By DAVID A. FARRELL
PICAYUNE — Picayune City Manager Harvey Miller on Friday said that he will resign his seat on the school board for the Picayune Municipal Separate School District on Tuesday night when the school board meets at its offices on Goodyear Boulevard.
Miller was forced to make a choice between resigning either his position with the city or the school board after a chancery court judge on Tuesday ruled that a state law does not allow him to hold both positions at the same time, and after a measure that would have exempted him from the law was voted down on the Mississippi House floor on Wednesday.
He said he did not know whether he will deliver the letter personally or send it to the board since he has been ill recently.
Miller’s resignation will end his 14 years of service on the Picayune school board.
He first was elected to the board from a district outside the city limits in October 1992 and served to October 1997. Three of the five members of the board are appointed by the City Council and two are elected from districts outside the city limits.
Miller now resides in the city limits and was appointed to the school board by the City Council on Oct. 19, 2001, to fill a seat formerly occupied by E.C. “Sonny” Stuart, Jr., who resigned the seat, and has served on the board since then, having been reappointed by the City Council to the same seat on the school board.
When first appointed, Miller was not an employee of the city but when his reappointment came up, he had taken a position of purchasing agent with the city and was later named city manager.
His reappointment became the crux of a legal dispute between city and school board officials and their attorneys and the Attorney General’s office, which issued an Attorney General’s opinion, requested by Picayune officials, saying that the AG’s interpretation of the law was that Miller could not serve in both capacities at the same time.
The five -member Picayune school board manages a $30 million annual budget, the largest of any governmental body in the county.
Miller said that he was not aware until Wednesday that there was an effort in the State Legislature to acquire for him an exemption from the law. On Wednesday, a bill that would have specifically exempted him from the law, 37-7-203, died on the House floor after a 63-52 vote.
That vote came on a measure introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ezell Lee, that made its way through the House Education Committee and then onto the floor for debate, where it was killed.
The House vote came one day after Chancery Court Judge Johnny L. Williams siding with an Attorney General’s Aug. 14 opinion to Picayune officials, ruled that the state law did apply to Miller, that he could not serve both on the Picayune school board and as a city employee at the same time and that he must resign one of the positions immediately.
Said Miller, “What the judge said is as plain as two and two are four. To this day I have not talked to Mark Formby, Gerald Patch, Nathan Farmer. I did call Ezell Lee on Wednesday and asked him what was going on.”
Formby is a state legislator from Picayune, Patch is attorney for the school board, and Farmer is the attorney for the City of Picayune. Lee is a state senator from Picayune. Lee introduced the Senate measure that would have, if passed, exempted Miller from the statute.
Said Miller, “The judge said, effectively immediately, resign one or the other. I have said from the beginning that whatever the judge said I am going to do, and come Tuesday night I am going to resign from the school board. I would hope that if any legislation was introduced in the legislature for me, that it was done because of the job that I have done on the school board, not for any selfish reasons.”
“Tuesday night is the earliest I can do this,” he said.
He said that Formby or Lee should have faxed him a copy of the bill and let him know what was going on. “I should have a say-so in the matter,” he said.
He said he would also tell the City Council what he is doing in relation to his school board resignation so the council can begin taking steps to name a replacement for him.
Miller’s resignation will end a controversy that stretches back into the summer when the new council was sworn in on July 6. The next day, in their first meeting, private citizen Frank Egger, who was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for mayor in May, appeared before the city council, charging Miller was violating state law by serving on the school board while at the same time being an employee of the City of Picayune.
Miller responded that he had a State Ethics Commission ruling that said he was not violating any laws and charged that Egger was mad over a dispute between Egger and the school board involving a 16th section land lease.
The controversy stretched into September when the school board on Sept. 8 voted to ask a chancery clerk to rule on the law. The City Council voted to join the suit.
A 34-page complaint was filed on the issue on Dec. 1 by attorneys for the City Council and school board. A chancery court hearing was held on Jan. 25, and last Tuesday Judge Williams filed his opinion on the law, saying Miller had to resign one of the two positions he holds.
On Wednesday the State House voted down the bill that would have exempted Miller and on Friday Miller said he would resign.
