{"id":2973,"date":"2013-07-26T14:23:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T14:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=2973"},"modified":"2013-07-26T14:23:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T14:23:23","slug":"dear-judge-ware-please-explain-this-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2973","title":{"rendered":"Dear Judge Ware: Please explain this firing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Texas is an \u201cat will\u201d state, meaning that employers can fire employees for any reason, or for no reason. They concoct reasons for terminating employees.<\/p>\n

That appears to be the case involving a long-standing Potter County administrative assistant and her boss, the county judge.<\/p>\n

The judge is Arthur Ware. The administrative assistant is Nancy Tanner. Ware suffered a serious stroke in 2010. He\u2019s been unable to communicate effectively ever since. Technically, he\u2019s been on the job but much of the work that entails actually talking to constituents \u2013 such as probate hearings \u2013 has been farmed out to other county officials.<\/p>\n

Nancy Tanner has indicated a desire to succeed Ware as county judge in 2014. She has announced her intention to consider running for the office. Tanner sent a letter to friends and supporters throughout the community recently expressing that desire. In the letter, she said that because of his physical condition, Ware \u201cprobably\u201d won\u2019t seek re-election next year. Tanner\u2019s letter, though, mostly extolled her own qualifications, of which there are plenty. She knows the probate process inside and out; she\u2019s been handling court administration for more than two decades. What\u2019s more, she\u2019s been a loyal aide to Judge Ware and professes to this day that she maintains great respect and affection for him.<\/p>\n

The letter went out. And then, quite suddenly about two weeks ago, Ware informed Tanner that he is firing her. Hit the road, he said in effect.<\/p>\n

OK, so what\u2019s going on here? Tanner believes politics played a part in her dismissal. Ware isn\u2019t saying anything about it. Some of his Commissioners Court colleagues are asking for a clarification \u2013 which they are correct to do.<\/p>\n

State law doesn\u2019t require Arthur Ware to give a single reason for making a personnel-related decision. So it appears he\u2019s going to rest on that law, go about his business and perhaps hope the tempest subsides.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it should until Ware explains why he dismissed his trusted administrative assistant who has declared her desire to succeed him. <\/p>\n

The county has been roiled by controversy before. This won\u2019t be the last time. But the man at the center of this story needs to tell his constituents of his plans. Will he seek re-election or not? Was Tanner\u2019s summary firing related to the letter she sent out? Did it have anything to do with the presumption she made about whether he would run again? A full and detailed accounting of what happened is in order.<\/p>\n

Nancy Tanner deserved better than what she got. What is done is done. Just because the law protects an elected official from having to explain himself doesn\u2019t make it right for him to stonewall the public.<\/p>\n

Talk to your bosses, Judge Ware \u2013 the people you serve as county judge.<\/p>\n\n

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Texas is an \u201cat will\u201d state, meaning that employers can fire employees for any reason, or for no reason. They concoct reasons for terminating employees. That appears to be the case involving a long-standing Potter County administrative assistant and her boss, the county judge. The judge is Arthur Ware. The administrative assistant is Nancy Tanner. … Continue reading Dear Judge Ware: Please explain this firing<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[475,3677,3686,4615],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arthur-ware","tag-potter-county","tag-potter-county-politics","tag-texas-employment-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}