Sheriff Gregory met yesterday with his employees to lay out his vision for the CCSO going forward.

I invite your particular attention to the very last sentence. Now, tell me this, Thuggies: How many more minutes would Captain Jackson have kept his job after making that statement when your hero was running the CCSO? http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/010609/geo_374197781.shtml Update @ 1300 HRS. From 11:30 to 12:15 today, I had lunch with Sheriff Gregory, County Clerk Jodi Gregory, and long-time county resident Tommy "Sea Pro" Weaver. In our wide ranging conversation, I mentioned the sheriff's meeting yesterday with his employees. When I asked him how many attended, I was quite taken with his answer. He said he did not know for sure; that it was purely voluntary; and that he pointedly did not have them sign a roster. I'm confident that the new sheriff and his employees are going to get along famously. Note to TOPIX nut cases: Sheriff Gregory re-confirmed what he had told me previously. The re-hiring of certain of the 27 "firees" does NOT represent a change of plans; rather, a fulfilment of the original plan. Here's the reason (again.) Under state law, once you bump an employee up to a certain salary, as say, a jail administrator making $30.00 dollars an hour (as Jim Proctor was), if you wish to reassign him to a lower paid position, you may reassign him to said position, but you must keep him at his highest attained salary in his previous position. The courts have ruled that once you pay an employee, say, $30.00 per hour, the employee has a vested "property right" in that level of compensation. The only legal way to re-assign someone to a lower-paying position and actually pay them the lower pay is to fire then re-hire them, as in the case of Proctor, who is now Judge Amanda Williams' "personal bailiff" at a rate of $15.00 per hour.