Mayor Ron Littlefield is naming his top administrative aide, Anita Ebersole, as city court clerk.
City Judge Sherry Paty said she and Judge Russell Bean will go before the City Council on Jan. 22 to oppose it when the confirmation of Ms. Ebersole comes before the council.
Judge Paty said, "This is wrong. There is nothing right about this. The mayor is naming his administrator to this job just so she can stay at her same high salary until she reaches retirement."
Ms. Ebersole became administrative aide to Mayor Littlefield soon after he took office in 2005.
She makes $98,538."
Judge Paty said, "When she was made his assistant by the mayor, her city salary went way up. If she went back to a lower-paying city job, she would qualify for much less retirement."
She said, "I don't know Ms. Ebersole and have nothing against her, but she has no experience in city court. The office has been run for the last four and a half years by Jan Turner, who has been there many years. The mayor never made a new appointment after Ed Hammonds quit in 2008.
"Now he wants to make the appointment with two months left in his term. This is not fair to the employees in the office and this is not fair to the city judges who depend on an efficient operation of the office.
"And she may leave after a year or so when she builds her retirement. Then we will have to start all over with a new clerk."
Judge Paty said Mayor Littlefield told her and Judge Bean last Tuesday, "I'm going to name a clerk."
She said, "He never told us who he was going to name. Both of us urged him not to do so, but let the new mayor do that."