SHOULD JUDGE MURNER RESIGN

Is it time for County Judge Executive Duane Murner to resign? Certainly, he should strongly consider it. How dare I speak those words! He won’t consider resigning because in his mind, he has done nothing wrong and nobody, not even the Attorney General or a court of law, can convince him that he has. After all, he is quoted in the Courier-Journal as having stated that nothing has ever been closed to the public in his administration. How can he say this after having been convicted of having an illegal closed session of the Fiscal Court?

Everyone now knows that Judge Murner has recently been found guilty of holding an illegal closed session of the Fiscal Court. But, how many people know that he was found to have led an illegal closed session of the Fiscal Court before? On December 1, 2004 the Kentucky Attorney General (04-OMD-225) held that the Oldham County Fiscal Court held an illegal meeting on November 2, 2004 and that Murner led the meeting. Judge Murner, who claims to have a Harvard degree, cannot plead ignorance. He is aware of the Open Meetings laws and chooses to ignore them when it is convenient for him and when it is in his best interest to keep the public from knowing what he is surreptiously doing.

Murner also tried to keep the name of George Rawlings as the anonymous donor a secret. He did this in the face of a Kentucky Supreme Court decision that clearly said that his actions were contrary to state law. He claims that he did not know that the Supreme Court decision was final. The fact is that the decision was final. However, even if the decision had not been final at the time that he refused to identify the donor, who did he think had the power to overturn the Kentucky Supreme Court? That defense put forth by him was just another attempt to circumvent the law and to refuse to do what was morally and ethically correct. It also revealed the arrogance that he has.

Now, the ill conceived decisions of Judge Murner have begun to cost the county money. Of course after all of Judge Murner’s tax increases there should be plenty of money to pay unnecessary attorney fees. Moreover, the amount of money the county is going to have to pay in attorney fees, court costs, and fines for the case involving the secret donor and the illegal meeting is pocket change compared to the money that the county will have to pay if it is found to have discriminated against the Shelbyville police officer whom it failed to hire because he has a military obligation. That will likely be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. After reading the complaint, I believe that there is an extreme possibility that the county will lose that battle too.

All of the above does not speak well for Judge Murner’s leadership. As a matter of fact, it reflects to me that he has few, if any, leadership skills. I believe that Judge Murner should reimburse the county for the fees that it must pay as a result of his decisions that were not supported by law. Then, Judge Murner should resign for the sake of the people who live in Oldham County.

Also, let us not forget that seven other magistrates sat through the illegal meeting without saying a word. To the best of my knowledge not one of them stepped forward to assist Magistrate Scott Davis when he made his allegations. The next question that immediately comes to mind is, why didn’t any of them come forward? Were they ignorant, afraid of Judge Murner, in collusion with the Judge, or just didn’t care? The meeting discussed the sewer district and increases in sewer fees. Considering that Magistrate Rick Rash has a large constituency who are on sewers, one would think that he would have wanted to give them all of the facts and allowed them to voice their opinion. However, he chose to remain silent. Hopefully his opponent(s) and constituents will remember this when he seeks re-election.