Mohave County’s interim communications director’s appointment warrants investigation

Dear Editor,

The good old boys of Mohave County are at it again. Why has the county hired an interim communications director without following the process? Why has Mike Hendrix allowed and supported a secretary for Buster Johnson to assume the interim communications director position? Who is driving this? Buster? Hilda? Is the appointment merely so those in county leadership positions have a puppet in their midst in an election year? Why is County Manager Mike Hendrix allowing this to happen? Is he also bought and paid for?

Since the search for Mohave County’s communications director was completed just two and a half months ago, why not contact the second or third or fourth runners up considered for the position when the first choice was hired in October as opposed to appointing an “interim director”? After all, there were more than 40-plus applicants at that time.

What’s the rush to hire someone into the position when Mohave County had gone without a communications director for seven years? Is it a priority because it’s an election year?

Here’s how this has played out:

June 2019 – Mohave County Board of Supervisors approve the job description of and search for a communications director after a seven-year vacancy.

October 2019 – A long-time Kingman reporter and radio celebrity accepts the position as Mohave County’s communications director (votes against him ? Johnson).

January 2020 – The new communications director resigns after less than three months on the job: He had a salary of $83,000 annually (with relatively limited computer and social media skills); County Manager Mike Hendrix put him in an office in development services, across town, away from the county administration building. Why? To keep him out of ear-shot of anything that should be hidden from the public? The director resigns because he was unwilling to compromise his integrity by using his position to get the current Mohave County Board of Supervisors (other than Gary Watson) reelected in 2020.

January 2020 – An interim is appointed to the position of Mohave County Communications Director: he is a personal friend of Buster Johnson, Mohave County Supervisor District 3, representing Lake Havasu City and up for reelection in 2020; he is one of two of Buster Johnson’s secretaries (Why does Buster need two secretaries when the other supervisors only have one?); his salary as interim communications director is $74,000 annually – two times his current salary as secretary. The Clerk of the Board doesn’t even make this kind of money. Are “we” buying his silence or asking him to look the other way?; he is not one of the final four communications director candidates during the original interview cycle; he has been appointed to the “interim” director position with one end goal – To get the current board of supervisors (other than Gary Watson) reelected.