Monday, May 9, 2022, 7:44 pm News Flash Archive

In a surprise move, this afternoon the Greenwood Convention and Visitors Bureau voted to hire Mrs. Ashley Farmer to serve as interim executive director at an annual salary of $70,000, the same salary as the former executive director was being paid.

What's surprising is that Farmer is presently suing the GCVB for racial discrimination in its hiring of the previous executive director, Mr. Patrick Ervin. Farmer claims that the GCVB refused to hire her, the most qualified person to apply for the position, because she is white.

To see our reporting on this lawsuit, click here: Ashley Farmer sues Greenwood, Convention and Visitors Bureau for racial discrimination

But there are even more twists and turns to this saga: Mr. Ervin resigned after only four months on the job, to become editor and publisher of the Enterprise-Tocsin newspaper in Indianola.

That means that the GCVB is once again searching for a new executive director. But when Mrs. Farmer tried to apply for the interim position again, she claims, the GCVB refused to consider her.

So Farmer amended her lawsuit, adding another charge of racial discrimination against the Board. She also filed a second complaint with the EEOC regarding the same matter. See a copy of her amended legal complaint here: Farmer's Second Amended Complaint against GCVB

In its legal answer to the lawsuit, GCVB denied that Farmer was discriminated against:

The CVB had legitimate, non-discriminatory business reasons with respect to all of its employment actions and decisions regarding Plaintiff [Ashley Farmer].

... The CVB denies that Plaintiff has any basis or facts to support any claim that the CVB intended to discriminate against her on the basis of race.

To read GCVB's most recent legal response to the previous version of Farmer's lawsuit, see here: GCVB response to Farmer complaint

To watch the video of today's GCVB meeting at which Farmer was hired as interim executive director, see here: GCVB Meeting of May 9, 2022

John Pittman Hey
The Taxpayers Channel

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