News

Ousted precinct leader, GOP chair directed to mediation to resolve conflict

Kathy Maney listens to Assistant Director Lily Ferry as supporters Wayne Garren, Susane Brown and Bill Robinson look on.

By Bill Moss, Published: May 9, 2024

A party activist and the Henderson County Republican Party chair were directed this week to go to mediation in an effort to resolve an ongoing dispute that resulted in an assault on female charge against the party’s leader.

Kathy Maney, the Hoopers Creek precinct chair, and party chair Brett Callaway were seated in the same room Wednesday for the first time since April 15, when Callaway and other party leaders booted her and others from an executive committee meeting.

When Maney met with Assistant District Attorney Lily Ferry in a hallway outside the courtroom, she learned that prosecutors wanted her and Callaway to resolve the matter in mediation.

“I was told that if I did not go to mediation that she would dismiss the case,” Maney said. “I did not want to go to mediation. We have been through this for over a year and he's not gonna change. So we'll just have to see what it says at mediation. But I just want to go to court and have him charged.”

Later, also outside the courtroom, Maney met with volunteer mediator Joe Gaudino. She said she told the mediator she needed to check her calendar at home to see when she could attend a mediation session. The assault on female charge was next docketed for a hearing on June 12.

Seated in the courtroom, Callaway declined to comment on the case.

Callaway and two other top party leaders sacked Maney and more than 30 other precinct chairs after the chair of the 11^th Congressional District GOP, Michele Woodhouse, said she had received a determination from the state party staff that they had been improperly elected at the March 23 county convention. The downsized executive committee also adopted a new plan of organization, Maney and her allies said.

Maney was accompanied at her District Court date by allies Bill Robinson, Wayne Garren and Susane Brown. Garren said he was a witness at the county convention when Callaway allegedly grabbed Maney’s hand and attempted to take her cell phone.