State Board of Veterans Affairs (SBVA) members were pressured and "manipulated" into unanimously passing a motion asking Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs (ADVA) commissioner Kent Davis to reconsider his plans to resign at the end of the year, according to SBVA vice chair Scott Gedling.
Members of the SBVA unanimously voted at a meeting last week to ask Davis to consider rescinding his resignation.
Governor Kay Ivey has maintained that ADVA mishandled ARPA funds. Davis resigned on September 9, effective December 31. An SBVA committee approved a report last week stating Davis and ADVA did nothing wrong with the funds.
Ivey originally asked for Davis' resignation effective September 30 and removed John Kilpatrick from the Alabama State Board of Veterans Affairs. Davis had previously declined to resign and said, "I respectfully disagree with the inaccurate claims made against the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs."
Davis filed an ethics complaint in August at the request of board members against Alabama Department of Mental Health (ADMH) commissioner Kim Boswell for allegedly preventing ADVA from obtaining $7 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The Alabama Ethics Commission later dismissed the complaint.
According to a letter to board members obtained by Yellowhammer News, Gedling said last week's vote was "orchestrated" by Davis "along with a few others in the Veteran community."
"In truth, Commissioner Davis, along with a few others in the Veteran community, orchestrated the outcome of votes by placing extreme pressure on some of you to do and say things that went against your beliefs and the very principles on which this board should stand. Regardless of whether we all still agree with how these votes came out, we can all agree that Commissioner Davis's actions leading up to them went against his public statement last month that his resignation would resolve this matter to the mutual benefit of all parties. I gave him a clear opportunity during the board meeting to reaffirm his resignation and put this all behind us, but he failed to do so," Gedling said in the letter. "I stand by my word when I said that Commissioner Davis has done some really good things as commissioner, and I will always be grateful for these accomplishments. However, today, I believe that he has manipulated me and the Board to keep his job and serve his own interests. I also now believe that his actions have brought the Board itself into disfavor with the Governor and the Legislature–elected officials we must always have on our side if we are going to serve our mission. For this reason, I am convinced that Commissioner Davis must step aside. I hope you will join me in urging him to do so."
Davis said earlier in the board meeting last week before the vote asking him to consider rescinding his resignation that he didn't have anything to add to his September statement announcing his resignation.
"I'll stand by the public statement. I really don't have any changes to that public statement that I made a few weeks ago," Davis told the board members.
An ADVA spokesman declined to respond to Gedling's letter on Wednesday.
"Commissioner Kent Davis is out of the office Wednesday visiting Veterans Service Offices across portions of the state to show appreciation for our hard-working Veterans Service Officers and to garner insight into how they can more effectively serve Alabama's 400,000 Veterans. He is not available for comment at this time," Brandon Miller, an ADVA spokesman, told 1819 News.
Ken Rollins, an SBVA board member who made the motion in question, denied the board was manipulated into voting a certain way.
"As far as manipulating the board, I was the one that made the motion. I made that motion for the right reasons. I had had no, zero, zilch discussions with anyone," Rollins told 1819 News.
Rollins continued, "(Ivey) had no authority to fire him is what I'm saying. She did that without conversing with any board member. You heard 15 board members or whatever the number was say 'aye' to my request so those people must've thought Kent Davis had done a good job."
After the board meeting last week, Ivey told WSFA the vote was "orchestrated theater."
"I conveyed a direct message of teamwork and commitment to our state's wonderful veteran community," Ivey said. "After I left to chair the State Board of Education meeting, orchestrated theater ensued, showing a lack of leadership and quite the opposite of teamwork."
Rollins replied, "She said we were choreographed. I don't know who the band director was or whatever that she's referring to."
"I know that she'd have to read my mind to know why I made that motion because I didn't discuss it with any board member. Nobody at that table had any idea what I was going to say or when I was going to say it. That's a mistake on her part to say it was choreographed. It was not planned, not discussed from my perspective. Me being the one who made the motion…those people didn't have to vote for it. No one had a gun to no one's head forcing them to vote," Rollins said.
Rollins said, "With the Kent Davis thing, I just ask myself, and I'd ask the Governor to ask herself, with all this drama with one state agency, Mrs. Boswell…is all this drama worth damaging the work that we're doing for the veterans?"
"Is that veteran I was talking about with a scraggly old beard waiting to get in a nursing home or trying to keep from being homeless, is that guy going to be taken care of? Are we going to do better by him by getting rid of Kent Davis is what I'm saying. Is there a benefit for the veterans by getting rid of Kent Davis or is it getting rid of Kent Davis for filing an ethics complaint?" Rollins said.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email caleb.taylor@1819News.com.
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