Interim County Administrator George Touart has brought back Don Mayo to run the county’s inspection department. Don Mayo was part of the former administrator Bob McLaughlin’s early retirement program that paid high level county employees to retire early–costing taxpayers $2.6 million.
Mayo, director of building inspections, took the early retirement and was paid $220,604.87.
Touart hired Mayo through a temporary services agency, but next Monday Mayo will be “a term employee at $85,000 annualized salary as building official until we can complete a new recruitment.”
The GOB (Good Ol’ Boys) fix is in. We have reports that Commissioner Gene Valentino had several “problems” with the previous director of building inspections–which is supposedly why Touart ran him off.
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BTW: Commissioner Gene Valentino’s appointment to the county administrator is Touart’s former head of probation–Joe Ward.
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Update: Touart called.
Joe Ward didn’t work for him, but for Wayne Peacock.
Touart said that Mayo was his last resort. The city wouldn’t let him use their building inspector. His top applicant wanted over $100,000, which Touart said he couldn’t afford that. The other applicants weren’t qualified. The county has to have a certified building inspector and Mayo, age 75, agreed to come out of retirement to help the county, but only on an interim basis.