I could easily write several pages about County Commissioner Lee Hearn, but in the interest of brevity, I will make this short.
First, let me say, I find Mr. Hearn affable but I have serious concerns about his character and strongly feel he should not be allowed to hold public office.
While Mr. Hearn was a county employee, his supervisor admonished him (element #5 2004-2005 review) for using a Fayette County purchasing card to subdivide purchases into small amounts to avoid following the county’s established competitive bid rules and warned him “any future incidents will bring disciplinary action.” Such behavior would lead to an immediate dismissal if he worked in the private sector, and quite possibly, a criminal complaint.
Mr. Hearn wrote his own performance reviews from August 2000 to August 2004 and, not too surprisingly, gave himself good reviews. But on 3/16/06, 4/25/06 and 3/7/07 his supervisor gave him unsatisfactory performance ratings that should have led to his dismissal. On the 4/25/06 review, a letter referred to “six (6) previous oral warnings related to substantial performance failure to follow instructions.” Why wasn’t he fired? Oh yeah, silly me, he had a government job!
Some of his performance reviews were scored quite low and his evaluations contained words such as “needs improvement, substandard, marginal and deficient performance.” His file contains letters of reprimand and on 3/6/07 he received a three-day suspension. Evidently he saw the writing on the wall and resigned in 2007.
Mr. Hearn will undoubtedly try to put a spin on the above information but you can get a copy of his personnel records by filing a Freedom of Information Request with the Fayette County office.
While serving as a Fayette County Commissioner, the Oklahoma License Board found Lee Hearn guilty in 2010 for offering and performing engineering services in the State of Oklahoma without a license and was reprimanded and fined $750. He knew this was illegal but apparently felt the law was intended for others but not for him!
Mr. Hearn failed to disclose that John Addison Lester III was his second cousin when he nominated Lester for a seat on the Board of Elections. When the Commissioners appointed Lester, Hearn referred to him as a friend he knew through church. Before being accused of intentionally lying, he had more than two weeks to reveal his true relationship to Mr. Lester but kept silent. His intentional deceit speaks volumes about his character!
Lee Hearn voted consistently with his pals, Jack Smith, EricMaxwell, Herb Frady and Robert Horgan, for the West Fayetteville Bypass (which has been dubbed a road to nowhere and a developer-friendly good old boy’s project), and now that an election is coming up, has had an epiphany and suddenly changed his tune about funding the East Fayetteville Bypass. See Citizen 5/22/12 article entitled “Lee Hearn must have evolved on bypass:” https://www.thecitizen.com/articles/05-22-2012/lee-hearn-must-have-%E2%80…
He voted with his pals Jack Smith and Robert Horgan for a Defined Benefit Plan (a Cadillac Plan) during Smith’s reign (some call it a reign of terror) that could ultimately cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. Much to Herb Frady’s credit, he surprisingly voted against the plan and Eric Maxwell abstained. See Citizen article entitled “how did we let this spending happen?” https://www.thecitizen.com/articles/06-19-2012/how-did-we-let-spending-ha…
Mr. Hearn recently voted for an Early Retirement Incentive Plan that will most likely cost the county taxpayers dearly. The “upfront cost” alone is almost $3 million dollars and is payable in July 2012. See Citizen article entitled “how did we let this spending happen?” https://www.thecitizen.com/articles/06-19-2012/how-did-we-let-spending-ha…
Please don’t re-elect him – we deserve better!
Advanced early voting begins July 9, 2012 and the election will be held on July 31, 2012.
Jim Richter
Peachtree City,Ga
