Angelina County Commissioners to hold public hearing for terminated road engineer

LUFKIN, Texas (KTRE) - A public hearing will be held Tuesday regarding the termination of Angelina County Road Engineer Chuck Walker. Walker was terminated after being indicted by an Angelina County Grand Jury on March 10 for tampering with government records.

After Angelina County Commissioners voted to terminate Chuck Walker on March 22, Walker claimed the county was violating whistleblower laws for choosing to fire him. Attorney Robert Flournoy said the whistle blower statute offers protection.

“For the protection of those employees, usually, that discover some corruption or something that is illegal, and they want to report it, but they are afraid that they will get fired,” Flournoy said.

The whistleblower statute protects those individuals who come forward. Walker reported a number of claims under whistleblower status regarding county commissioner Terry Pitts.

“Walker declared himself a whistleblower before they voted to terminate him. But they did it with just a few hours after he made that declaration. And so now, in my opinion, the county is going to be subject to a lot of damages,” Flournoy said.

Walker was been given his 30-day written notice of termination.

“The statute provides for damages and attorney fees and things like that that the county will have to pay if they retaliate against him. If the commissioners did it for the purpose of getting rid of him so that he couldn’t continue to show what the commissioner has done,” Flournoy said.

The public hearing will be held Tuesday at the Angelina County Courthouse Annex at 10 a.m.

Copyright 2022 KTRE. All rights reserved.