By Herman Wang
Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee)
Copyright 2006 Chattanooga Publishing Company
The Chattanooga Fire and Police Pension Board has asked the Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office to investigate suspected voter fraud in its September board election.
The district attorney’s staff previously had declined to pursue the matter, stating the allegations, if true, would not appear to result in criminal prosecution, but board members said Thursday that Phillip McClain, board president, has asked them to reconsider.
“We are continuing to look into whether the DA’s office or TBI will help us investigate this,” said police Sgt. David Streip, who presided over the board meeting in place of Officer McClain, who was out of town.
A message left with the District Attorney’s Office was not returned.
Meanwhile, the board is holding a replacement election Nov. 14, with the same three candidates on the ballot: fire Capts. David Brooks, Clifford Bryant and Tommy Hanes.
Capt. Hanes had defeated incumbent Capt. Brooks by 14 votes in the Sept. 5 election, but officials found signature irregularities on sign-in sheets that voters must fill out to receive ballots.
At least four signatures did not match the members’ signatures on file.
Board member fire Lt. Chip O’Dell, who was taking a break from supervising ballot boxes when the suspected fraud occurred, has resigned.
Board attorney Bill Robinson said the Hamilton County Election Commission has agreed to monitor the new election. If commission staff are unavailable, the pension board will use an outside accounting firm, he said.
Minutes of the pension board’s Oct. 19 meeting state that police and fire internal affairs units declined to investigate the alleged voter fraud, as both fire Chief Wendell Rowe and police Chief Steve Parks said “it was not the kind of problem they investigate.”
The pension board contacted the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and was told the agency only investigates matters referred to it by a district attorney’s office, minutes show.
The pension board consists of three policemen and three firefighters and administers Chattanooga’s Police and Fire Pension, which had $231 million in assets as of Jan. 1, 2006. A police seat and a fire seat are up for election each year.
Board members serve three-year terms and are unpaid, except for the president and secretary, who receive modest stipends.