Whereabouts of Towns County Sheriff Chris Clinton still in question
News May 22, 2019
HIAWASSEE, Ga – “Where is Sheriff Clinton?” has been a resounding question in the community for many months, if not years, and it is an inquiry no one seems capable, or willing, to answer. FetchYourNews (FYN) began looking into the schedule of Towns County Sheriff Chris Clinton in late February after rumors began to swirl on the lead lawman’s whereabouts, leading to an editorial article which unfortunately offered little insight. Three months later, the query into how the elected official spends his time mostly remains a mystery.
Sheriff Chris Clinton’s on-duty call log hours from March, 2018 to March, 2019
“In reference to your open records request, the Office of Sheriff does not maintain a calendar for the sheriff. The sheriff’s wife maintains a family calendar that the sheriff appears on. The sheriff is the only person who can provide the information requested. It is estimated that the request will require 91.25 hours of the sheriff’s time at the sheriff’s hourly rate of $7.38/hour to perform the task requested. The estimate is based on retrieval and printing for redaction, redacting, and scanning into an electronic form.
“There are an estimated 365 pages of material to be printed at $0.10 / page,” Clinton continued. “Estimated cost to fulfill the request: Sheriff’s time to access, retrieve, print, redact, and scan to electronic form per your request — approximately 91.25 hours @ $7.38/hour = $ 673.43 (You will not be charged for the first 15 minutes.) 365 pages @ $0.10 / page = $36.50. Total estimated cost = $709.93.”
11Alive Chief Investigator Brendan Keefe’s social media page
In lieu of paying what FYN considered an excessive fee for public information, FYN sent an additional request to the Towns County Sheriff to visually review the original copy of the elected official’s appointments, a request which went ignored. On FYN’s third attempt, which was carbon copied to 11Alive News in Atlanta, Towns County Sheriff’s Administrator Vicki Ellis referred FYN to Towns County Sheriff’s Executive Secretary Shirley Clinton, the sheriff’s mother, who scheduled an appointment to review the calendar housed in the sheriff’s courthouse office.
An inspection of the calendar on May 22 proved futile as page after page revealed no entries. Occassional meetings appeared, along with multiple, weekly radio station appearances, and mandatory training engagements. Citizen Law Enforcement Academy (CLEA) appointments were listed throughout, a group which consists primarily of retired residents that the sheriff has referred to in the past as personal “lobbyists.”
An entry on the sheriff’s sparse calendar
1 Comment
Bravo FYN for some real investigative reporting! Would be helpful to hear when he was most recently elected or some insight into how someone who seems to not be doing his job continues to hold the job.