Greene County Named As Defendant In Law-Suit While Ex-County Administrator Dodges Bullet on New Fellony Charges!

Was Board of Supervisors negligent in oversight of County Boss?

Will Taxpayers have to pay to clean up the mess?

What are the lessons to be learned?


Back in August, the Iconoclast reported on an interesting story about citizen activism leading to the prosecution of the ex-Greene County Administrator on charges of making false entries of official records by a public official… fundamentally a violation of the public trust by the County’s chief administrative official.

For those of you who may not be familiar, Greene County is a pretty little County located roughly between Harrisonburg and Charlottesville.

In July, the ex-County Administrator, one Julius Lee Morris, with 32 years of service, was convicted of misdemeanor charges of altering official public documents while in office. The conviction resulted in no jail time and a nominal $1000 fine.

At that time the Iconoclast opined that while the convicted former County Administrator would not be facing any jail time he had irreparably tarnished his otherwise long public service career and undermined public confidence in the Greene County Government.

However, since that time, Mr. Morris has appealed his conviction on the misdemeanor counts.

Seemingly in response to the appeal, a Grand Jury has recently returned new felony indictments against ex-County Administrator Morris for the same misconduct for which he was previously convicted misdemeanor charges.

The new felony counts, if they were to have stuck, would have resulted in up to 20 years in prison and a $200,000 fine. As bad as the mindemeanor convictions were, convictions on the new felony charges would have been indeed very bad news for the long time Greene County Administrator.

So, perhaps seeing the wisdom of leaving well enough alone, Mr. Morris has recently dropped his appeal of the misdemeanor convictions. In turn, the prosecutors have dropped the new felony indictments.

The most recent twist in this story can be seen by clicking here.

But this is not the end of the bad news for Mr. Morris.

As the story goes, the ex-County Administrator is alleged to have compounded his initial problems by abusing his authority of office to attempt to frustrate the efforts by other County officials to investigate “multiple, potential zoning violations” concerning real properties for which he, the County Administrator, had financial interests in. This abuse is alleged to have led to the unjustified firing of then Planning Director Catherine Clossin … with the purpose of silencing her and stopping the investigation.

Didn’t work…

Isn’t it amazing how one bad deed leads to another, and another, and another?

But anyway… as a result Ms. Clossin, the former planning director who had her job with the County cut short, has filed a $1.35 million lawsuit against her former boss alleging wrongful dismissal from her position.

Interestingly, the lawsuit also names the Greene County government for its role in the misconduct, presumably the Board of Supervisor’s failure to properly supervise the County Administrator and hold him accountable, and failure to prevent the wrongful dismissal.

This story has just gotten a lot more interesting to the taxpayers of Greene County… and worrisome.

To what extent is the Board of Supervisors responsible for the misconduct of the County Administrator? How much is this going to cost the taxpayers… in legal fees and a potential settlement? What could have been done to avoid this troubling situation?

The answers to these questions are still a long ways out… probably many months or maybe even years. Ms. Clossin’s attorney has indicated that his client is not really all that interested extracting money from the County. But, isn't that what the attorney’s always say?

Much will depend on the depositions. What information did the Board of Supervisors have at its disposal? Did the Board of Supervisors act reasonably or was it negligent? Was there reasonable expectation that the Board of Supervisors should have known what was going on before the planning director was fired? Did they know and choose to turn a blind eye? Or, the worst possible scenario, were Board members acting in complicity with the County Administrator perhaps to avoid bad press coverage, or out of a misguided sense of loyalty to the long time County boss, or to cover up a bigger problem?

These are all possible questions for the lawyers to ask in deposition.

Most fundamentally, this is the classic question of … “what did they know, and when did they know it?”

If the Board is ultimately revealed to have had knowledge of the County Administrator’s wrong doing and failed to act appropriately on that information, for any reason, it is quite possible that the County government will face significant civil damages.

Unfortunately for the Greene County Board of Supervisors, some of the most damning facts of the case have already been decided once in Court indicating that the County Administrator was criminally culpable. It is also known that the County Administrator was responsible former planning director was fired. The County Administrator works directly for the Board of Supervisors. There is not much left to the imagination.

So, the Iconoclast will go out on a limb and predict that this lawsuit never goes to trial, the principal reason being that the County’s attorneys are very likely to advise the Board of Supervisors to negotiate and settle the claims rather than risking a trial in front of a vengeful jury.

This story is interesting because it involves local government officials who are sworn to serve the public interests. The questions are what make this story both interesting and instructional. By observing the mistakes of others, we can learn to avoid similar problems and hopefully achieve higher standards in public accountability.

The Iconoclast hopes that the golden horseshoe brings Greene County some good luck. Looks like they might be needing it.

Stay tuned.