Nicely vacation could extend Department of Safety job

By John Rodgers,Nashville City Paper
January 09, 2006

Interim Safety Commissioner Gerald Nicely is currently in the midst of a vacation in Hawaii during a 60-day assignment to reform the Tennessee Highway Patrol, a move that could extend that 60-day time frame.

Gov. Phil Bredesen originally asked Nicely to serve as safety commissioner for a 60-day period to start cleaning up the Department of Safety and its Highway Patrol, which has come under scrutiny for overt political cronyism as well as revelations of some troopers’ checkered legal histories.

Nicely also serves as head of the Department of Transportation.

That 60-day timetable began Dec. 9, 2005, and will expire in February. But 10 of those days, from Jan. 5 through Jan. 15, Nicely will be on vacation, likely making it more difficult for him to complete his work in that time period.

State Sen. Mark Norris (R-Collierville), the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee that has been investigating the cronyism at Safety, said he never thought 60 days was a realistic timetable anyway.

“The overarching question is if this situation can be cleaned up in 60 days to begin with,” Norris said.

Melissa McDonald, a Department of Safety spokeswoman, said Nicely had the vacation planned “for months” and had already paid for it. Plus, she said the 60 days is not a hard deadline that must be met and that Nicely could leave Safety before 60 days elapses or stay until after that time frame.

“He just has a job to do and he’s going to do it,” McDonald said. “He’s got several projects toward any deficiencies that have been identified at this agency. He’s put processes in place to take care of that.

“Those efforts are going on as if he was here, but if he is needed, we’ll get him on the phone. If something huge were to happen, I’m sure he would come back.”

Since Deputy Commissioner Tom Moore retired in December, the safety department currently does not have a deputy to oversee day-to-day operations while Nicely is gone, state officials confirmed.

Bredesen was “very aware” of Nicely’s vacation when he asked him to clean up the Department of Safety, spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said.

“Commissioner Nicely is a committed employee who would never shirk his duties,” Lenker said.

McDonald said Nicely made Bredesen aware of the vacation.

“Commissioner Nicely wouldn’t just take off without letting the governor know,” McDonald said. “He wouldn’t have taken this assignment without letting him know that he had this trip planned during the time that he would be here [at Safety]. They’ve had a long working relationship and he just wouldn’t have done that.”

While Safety currently lacks a deputy commissioner, McDonald said Nicely brought in his former chief of staff at TDOT, Velma Jones, to help reform Safety. Jones, however, is only a temporary employee in the department and currently does not have a title, McDonald said.

In December, Nicely replaced former Safety Commissioner Fred Phillips, who resigned.