Demoted clerk/treasurer resigns from Loris City Hall

By DEUCE NIVEN

tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com

     Former City Clerk/Treasurer Kenya Wright is leaving city government, three months after being removed from her post.

     Wright provided a two-week notice to Loris City Council and Interim Administrator Dennis Drozdak on Jan. 3, and revealed that publicly in an e-mail to reporters Wednesday.

     “I will spend the next two weeks tying up loose ends to leave the task that I do daily in the best position possible for the next person to take on,” Wright said in the email. “I feel it is time for me to move in a different direction.”

     Neither the council nor Drozdak offered a reason for Wright’s demotion following a largely closed-door meeting of council on Oct. 3, 2019. Drozdak was not present for that meeting, and Wright was excluded from most of council’s nearly two-hour executive session, called in for about the last ten minutes.

     Her new duties were never clarified, nor was any adjustment to her $50,000 annual salary. Drozdak, hired to the interim post in August, about a month after the abrupt resignation of City Administrator Damon Kempksi, was given the added duties of Interim Clerk/Treasurer in October.

     Wright continued to attend council meetings until this week. Mayor Todd Harrelson told council Monday that Wright was not able to attend the first meeting of the new year due to a health issue.

     (This corrects an earlier version that said Wright’s absence at Monday’s meeting was not mentioned.)

     Wright was tapped for the clerk/treasurer position in the fall of 2016 on an interim basis, the more permanent assignment approved by council in April 2017.

     Look for more on this story in the next Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.