CREOLA CONTROVERSY: MAYOR, POLICE CHIEF SPAR OVER DRUG-TESTING

Phillips Angry Tests Were Ordered Without His Knowledge

CREOLA -- Mayor Cleo Phillips and Police Chief Mike Williams had hot
words for each other Monday after the chief ordered drug tests for
all employees while deliberately keeping the mayor in the dark.

"I hate it all happened, but Mike has overstepped his authority big
time," Phillips said.

"Everything I do, he interferes," Williams countered.

Several months ago, the City Council passed an ordinance establishing
drug tests. It gave the police chief authority to order tests for all
city employees. Employees were tested for the first time Monday.

Williams said he alerted four council members but intentionally did
not tell Phillips or Phillips' ally on the council, Kenny Walker.

"It's gotten to the point where I don't trust him," the police chief
said. "I don't really trust him to keep everything quiet."

Phillips scoffed at that, saying that he heard about it from someone
at a local gas station and that a police officer said he'd been told
to drink a lot of water prior to going to work.

"He's the one didn't keep it quiet," he said about the police chief.

Phillips said he didn't have a problem with Williams overseeing the
drug-testing policy.

"I'm not the one who wants to be the wheel, the big wheel, wanting
all the power," he said

But he said that, as executive officer of the city, he should have
been told. The ones kept in the dark, he said, should have been the
council members.

"He don't do nothin' I tell him," Phillips said about Williams. "Not no thin'."

He also criticized Williams' handling of the tests Monday. He said
Williams shouldn't have allowed a Creola policeman to supervise urine
collections of fellow male employees, and said Williams' handling of
a female employee who didn't want to provide a urine sample while
being watched by a nurse left the employee "shaking and screaming and
hollering."

That employee was the only one who failed to provide a sample.
Eighteen others, including Williams, did.

Williams and Phillips have repeatedly butted heads over the past year.

The police chief accused Phillips of not supporting the drug-testing program.

He said he hadn't completely thought through how the tests would be
conducted until the Mobile testing company, Industrial Drug Testing
Inc., appeared on site. After a couple of employees were tested, the
company nurse asked him if he wanted the tests supervised to ensure
their integrity.

He said yes, and so the female nurse stood in the restroom with the
female employees, and officer Troy Willcutt oversaw the male
employees, Williams said.

Problems developed when they summoned the female em ployee, who is
just back from several months of medical leave, the police chief
said. The woman initially declined, and the mayor supported her,
saying she was too busy just then, Williams said. Later, she told
Williams she felt the police restrooms were not sanitary, Williams
said. So the nurse and police chief went to City Hall. Finally, she
said she was just too uncomfortable to provide a sample with someone
watching, the police chief said.

The chief said he told her that failure to submit to a test could be
grounds for termination. The mayor's version varied slightly.
Phillips said the police chief told the woman that that he could fire
her if she didn't submit to a test. The police chief has no authority
to fire city employees.

Williams came "like a big tiger into departments he hasn't anything
to do with," the mayor said.

Employees who are uncomfortable urinating in front of others should
be allowed to provide samples another way, such as giving blood, the
mayor said. The female employee, he said, was not given other options.

The police chief said that ultimately, the City Council will have to
decide how to handle employees who fail to submit to a test. City
policy states that employees who refuse to take the test will be
fired.

Test results will be available later this week, officials said.