Shelby County Mayor speaks on Clerk Wanda Halbert for the first time since Hamilton County investigation
Zaria Oates
Mayor Lee Harris says it may be “foolish optimism” to think Clerk Halbert will turn things around for the better.
SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — Reporter: Big issue: County Clerk Wanda Halbert. DA Coty Wamp was recently in town giving an update on the investigation. What is the update from you on your communication with Clerk Halbert?
Mayor Lee Harris: So Clerk Halbert, you know, she keeps her own counsel. In other words not a lot of folks are communicating with her right now. We all know the problems, we know this has gone on for a very very long time. My office is prepared to help and support her whatever help and support she needs but again she keeps her own counsel and I think she you know doesn’t you know she hadn’t outreached to me and she had now reached those who work closest to me. So, we’ll have to see where the investigation ends up.
There are, as you say, there is the Katie – Coty Wamp? I think Coty Wamp from East Tennessee. I think there’s an investigation going on there and we know the Comptroller just wrapped up an investigation and obviously locally we have set up a lot of ad hoc teams to take a look around what’s going in the clerk’s office and try to head off problems as soon as possible.
I’m hoping that among those efforts, the local effort, the Tennessee Comptroller effort – which is a state level effort – and the additional effort by the investigator – or DA from East Tennessee I’m hoping from from those efforts we’ll start to see some of this cleaned up. I think no one wants to see Wanda Halbert as an individual have to bear all of this. We don’t want to see her bear all this alone I think all of us just collectively want to see the problem solved. And I think we can get there. But right now you know unfortunately she does keep her own counsel, so I haven’t had a lot of communication with her but I’m hopeful that’ll change, that she’ll turn to some of us and we’ll be able to work this out collaboratively and get some of these problems solved once and for all.
Reporter: When’s the last time you’ve spoken with Clerk Halbert?
Mayor Lee Harris: It’s been a it’s been a very, very long time. I think I we do outreach to her every once in a while. Certainly we do outreach to her staff she’s had over the over the course of the years that I’ve worked with her. She’s had really really good staff in that office. They have had some turnover so a lot of the folks that were really good and there unfortunately are not there anymore, for a variety of reasons. You know so she’s had to replace some of those folks so that’s kind of been an issue because we tend to work a lot with the staff but the turnover has been an issue. It makes it very difficult to keep that continuity of conversation going on. So you know, not often. I think I may have talked to her and maybe in the last month or so very very briefly – in the last month or so.
Reporter: Do you see her being removed from office even though she’s an elected official?
Mayor Lee Harris: I think if we can’t collaborate I think it’s gonna be tough and I do I think that’s one of the realistic possibilities. I think all of us would like to see her work with other officials, right? The trustee obviously – we’d love to see her work with a whole lot of elected officials that are in office right now. And I think she can do it and if she can do that, work with other elected officials then hopefully we’ll be able to you know troubleshoot her problems and and move past this. But if she can’t, if what we’ve seen in the past is some indication of what’s going to happen in the future then you know I do think that’s probably one of the options so we’ll see.
Reporter: What happens if she is removed from office? Is there an interim? Is there an election since we do have one coming up?
Mayor Lee Harris: You know I haven’t looked at that. I’ve been briefed on it but very, very quickly. So I haven’t dug into those details yet. I want to cross that bridge when we get to it. Again, we’re hopeful that this turns a corner. I know that may be foolish optimism but I’m hoping this turns a corner and that you know we’re able to collaborate that she’ll, you know work with some of our some of the elected officials, the Comptroller, the Trustee, our office. If she can work with us, the Comptroller has laid out a road map if she works with us the Trustee’s laid out a road map. We’re constantly working on these issues if she can work with us we can get this thing done and turn this thing around. Alright.
Reporter: Thank you.
Mayor Lee Harris: Sure thing
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