BAY MINETTE, Ala. — Baldwin County commissioners voted this week to recommend a $150,000 settlement closing out a years-old lawsuit against the county, even as they insisted the payout has nothing to do with their decision days earlier to remove the county’s top appointed administrator.
The lawsuit, filed in 2012 by former building department supervisor Jeramie Sanks, alleged that then-County Administrator David Brewer initiated an unlawful termination against him in December 2011 without sufficient grounds under the county’s employee handbook. Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend the settlement following a closed-door executive session, just about a week after voting not to renew Brewer’s contract as administrator.
Commission Chairman Charles Gruber and Commissioner Frank Burt Jr. both said the timing was coincidental, arguing the settlement and Brewer’s ouster were separate matters entirely. Burt, who had been the lone commissioner pushing to extend Brewer’s contract, said the lawsuit predates the recent personnel decision by years and shouldn’t be conflated with it. County Attorney David Conner agreed, calling them “totally separate issues” tied to events that occurred several years earlier.
Newly elected Commissioner Chris Elliott offered a different view, saying Brewer’s broader handling of county personnel matters, including cases like the Sanks lawsuit, factored into his own assessment of whether Brewer should have stayed on. “I think past performance, when taken holistically, is always an issue,” Elliott said. “This particular action is that past performance.”
According to court records, Sanks, a county employee since 1997, was terminated via a handwritten letter from Brewer in December 2011. Sanks claimed the county’s stated grounds were factually incorrect, and a subsequent grievance panel recommended he be reinstated with back pay. The dispute centered partly on a DUI arrest Sanks had reported to the county, after which Brewer restricted his ability to drive county vehicles pending resolution of his court case — a restriction Sanks argued became the pretext for his firing.
Records also show a dispute over how the commission handled Sanks’ case procedurally, with Sanks alleging the board improperly held two separate executive sessions on his termination during a single meeting after an initial vote to fire him failed for lack of a second. The commission has denied any procedural violation, maintaining it had the authority to revisit the matter in a second session that same day.
With the settlement now recommended and Brewer’s tenure as administrator concluded, Baldwin County officials say both matters are effectively closed, even as commissioners continue to publicly disagree over how closely related the two issues actually were.