, the Town Clerk does this function,” Kennard noted.
King, who was sent on administrative leave to facilitate the CoI, had testified before the CoI and argued that he performed his function in keeping with the Municipal and District Council’s Act but Kennard countered that he was deliberately misinterpreting the Act “as a cover to act outside of the scrutiny required.”
Before being appointed Town Clerk in June of 2015, King served as Public Relations Officer of the council for 20 years following a promotion from the post of environmental officer. The CoI noted that it had seen documents proving that King had been written to about the quality of his work by former Town Clerks Beulah Williams and Yonette Pluck.
