Grayville is down to a Chief of Police and two officers for law enforcement. That’s after Grayville leaders gathered for a specially called meeting Wednesday morning resulting in the termination of Officer Carlton Valiant. The meeting was convened at 9am Wednesday with only the executive session on the agenda. After recessing behind closed doors for more than an hour and a half, council emerged. City Attorney Jay Walden explains.
So basically what we have is a situation where we have a recommendation from the Chief of Police and City Administrator to terminate Officer Valiant based upon violations set forth in his personnel file. In executive session, the city council has heard from Chief Hatcher and also Officer Valiant and his union rep were kind enough to be present and respond to questions that were asked about items discussed by Chief Hatcher. With respect to the collective bargaining agreement, I believe what we’re looking at is Article 3, with respect to management rights and the management rights of the city include the right to discipline, suspend, and discharge employees for just cause and the right to lay off as well. So what we have for consideration by the council is a recommendation by the Chief of Police to terminate Officer Valiant and to make it obviously clear that he is not in agreement with that recommendation.
Upon re-entering open session, the council unanimously voted to terminate the law enforcement officer. No specific details on the policy violations were revealed in the meeting. WROY/WRUL News has submitted a request for more information with city officials.
