By one vote, Warren County supervisors took the reins of the emergency management office away from its six-year director on Monday and handed them to the E-911 Dispatch Center director.

L.W. &#8220Bump” Callaway was swept from the position he had held since August 2000 in favor of Geoffrey Greetham, in charge of emergency dispatch since March 2005.

A series of three rapid-fire motions approved by 3-2 votes led to the change in the emergency management and permitting office, capping discussions that began in November and had slowly gained steam in ensuing months.

The actions placed dispatch director Geoffrey Greetham in charge of the emergency management half of the department. In a separate motion, senior department staff member Gwen Coleman was named manager of the permitting office.

Greetham’s title will be interim emergency management director for the next six months. Supervisors said he will not receive compensation in addition to the $45,000 a year he makes as dispatch director. Callaway had been paid at a $45,964 annual rate.

Supervisors are expected to make Greetham’s status permanent later this year, effectively pairing the jobs.

Along with those of administrator, engineer, board attorney and road manager, the appointed position is one that supervisors directly control.

District 4 Supervisor Carl Flanders, board president, engineered the move in large part, one that he proposed in November but died without a second.

That move came after the E-911 Commission discussed replacing Callaway in the wake of a response to Hurricane Katrina that some on the commission, specifically Vicksburg Mayor Laurence Leyens, said was less than comprehensive.

In the months that followed, the idea of changing the structure of the emergency management and permitting office gained steam, with the need for creating a separate inspections department and dealing with unspecified personnel issues within the department at the fore.

As a prelude to Monday’s vote, Callaway’s nominee for a deputy director had been shot down by the board, chiefly by supervisors who wanted Coleman to fill the position.

Flanders said that timing was of the essence for making the change, due to &#8220hurricane season breathing down our necks.” The Atlantic season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon and District 2 Supervisor William Banks, who joined Flanders in approving the changes Monday, said after the meeting the lack of communication with the board and lax planning in advance for this year’s potential storms were the reasons for their votes.

&#8220Bump should be doing those things. All those things should be in place,” Banks said.

Selmon also alluded to personnel matters in emergency management, and, though not specifying them, said a new director would &#8220open up a new line of communication.”

After the meeting, Greetham, 52, said he was &#8220caught somewhat off-guard” by the board’s decision and had little clue that the move was impending, but indicated he was willing to &#8220serve the community in any capacity.”

Greetham also said day-to-day oversight of emergency dispatch will not miss a beat because of his training of other supervisory staff there.

&#8220I don’t anticipate any adverse impact on it,” said Greetham, who is also overseeing the move of the city-county E-911 Dispatch Center staff to a new building on Clay Street and installation of new equipment.

Callaway, 59, who was Warren County coroner for 25 years before becoming emergency management director, attended Monday’s meeting of supervisors but did not enter the board room.

&#8220It’s amazing that they did this without any regard for the other employees in my department,” Callaway said later, adding that the months-long assault on his job performance seemed more personal than policy-related.

&#8220Stripping emergency management seems like more appropriate terminology to me,” he said.

No specific list of what should have been done and had not been done prior to Katrina last August has been provided. Leyens has said a guaranteed source of fuel for emergency vehicles should have been arranged and that a combined city-county response should have been coordinated.

Monday, supervisors David McDonald of District 1 and Richard George of District 5 voted against the changes, reflecting stances the two have held throughout the debate.

&#8220He (Greetham) has a full-time job at 911 already. He’s just getting comfortable there. It’s really just politics,” McDonald said.

George kept his comments brief. &#8220It was an unwise, unwarrated and fiscally irresponsible move, considering the dedication of a man like him (Callaway).”

Callaway’s tenure ended much like it began, with questions over his stewardship of the job.

Following the retirement of longtime director Luther Warnock in July 2000, five applicants were interviewed to take over a job that had evolved from its Cold War-era title of &#8220Civil Defense” to one that issued plans for dealing with both natural disasters such as hurricanes and industrial accidents.

Coleman, an administrative officer in charge of hazard mitigation and planning with two decades of experience in the agency, was among applicants.

After a 3-2 vote to hire Callaway the two dissenting supervisors, Selmon and former District 2 Supervisor Michael Mayfield, asked the next day to have the vote rescinded, saying it reeked of &#8220back-room politics.”

Monday’s refrain was similar.

&#8220Apparently, we’re not in the loop anymore,” McDonald said, referring to himself and George, who felt ambushed by the vote to oust Callaway.

Coleman, who in 2000 was a favorite of Mayfield and Selmon will manage the permitting office. That role includes enforcement of subdivision and flood plain regulations.

Callaway also drew fire for the absence of an updated hazard mitigation plan, one for which supervisors directed him to prepare a final draft just weeks after an earlier motion to replace him failed.

Composed by the Central Mississippi Planning and Development District by federal mandate in 2003, the plan identifies and looks at the risks of the major natural hazards that affect the county. The plan had been in rough draft mode since then.

Some members of the steering committee charged with fleshing out the county’s vulnerabilities had not met in a year up to then, with some of them no longer holding elective or appointed office.

Callaway, at the time, told supervisors the plan was explanatory in nature and changes needed to produce a final draft were &#8220minor” and &#8220of a grammatical nature.”

As months passed, the outgoing director stressed that much of what his office does in the way of hazard mitigation and disaster planning comes from the state, specifically the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and cannot initiate activities that supersede the bounds of his office, such as coordinating social services.

In other business Monday, the board: