Foster Arnett has violated county policy on his second day on the job as Knox County Clerk. Yesterday, he fired or encouraged 8 employees to leave their employment with the County Clerk’s office. A move that would have been forbidden if these employees had been covered by a civil service system.

Today, he violated the Knox County hiring freeze by hiring 4 or 5 new employees to replace the 8 that he severed their employment. Arnett’s actions have taken Knox County back to the old days of political patronage. Fire the ones that didn’t raise money or work in your campaign and hire ones that contributed, raised money or volunteered in your campaign.

During the campaign Arnett promised to “Do The Right thing.” Instead he has resorted to his days at KPD when he lied about Andre Stinson, a young African American man that died at the hands of KPD. Arnett said that Stinson had drugs in his system. A toxicology report revealed that Stinson was drug free and Arnett received a reprimand in his personnel file. So, it is more of the same from Arnett.