MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Have an opinion about how Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) Director Lance LeFleur is doing his job? The State would like to hear it. Amid multiple controversies including the Tyson/River Valley Ingredients Mulberry Fork spill, about which LeFleur recently and very publicly refused to speak, Thomas Walters, chairman of the personnel committee of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission (AEMC), is soliciting the public’s input on LeFleur’s performance. The seven-member AEMC oversees ADEM and hires its director through an interview process, and the public is routinely invited to take part in the director’s annual evaluation.
In a news release, Walters wrote:
“On June 21, 2019, the AEMC Chair directed the Personnel Committee to obtain feedback from the full Commission and the general public on ADEM Director LeFleur’s job performance and further directed the Personnel Committee to return to the full Commission with consolidated feedback and any recommendations by the Committee relative to Director LeFleur’s job performance. The Personnel Committee, on behalf of the AEMC, wishes to solicit input from the general public that will aid the Committee in this job performance evaluation.”
Last year, Black Warrior Riverkeeper and 11 other environmental groups used the public invitation to submit a lengthy list of complaints and a request that LeFleur resign or be fired.
In his response, the ADEM director wrote:
“The BWRK letter is riddled with numerous, demonstrably false, mean-spirited statements, and with unsupported, strident, negative innuendo, which impugn my good name and character and reflect negatively on the Department.”
Reviews are to cover only the period since Oct. 20, 2018, the day after the last evaluation was completed, through 5 p.m. on July 31, 2019, the deadline for submission.
Public comments can be mailed to Alabama Environmental Management Commission, attn. Personnel Committee, PO Box 301463, Montgomery, AL; or emailed to aemc@adem.alabama.gov.
The AEMC notice can be seen at http://adem.alabama.gov/newsEvents/files/AEMCPersonnelCommitteeNOTICEOfADEMDirectorJobPerformanceEvaluation.pdf.
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