Craycraft gets nod for interim county judge

Stephen Craycraft was appoint­ed inter­im coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive by his fel­low mag­is­trates dur­ing an emer­gency meet­ing on Thursday of the Clark County Fiscal Court. The deci­sion comes after County Judge-Executive Les Yates sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion to Gov. Andy Beshear’s office Tuesday morning.

Yates said he resigned because he is a can­di­date for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and thought he could not devote enough time to the job while cam­paign­ing for another.

“It has been one of the great­est hon­ors of my life to serve the cit­i­zens of Clark County and to work along­side ded­i­cat­ed pub­lic employ­ees to make our com­mu­ni­ty a bet­ter place to live and work,” he said in his res­ig­na­tion let­ter. “This deci­sion comes after care­ful eval­u­a­tion of my per­son­al pri­or­i­ties and deter­mi­na­tion that the needs of the County can best be served by some­one who can devote their full-time ener­gy and effort to this job.”

Yates left a copy of the let­ter on his desk Tuesday after­noon and a copy was giv­en to the coun­ty clerk after he had pre­sent­ed the let­ter to the governor’s senior advis­er, Rocky Adkins ear­li­er in the day.

It is not clear whether he spoke with the gov­er­nor. Beshear’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor could only con­firm on Wednesday and again on Thursday that the let­ter had been received, but not whether it had been accepted.

During the spe­cial-called meet­ing on Thursday — the sec­ond in two days — County Attorney William Elkins said there was no evi­dence that the governor’s accep­tance of the res­ig­na­tion had been entered into the sec­re­tary of state’s exec­u­tive jour­nal, as required by law, and that the Governor’s Office had not returned his call.

However, Elkins said, it would be “disin­gen­u­ous” to ignore pub­lic state­ments Yates made to the news media that he had resigned, and there­fore, the court could make the inter­im appointment.

Less than an hour before a spe­cial-called meet­ing of the court on Wednesday, Yates had giv­en WinCity Voices an inter­view in which he said he had giv­en his let­ter of res­ig­na­tion on Tuesday morn­ing to Rocky Adkins, the governor’s senior adviser.

Following the coun­ty attorney’s state­ment dur­ing the meet­ing on Thursday, Magistrate Chris Davis then made a motion, sec­ond­ed by Magistrate Ernest Pasley, to appoint Craycraft to the position.

“I would pre­fer some­one who is not run­ning for judge-exec­u­tive,” Magistrate Robert Blanton said.

However, the motion passed by a voice vote, with Blanton’s silence count­ed as an affir­ma­tive vote for the record. Magistrate Mark Miller was not present.

Craycraft is one of five can­di­dates for coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive in this year’s elec­tion, and one of four in the Republican primary. 

Under state law, the gov­er­nor must make the appoint­ment with­in 30 days of being noti­fied of the vacan­cy. The inter­im appoint­ment by the Fiscal Court would remain in effect until the gov­er­nor appoints some­one, and the per­son the gov­er­nor appoints would serve until after the win­ner of the Nov. 3 gen­er­al elec­tion is sworn in.

Craycraft said Thursday night he had learned that his 3^rd District mag­is­trate seat would not be filled while he is the inter­im coun­ty judge.

“Technically, I’m still the mag­is­trate in our dis­trict. I’m just tem­porar­i­ly act­ing as judge. Only the gov­er­nor can fill a seat on the fis­cal court for judge or mag­is­trate,” he explained.

Craycraft is in his first term as mag­is­trate and has served three years of the four-year term.

He is the own­er of Spectrum Photography and a real estate investor, but he said dur­ing a recent inter­view that he was “wind­ing … down” his busi­ness in antic­i­pa­tion of his pos­si­ble elec­tion as coun­ty judge.

Also dur­ing the meet­ing on Thursday, the court went into closed ses­sion to dis­cuss a per­son­nel mat­ter that could lead to termination.

When they reopened the ses­sion, Craycraft announced that he intend­ed to dis­miss the deputy coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive, Rhonda McClain, and retain two oth­er employ­ees: Paul Brown, the finan­cial direc­tor, and Rhonda Blythe, the judge-executive’s admin­is­tra­tive assistant.

The mag­is­trates did not vote on those deci­sions because they are made at the judge’s discretion.

McClain sub­mit­ted her res­ig­na­tion on Friday morning.