BLANKENSHIP WOULD HAVE BEEN THE CHOICE IF….

December 12, 2018 Dick Mangrum
Oconee County Council will go into the start of 2019 without a vote on hiring a new administrator. But if three council members had their way, they apparently would have voted before the end of 2018 to hire Berkeley County’s Les Blankenship. Council Chairwoman Edda Cammick today said, “I have the three votes necessary to hire Mr. Blankenship, the people’s choice, but I can’t run the risk of having the new trio fire him come January. That will not be fair to him.” County Council had been scheduled to meet next Tuesday for the final time in 2018, but Cammick says she was forced to cancel the meeting due to the lack of a quorum. It’s now likely the council won’t meet until its 2019 organization meeting in January, when John Elliott will move into Cammick’s District One seat. Berkeley’s Blankenship, Jon Caime of Laurens, and Michael Renshaw of Barrow County, Georgia were named in October as the Oconee County administrator finalists. But, at some point, Cammick expects the new council to hire a headhunter and start the process all over which she says would be a waste of taxpayer’s money.