At Monday’s Barton County Commission meeting almost an hour and a half was spent in executive session to discuss non-elected personnel issues. After the meeting came out of executive session, Commissioner Alicia Straub made a motion to hire the law firm Kennedy Berkley Yarnevich & Williamson from Salina.
Because of the nature of the executive session, information on exact details that were discussed were not revealed. Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir took issue with a local newspaper that printed the headline “Law firm hired for sheriff’s investigation.”
Bellendir said the headline and article implied that the investigation involved a sheriff’s department member. Bellendir said that is not the case.
The Sheriff was asked to look into an investigation of a county employee from another department, but after finding out the case was a civil matter and not criminal, Bellendir declined to investigate the case any further.
Bellendir sent out a press release Tuesday morning to clear up any confusion.
Statement sent from Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir…
On August 15, 2016 the Barton County Commission conducted a series of executive sessions to discuss personnel issues. At the request of the Commissioners, County Clerk Donna Zimmerman and I were asked to remain in the executive session to advise the board.
The previous week I had been asked to investigate a personnel issue involving a county employee who is not a member of the Sheriff’s or Clerk’s office. The clerk and I were there solely to assist the County Commission. Based on the information obtained during the course of my investigation it appears the issue was not criminal in nature and is in fact a civil issue. I recommended to the Board of County Commissioners they should retain legal counsel. The commissioners chose to hire a law firm from Salina, Kansas.
At least one local media outlet has erroneously reported the investigation concerned Sheriff’s office personnel. This is not correct. Due to the nature of investigation I declined to make a comment yesterday. A reporter made an assumption the investigation concerned the Sheriff’s Office, this is incorrect.