Lashunda Scales says constables across Jefferson County think the County Commission is trying to take business from them.

“I don’t even know how that happened,” the District 1 commissioner said. “You’ve got constables that are all over the county, but they were under the impression that the commission was taking an action, basically, to get them out of the service business. They’re under the impression that the commission is talking about doing away with (constables’ serving notices.)”

Weeks ago, Wayne Rogers, spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, said the office had proposed a local bill that would have allowed the Sheriff’s Office to contract with individuals to serve warrants, but the commission did not approve the request. He said it would not have affected constables, who run for election and are given certain processing powers.

“When someone files a lawsuit, they can request different … methods of service to be done,” he said. “They can request that a constable do the service. They can request the Sheriff’s Office do the service. What this bill would do is allow the Sheriff’s Office to contract with people who are not sheriff’s deputies to actually help us perfect service in those cases. It would not apply to warrants, would not apply to the DA’s Office, would not apply to the courts.

“It would only apply to individual litigants when they request a Sheriff’s Office service,” Rogers continued. “The sheriff would then be able to contract with private individuals — typically security companies, folks like that — to help us with service.”

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokesman said many sheriff’s offices already hire others to serve notices. He said it’s not completely clear that there’s legal authority for them to do it.

“We wanted some clarification in the law on whether a sheriff’s office can do it,” Rogers said. “There have been local bills passed in about 20 counties around the state over the last few years making clear the sheriff had the authority to hire outside people to help to do service and process. We were simply asking that Jefferson County be added to that list of counties.

“I think we’re going to actually not end up proposing that bill at all,” he continued. “There is a statewide bill that will do the same thing that I think is likely going to pass. But it will not abolish constables in any fashion. It won’t affect them anyway.”