The Arkansas Lottery Commission will meet today. On the agenda is a discussion of an evaluation of the lottery’s director, Ernie Passailaigue. At the last meeting, commissioners approved an evaluation process for the director. As you may remember, a motion was later made in executive session to fire Passailaigue, but Commissioner Derrick Smith made a substitute motion calling for the commission to follow the evaluation process they had set forth. That evaluation will take place today, more than likely in executive session.
When asked if it was possible that the commission would move to fire Passailaigue this afternoon, Commissioner Joe White of Conway, who has voted for Passailaigue’s firing in the past, said it depends on the evaluation. “I really don’t want to speculate on that, but it has happened twice before. It just depends how this evaluation turns out,” he said.
We will have an update after the meeting.
NOW: Gerard Matthews (@gerardmatthews) is tweeting from the meeting. Says there was discussion during personnel meeting about how to handle comp time payments for employees who are terminated. (LNP)
2 p.m.: Commission is going into executive session.
UPDATE: Passailaigue, in response to a question about whether he thought he’d done a good job, replied “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Then he skedaddled into an elevator and was off. Commission still meeting privately.
Here’s some video just posted on the Tolbert Report: