PAUL FALLON, Charleston Daily Mail (West Virginia), Staff

With no opponent in the November election, John Rutherford already was slated to move from his chief deputy role into the county sheriff seat now held by his brother, Mike.

Now he has been hired to serve as interim director of the Metro 911 Center, a position he’ll hold until he takes office as sheriff in January unless a permanent director is found sooner.

He is filling the director’s position being vacated by Carolyn Charnock, who is moving to another county job.

Rutherford’s retirement from the sheriff’s department became effective at midnight Tuesday.

He had announced he was leaving the position late last week, saying he was worried his involvement in the race might violate federal law.

Federal law states that employees who oversee federal funds cannot run for public office, Rutherford said. He was unsure if the law applied to those running for local office, but he opted to err on the safe side and retire from the position.

He filed to run for sheriff in January but has said he learned of the federal law only recently.

He will not oversee federal grant funds as interim director, said Rick Atkinson, chairman of the 911 board.

“We’ve already looked into this law, and my new position won’t be a problem,” Rutherford said.

Rutherford is running unopposed for sheriff in the November general election, as he did in the May primary.

“Unless there’s some massive write-in campaign, he’s going to be elected,” Atkinson said.

If elected, Rutherford would begin his term on Jan. 1.

He said he will begin drawing a pension from the state Deputy Sheriffs Retirement System for his 35 years of service as a deputy in addition to a salary of about $6,700 a month he will collect as interim 911 director.

Rutherford said he didn’t know what his pension benefit would be, but the Consolidated Public Retirement Board’s website includes a formula that indicates someone with his salary level and years of service would draw nearly $60,000 a year.

In January, he stands to draw both the pension and the sheriff’s salary of $44,000 a year plus up to $15,000 a year commission for collecting county property taxes.

Rutherford, 55, began his service in the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department at the age of 18.

“As far as getting a pension goes, I’ve earned it,” he said. “I’ve spent 35 years as a police officer getting called out at 3:30 a.m. for shootings and murders.”

Rutherford said agencies around the state would lose experienced personnel should people drawing civil service pensions be prevented from collecting a salary at another job.

Rutherford will make contributions toward a second pension, this one under the Public Employee Retirement System, once he becomes sheriff. He also will do so while he serves as interim 911 director.

Charnock, whose resignation will be effective Sept. 4, will become the Kanawha County Ambulance Authority’s public relations director.

She is taking vacation days until her resignation becomes effective, and the 911 Center was in need of an interim director while she is out of the office, Atkinson said.

Charnock will be paid about $80,000 per year at her new position, County Manager Jennifer Sayre said. That’s the amount she was making as Metro 911 director, Sayre said.

“I don’t think that’s too much for a public relations director because she’s (Charnock) going to be doing a lot more than just public relations,” Sayre said.

She said Charnock would handle marketing efforts along with questions from members of the public and media.

Marketing will consist of getting information out to the public to let individuals know that the authority is available for more than just emergency transports, Sayre said.

“We’re in a competitive market here,” said Rick Atkinson, chairman of the 911 board.

Atkinson said there are for-profit ambulance services in Kanawha County, and the authority needs to compete with them.

Charnock also will handle public educational initiatives, Sayre said.

“September is National Preparedness Month, and she will be going out and talking to people about stuff like how they can deal with a storm event when you don’t have power for 13 days,” she said.

Charnock could not be reached for comment.

Charnock worked as a reporter for the Daily Mail after graduating from Duke University with a degree in political science. She left in 1996 to take a job as assistant to former Mayor Kemp Melton. She moved to Metro 911 in 1998.

Rutherford is looking forward to the challenge of taking over the 911 Center until a permanent replacement can be found.

He said he had planned to spend the next six months as a retiree and his wife had drafted a “to-do list.”

But officials with the Metro 911 board contacted him after learning about his pending retirement to see if he was interested in serving as interim director, Rutherford said.

“I have mixed feelings,” he said.

It will be hard for him to leave the sheriff’s department even if it is just for a few months, he said.

Atkinson said he was confident Rutherford would perform well in the interim position.

“He’s a very effective, competent manager,” Atkinson said. “And his integrity is beyond question.”

Rutherford thinks his biggest challenge will be getting up to speed on the day-to-day operations at the 911 center.

“I’m not worried,” he said. “We have a great staff here.”

The board members will begin looking for a permanent director in the coming days, Atkinson said. The position will be advertised, he said.

The 911 board’s personnel committee may conduct interviews, or Atkinson may create a new committee to address the issue, he said.

“We want to make sure we do this right,” Atkinson said. “There are going to be a lot of people on this board that are very interested in participating in this process.”

Copyright © 2012 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.