Greeneville Alderman Sarah Webster has taken issue with the memo recently presented by Mayor Laraine King to support her 2008 decision to transfer maintenance employees from the Parks and Recreation Department to the Public Works Department.

In addition, Alderman Webster has formally requested that "this item and a vote" be placed on the agenda of the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Greeneville Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

The next scheduled meeting date for the Board of Mayor and Aldermen would be 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

The meetings are held in the board room at the Greeneville Light & Power System headquarters.

It was not clear from Webster's brief message to Mayor King whether the alderman was taking issue with the Town of Greeneville financial and budget-related data cited in Mayor King's Nov. 3 memo concerning the transfers, or was expressing disagreement with the mayor's conclusion that the data justified the transfers, or both.

Efforts this morning to reach Alderman Webster for further clarification were unsuccessful.

Mayor King said this morning that she has not seen the e-mail message from Webster.

The message was sent Tuesday evening to the mayor's e-mail address at her office at Greeneville Town Hall, and the mayor had not been to Town Hall before 9:30 this morning.

Reached by telephone at home by The Greeneville Sun, the mayor said she wanted to read the e-mail message before commenting on it.

What remains a sharp controversy developed some 15 months ago when Mayor King, acting in her capacity as the town's top elected official, transferred the maintenance employees.

That action was not brought before the full Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

Since then, critics of the move -- including Aldermen W.T. Daniels, Buddy Hawk and Webster, and members of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board -- have questioned the legality of the transfer and said they thought the action should have been considered by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

Mayor King has maintained that transferring employees between town departments was within her authority and responsibility as the senior official of the town government.

She has also emphasized the workers' transfer has saved a significant amount of money for the town.

At the conclusion of the Nov. 3 board meeting, Mayor King gave the aldermen a lengthy, detailed memo explaining and defending her decision to move the employees.

The full text of that memo can be viewed under Public Records at http://GreenevilleSun.com .

Near the end of the memo, King wrote, "If you have any disagreement with the facts as I have presented them, please put them in writing to me within one week, and I will then schedule a workshop to address them."

No such workshop has been scheduled as of the present time.

On Tuesday, Webster, who also is a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, sent her e-mail message to Mayor King.

Webster's brief message said, "Mayor King, I disagree with the 'facts' you present in your memo 'Building, Grounds & Maintenance Crew -- Do the facts justify a change of supervision?'

"I request that this item and a vote be placed on the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen."