Term limits latest reason committee cites to keep Simmers off York County mental health board

A man previously kicked off the Catawba Mental Health board can’t be reappointed because he’s served more than the number of terms county rules allow, York County Council members said Monday.

Danny Simmers, a 12-year veteran of the board that oversees community mental health services in three counties, was removed from the board earlier this year after County Council members reviewed his credit report and arrest record, including a 35-year-old arrest for DUI.

County officials at the time cited Simmers’ prior arrest record, which ended in 1982, in turning down his application, and Simmers was later told his more recent credit report also was flagged in a background check performed by the governor’s office, which formally appoints the county’s nominees to the board.

Simmers credited his drunken-driving arrests in the 1970s and ’80s to his struggles with alcoholism and depression which first motivated him to get involved with Catawba Mental Health in the first place. He also explained the blemishes on his credit history Monday as bill disputes he had with his cell phone carrier and a company from which he rented a piece of machinery.

On Monday, Simmers appeared before the County Council’s finance and operations committee, the same body that declined to reappoint the 70-year-old roofer to a fourth term on Aug. 17, to defend his record on the board and ask the committee to give him his seat back. But now that he’s off the board, a county ordinance won’t allow the committee to name him to a new term for another year.

Chairman Michael Johnson, reading from a prepared statement, said “by virtue of your time served on the board, you are ineligible for reappointment for a period of one calendar year from the date (you) left the board.”

The ordinance limits county board appointments to two consecutive four-year terms. Simmers had managed to serve a third term on the mental health board because the same ordinance also states members “will serve until their successors are appointed,” and no other candidates have applied for his seat.

Johnson said the council is trying to more regularly enforce that provision on long-serving board members. When pointed out Simmers had only left the board when the committee rescinded his application, Johnson referred back to his prepared statement on the ordinance restrictions.

Simmers said he had no ill will toward the committee’s decision, and might even reapply next year when he’s eligible, which committee members said they would be open to considering at the time.

The publicity around his removal has even allowed Simmers to resume counseling work with people struggling with similar substance abuse issues as he did.

He did, however, dislike being asked to come to speak to the committee given that the rules would not allow him to come back.

“I wished they’d just said that before I started my spiel,” Simmers said. “They could have told me that before I drove out here... It just seems cruel to let me pour my heart out when they’d already made up their minds.”

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 8:43 PM with the headline "Term limits latest reason committee cites to keep Simmers off York County mental health board."