The renewal of an old complaint led a Monroe County School Board member Thursday night to ask that a woman be removed of her job as a school bus driver.
Dean Williams said he had been contacted by the Repass family, a family that had come before the board several times in the past to complain about various school bus drivers, and they were again unhappy.

"They are saying, that one of the drivers hired is one of the people they lodged complaints against," Williams said. "Apparently she said something, the first time around, that upset one of their kids so bad, they lost sleep over it."

Transportation Director Steve McSpadden said the driver they were complaining about now, identified as Alice Mae Carter in paper work, wasn't one of the ones they had complained about in the past.
"I called you twice this week," Williams said to McSpadden, "and left messages, but never heard back from you."

When told that the school system was closed for fall break, Williams said, "Well, I work every week, but that's all right. This family knows every bus driver on that route and they have a problem with this driver. I'm just trying to head off having them come in here every month and complain for half an hour."

McSpadden said he had received one call about the bus driver in question. "She's only been driving since last month," he said. "But we did get a report she almost hit a tree on a narrow Madisonville street, but she was only on that street because her normal route was blocked."
Williams wanted to fire the driver, but other board members had a problem with that course of action.

"Before we don't hire somebody who's innocent," Jerry Snyder said, "shouldn't we take a look into it?"
"She should have been checked before she was hired," Williams said, alluding to the fact the driver has already been hired, but is awaiting final approval from the board.
Board Chairman Larry Stein made a motion to suspend Carter until the investigation into the allegations are complete, but it was pointed out that Williams had already made a motion to dismiss the driver.

That motion failed 7-2, then Stein's motion passed 7-2.
McSpadden said he would look into the complaints and hire a substitute driver, but he didn't know if Carter would still be available when the investigation was done. "I don't know if she'll want to be without a job for 30 days," he said.

Williams closed out the topic by saying, "McSpadden is the wrong person to handle this. That's all I'm going to say."

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat.com | 442-4575