Friday, July 15, 2011 Amarillo releases agreement with ex-airport director By John Briggs The Burlington (VT) Free Press Former Amarillo International Airport Director Scott Carr, who was a candidate to be director of Burlington International Airport Amarillo, Texas, responding to a Burlington Free Press request made in April under the Texas Public Information Act, has released the confidential severance agreement between Amarillo and former Amarillo International Airport Director Scott Carr. In late March, Carr was chosen as the lead candidate to replace Brian Searles as director of the Burlington International Airport. He was strongly supported by Mayor Bob Kiss. Carr, however, withdrew April 27 as a candidate in Burlington. His decision followed Free Press articles detailing his unexplained departure from his $116,000 job in Texas and issues from his previous job as director of the Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, Fla. As part of its reporting, the newspaper made a records request for the severance agreement in Amarillo. Carr signed the agreement in July 2010 and was given a severance payment of $50,000 by Amarillo, the document shows. The agreement does not say why he chose to leave or was asked to leave. The two-page severance agreement, dated July 30, 2010, and signed by Carr and Amarillo City Manager Jarrett Atkinson says that the “employee (Carr) represents and agrees that the existence, terms and conditions of this agreement shall be kept strictly and completely confidential.” In the spring, Carr told city officials and the Free Press of the existence of the severance agreement. Kiss also said Carr told him he’d left Texas because “he was asked to do something which ethically he couldn’t do, and on that basis he resigned.” The agreement says that Carr would begin a “paid leave status” that would last from Aug. 2 to Aug. 20, 2010, and he would be paid “a sum equal to 5 months of his current base salary.” He was also allowed to keep his city health insurance, “pre-paid out of severance pay,” until Jan. 30, 2011. Carr agreed to make no claims against the city, and another paragraph said it shouldn’t be “construed as an admission by the city of any act of wrongdoing whatsoever.” Mayor Bob Kiss did not respond to a request for comment. City Council President Bill Keogh, D-Ward 5, declined comment. Airport Commission Chairman Gene Richards said he wished Carr well in his new job as deputy director of the Portland, Maine, airport. Richards said “due diligence” in Burlington paid off during Carr’s candidacy, “and the airport is better off for it.” |
