Reinstated: Rincon city manager was accused of excessive absences, misappropriating funds
Suspended Rincon City Manager Jonathan Lynn was reinstated to his post Thursday night by Rincon City Council following an appeals hearing. Lynn was put on leave earlier this month after Rincon City Attorney Raymond Dickey accused him of excessive absences and misappropriating funds.
The council voted 3-2 in Thursday's special called meeting to retain Lynn.
In his closing statement at the appeals hearing, Lynn told council members, “I hope you guys deliberate. I hope you guys see the value in continuing with the City of Rincon as city manager and continuing to move everything forward. I don’t have to give you guys the list of accomplishments that I sent you guys before my evaluation but it was three pages – things we had gotten done in six-and-a-half months. This is where we want to be. We uprooted our lives to live here. I told my wife I want to live in Rincon. We bought a house here. Have I made some mistakes? Absolutely. I would challenge each of you to tell me you haven’t made a mistake at some point.”
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Lynn became city manager in September 2022. A 2002 Georgia Southern graduate, Lynn came to Rincon's administrative post after two years leading the Hogansville, Georgia city government.
Former Rincon Councilman Kevin Exley spoke to Lynn’s character and cited the city manager's recent positive performance review, which included a salary increase, as reasons to retain him. Exley also pointed to the number of Rincon city managers in recent years - eight, not including interim leaders, in the last 17 years - as a point of concern.
“How can we move to terminate any employee with a two-month prior excellent review, along with an increase? Even with Georgia being a right-to-work state, employees deserve better," he said. "When does this become a problem that is not associated with the city manager? When do we look at the man or the woman in the mirror? You guys that have been here for 15 years or more, you have seen every one of them.”
In closing, Rincon Mayor Ken Lee hinted that they could have gone about things differently.
“I don’t know that we’ve been really fair to Mr. Lynn,” said Lee.
Latrice Williams is a general assignment reporter covering Bryan and Effingham County. She can be reached at lwilliams6@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Rincon City Manager Jonathan Lynn reinstated following suspension
