maxwelton — The Greenbrier County Airport Authority on Tuesday appointed the Charleston law firm of Bailey & Wyant, PLLC, to investigate an incident involving a county commissioner. Authority member Lowell Johnson cast the lone vote against launching an investigation.

In a statement she read at an Aug. 27 county commission meeting, GCAA Chairman Deborah Phillips accused Commissioner Mike McClung of removing an external computer hard drive and “an unknown document” from the office of the manager of Greenbrier Valley Airport. The incident occurred on Aug. 23.

“I have no words to describe this action,” Phillips told the commission. “We do not know what was taken.”

She said, upon advice of legal counsel, she had notified McClung on Aug. 27 that he is no longer allowed on airport property, pending a review of the incident.

Contacted by The Register-Herald following this week’s special meeting of the GCAA, during which the investigation was approved, McClung readily admitted he took the hard drive and paper document, saying he believed both were “potential evidence” in a legal matter that had earlier been placed in the hands of a special prosecutor. McClung said he found the items “unsecured” during a visit to the office.

“I copied (the potential evidence) and returned it,” he said. “I did not tamper with it. I did not even view it.”

McClung said after copying the electronic and paper items, he sealed the copies in an envelope and sent them to the special prosecutor.

He declined to identify the prosecutor or to specify the legal matter being investigated by that individual, but did say, “There seems to be no support for that investigation from the airport authority or the county commission.”

Phillips began her remarks at the Aug. 27 commission meeting by asking the governing body to help provide a “safe, stress-free work environment” at the airport. She said, after consulting with the GCAA’s legal counsel, she was requesting the commission’s assistance in “stopping contact between Commissioner McClung and our airport managers and staff.”

She said acting airport manager Martha Livesay had told her that McClung and a GCAA member (unnamed in this recitation) had both given her job-related orders with which she was uncomfortable and that McClung had made comments that she interpreted as threatening her job.

McClung told The Register-Herald that assertions that he had harassed or threatened any airport employee were “totally untrue.”

“That was the most disappointing part of the evening,” he said of the commission meeting. “It still bothers me to be accused by people who know better.”

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