JANUARY 1 - 7, 2004 -- OUT OF COMMISSION
Out of Commission
Election Commission to be subject of additional employee lawsuit
The lawsuits keep on flooding out of the Metro Election Commission, mired in a two-month-long partisan feud that shows no sign of abating.
Republican poll worker Sharon Wood is suing the body's five commissioners and colleague Kathy Deshotels, among others, after Deshotels secretly copied Wood's computer files and turned them over to their boss, Election Administrator Michael McDonald.
"Our fear is that not only has Miss Deshotels been harassing Miss Wood, but she will step up her efforts," says Wood's attorney, Jim Roberts.
Last month, Deshotels turned the commission into a political battleground when she logged on to Wood's computer after she says she was told to do so by Democratic commissioner Eddie Bryan. Bryan believed that Wood was engaging in partisan activity on the job. Deshotels did uncover various Republican-related documents on Wood's computer, including information about a local Republican membership drive.
Still, Wood's supervisors quickly cleared her because her responsibilities for recruiting Republicans to man the polls provided a ready explanation as to what she saved on her computer. (State law requires that members of both parties man the polls during elections.) "My job is to identify, recruit, hire and train Republicans," Wood told the Scene. "The only way I know how to do that is to participate in Republican functions."
Deshotels was later fired, then reinstated after she filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. But the drama only escalated last week when three Democratic commissioners met privately with Metro attorneys to discuss a settlement on the Deshotels litigation. The two Republican commissioners refused to participate, decrying the secret nature of the meeting. "I didn't want to meet with them because they didn't want to meet in public," says Republican Commissioner Lynn Greer. "If it was that important, then we should have met in the open."
Which brings us to the latest chapter in this ongoing saga: Wood's imminent lawsuit, which is expected to be filed early this week. In a draft of her complaint, Wood says that the oft-repeated claim that Bryan asked Deshotels to target her computer is, in fact, reversed. It was Deshotels who took the initiative to snoop on Wood.
When the scandal broke in early November, Bryan claimed that a Republican buddy of his joked about receiving a partisan letter prepared by Wood at the election commission office. An official with the Tennessee AFL-CIO and long-time Democratic operative, Bryan says he was very concerned about the existence of this letter. That's why when he couldn't get in touch with McDonald, the commission's top official, he immediately had Deshotels check out Wood's files. But according to Wood's complaint, Wood had worked on the letter on her own time and had not sent it out to anyone. So the only way Bryan could have known about its existence was if Deshotels had already been secretly downloading information off her computer and then leaking it to Bryan in a vast left-wing conspiracy.
Bryan denies that version of events and maintains his original story. "I found out about the letter and then I asked Miss Deshotels to ask about it."
The Wood camp is not impressed. "We don't believe Eddie Bryan," says Roberts, the attorney.
Roberts says he plans to ask for a temporary restraining order preventing Metro from settling the Deshotels lawsuit that would permanently reinstate her. In addition to the five members of the election commission, other people to be named in the lawsuit include McDonald, state coordinator for elections Brook Thompson and Bryan and Deshotels individually.
"Our fear is that not only has Miss Deshotels been harassing Miss Wood, but she will step up her efforts," says Wood's attorney, Jim Roberts.
Last month, Deshotels turned the commission into a political battleground when she logged on to Wood's computer after she says she was told to do so by Democratic commissioner Eddie Bryan. Bryan believed that Wood was engaging in partisan activity on the job. Deshotels did uncover various Republican-related documents on Wood's computer, including information about a local Republican membership drive.
Still, Wood's supervisors quickly cleared her because her responsibilities for recruiting Republicans to man the polls provided a ready explanation as to what she saved on her computer. (State law requires that members of both parties man the polls during elections.) "My job is to identify, recruit, hire and train Republicans," Wood told the Scene. "The only way I know how to do that is to participate in Republican functions."
Deshotels was later fired, then reinstated after she filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. But the drama only escalated last week when three Democratic commissioners met privately with Metro attorneys to discuss a settlement on the Deshotels litigation. The two Republican commissioners refused to participate, decrying the secret nature of the meeting. "I didn't want to meet with them because they didn't want to meet in public," says Republican Commissioner Lynn Greer. "If it was that important, then we should have met in the open."
Which brings us to the latest chapter in this ongoing saga: Wood's imminent lawsuit, which is expected to be filed early this week. In a draft of her complaint, Wood says that the oft-repeated claim that Bryan asked Deshotels to target her computer is, in fact, reversed. It was Deshotels who took the initiative to snoop on Wood.
When the scandal broke in early November, Bryan claimed that a Republican buddy of his joked about receiving a partisan letter prepared by Wood at the election commission office. An official with the Tennessee AFL-CIO and long-time Democratic operative, Bryan says he was very concerned about the existence of this letter. That's why when he couldn't get in touch with McDonald, the commission's top official, he immediately had Deshotels check out Wood's files. But according to Wood's complaint, Wood had worked on the letter on her own time and had not sent it out to anyone. So the only way Bryan could have known about its existence was if Deshotels had already been secretly downloading information off her computer and then leaking it to Bryan in a vast left-wing conspiracy.
Bryan denies that version of events and maintains his original story. "I found out about the letter and then I asked Miss Deshotels to ask about it."
The Wood camp is not impressed. "We don't believe Eddie Bryan," says Roberts, the attorney.
Roberts says he plans to ask for a temporary restraining order preventing Metro from settling the Deshotels lawsuit that would permanently reinstate her. In addition to the five members of the election commission, other people to be named in the lawsuit include McDonald, state coordinator for elections Brook Thompson and Bryan and Deshotels individually.