FROM STAFF REPORTS

After working for the city of Canton for more than 12 years, the agency’s emergency management director resigned last week.

Jeff Hall, who held the rank of lieutenant prior to being named EMA director late last year, tendered his resignation to interim Police Chief Todd Vande Zande Jan. 23.

“I resigned due to professional leadership differences,” Hall said.

As part of his reorganization, Vande Zande moved Hall, the only EMA employee, back to the Uniform Patrol Division, therefore eliminating the emergency management department.

Vande Zande said last week that the emergency management director position was not budgeted for, nor was it ever included in the city police department’s organizational chart. He said he did not see it as a good use of funds, considering the service already is being provided by the county.

The only other government in Cherokee that handles emergency management is under the purview of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

“The department is going in what, I believe, is not a positive direction,” Hall told the Ledger-News when asked why he resigned. “The city doesn’t need to get back to basics; it needs to move forward.”

Vande Zande said the city would continue to use Cherokee County’s emergency management when something happens countywide, and it will use its command center at the Canton Police Department building when a command center is needed for only a city incident.

Hall, 38, joined the Canton Police Department in 1999. Prior to that, he worked for the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office for five years.

While at Canton police, Hall worked in the uniform patrol and traffic divisions. He later became the sergeant over the traffic unit.

He then was appointed lieutenant over Special Operations, which included the traffic division and criminal investigations.

In October 2011, then-Police Chief Jeff Lance appointed Hall as the director of the city’s newly formed emergency management department.

Hall, as the director, worked closely with the county’s office of emergency management and was the person who responded to the county Emergency Operations Center when it was activated.

The EOC often is activated when bad weather hits.

During last year’s snow storms that locked down Cherokee County for several days, Hall operated the city’s incident command post.

“I was in charge of getting command center ready (computers, staffing, etc.) when something happened in the city,” Hall said.

Hall’s resignation comes just days after Lance said he was “somewhat forced to resign,” following the release of a scathing third-party audit on the Jorelys Rivera case.

Lance approved the formation of the emergency management department in 2011.

Hall had been training for the position since late 2010, he said, adding he’s taken about 30 to 40 classes in emergency management. Fourteen of those are required education for basic emergency management certification.

Hall said last week that he now plans to work on some personal ventures.