Warner Robins city councilman Daron Lee sent several emails addressed to Mayor Randy Toms and the rest of the city council, calling for the closure of the city's human resources department "until further notice of the results from the pending investigation."
Lee provided the series of emails to 13WMAZ.
He confirmed that the investigation he was referencing was the Houston County Sheriff's Office investigation of a city employee for possible criminal conduct that we reported on in June.
One of Lee's emails, dated June 26, went on to express his concerns about city government, and suggested barring some city employees from city property.
He wrote "I do believe, no hiring, no promotions and no Human Resources employees should be on City Government property until we get a good handle on what is going on. Or we need to send the Director and Assistant Director home on administrative leave."
An email from councilman Tim Thomas' account was sent in reply to Lee's email, saying "I had a concern about employees [sic] personal information and still do."
The next day, an email from councilman Clifford Holmes' account responded to the email thread saying "I spoke to the Mayor about closing HR also, I have been patiently waiting to see how this would be handled."
Mayor Toms then responded to the thread, writing in an email that he "strongly disagree[d]" with Lee's suggestion to close the HR department.
Toms wrote that the department is "responsible for many of the essential operations crucial to employees" and said he "will not be closing the Human Resources Department at this time."
When reached by phone, Toms would not comment on the emails citing the active investigation.
Several days later, on June 29th, Lee sent another message to Mayor Toms, city council, and city attorney Jim Elliott.
In it, he wrote "I am highly concerned again about the integrity of the HR Departments [sic] leadership and the security of the entire City of Warner Robins employee files."
He went on to write "I am asking for the current Human Resources employees to be housed in a different area and their access to City of WR files be ceased until the results of the pending investigation is finalized or they should be placed on administrative leave."
Lee concluded, writing "This is not fair and I am not comfortable with the procedures taking place in the Human Resources Department."
Though the emails are several weeks old, Lee says he still stands by his comments.
Several weeks later, on July 6th, Warner Robins human resources director Toni Graham sent an email to Toms, council, Elliott, and city clerk Kathy Opitz.
Copied below, in full, is the body of the email:
"I want it on record that I gave the keys to the personnel files to Mayor Randy Toms yesterday morning. Since that time the keys have been passed to Jim Elliott and then back to the Mayor's office. Mandy Stella now has them. It is my opinion, the integrity of all the personnel files have been grievously compromised. There is a lot of private and sensitive information in the files. I am sure most of the employees would not be comfortable knowing that the keys to their personal and private information have been passed around that many times in less than 12 hours."
A response to that email was sent from councilman Holmes' account, stating "I have a MAJOR CONCERN as to WHY are [sic] the keys in the hands of the Mayors [sic] Secretary? Somebody please tell me."
City attorney Jim Elliott wrote back, stating "Toni's concerns are, in my mind, ridiculous: HR for years left these cabinets unlocked, with employees and others walking through their office all day, every day."
He added that the keys had been placed back in his locked office.
When later reached by phone, Mayor Toms said the keys "were never used from the time they left Toni's possession to the time they got back to Jim."
In a phone conversation, Elliott declined to comment on the emails.
Councilmen Thomas and Holmes and HR director Graham did not immediately return our requests for comment.
