Captain Clayton Embly has navigated rough waters in his life as he crossed the world’s oceans.
He probably never imagined that the small ferry he now operates on the Kentucky River would bring its share of troubled waters.
Founded in 1785, the Valley View Ferry is one of the oldest ferries in the United States, and Embly protects the ferry’s place in history, its crew, and the travelers who rely on the ship.
So when the ferry ran into a tidal wave of problems last year, Embly and the Valley View Ferry Board were determined to keep Kentucky’s oldest and oldest ferry afloat.
Exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the ferry’s problems have resurfaced over the past two years.
According to the reports and documents requested by the Richmond Register under public records laws, the deckhands were harassed by a former captain while working in unsafe conditions without stable pay or health care benefits.
Lax security procedures resulted in a lorry falling off the ferry into the river with a driver inside. New safety procedures were ignored by another captain, leading to a violent altercation when Embly attempted to implement them. Staff shortages also forced the ferry to stop for a long time, forcing motorists to find alternate travel routes.
Staff and the pandemic
In the spring of 2020, the council faced an immediate and pressing problem.
The need to hire full-time employees for the first time in years. Prior to this, the ferry used prison inmates.
According to Todd Lockhart, chairman of the Valley View Ferry Authority Board (VVFA), the pandemic has forced the administration to create personnel policies from scratch, while budgeting for salaries.
As the council struggled to adapt the new workforce quickly, problems began to emerge among the new team.
Employees were resigning just months after their hire date, according to resignation letters obtained through open records requests filed by the registry.
According to these documents, the deckhands alleged that they were harassed by Captain Gerry Ross while working on the ship prior to his sick leave. Former deckhands employed by the ferry have also cited security breaches as the reason for their resignations.
A former employee, who spoke to the Register on condition of anonymity, was a retired law enforcement officer who cited security concerns as the catalyst for his resignation.
According to the former employee, he said drunk drivers attempted to cross the ferry, drug paraphernalia was found on either side of the river and in restrooms used by employees, and that safety procedures had been thwarted by other workers.
“It was never 100% resolved,” a former employee said of the issues. “My concerns were brought to the attention of the board members by the senior captain and from what I can see nothing was ever done, nothing investigated and nothing has not been verified. It got to the point where it wasn’t safe and I quit for that reason.
According to Melinda Jones, a board representative, she felt a former deckhand should apologize but said the employee quit before the board could meet to discuss the issues raised in his resignation.
The problems piled up when the ferry was forced to close several times over the past year due to staffing issues. The closures forced about 200 customers a day to make the long trek from Richmond to Lexington, Kentucky.
The ferry is a free service, so these commuters were paying an extra $40 to $125 a week for gas to get to work.
In June 2021 the ferry was closed because there were not enough captains to staff it.
During the ferry’s most extended stoppage in June, Captain Gerry Ross was placed on indefinite medical leave, leaving only Embly to steer the ship.
Stowage incident
Council heard of an incident where a truck fell off the ferry.
According to a Madison County Sheriff’s Office traffic collision report, on July 17, 2020, a truck stopped on the ferry and then began to sink in water as the ferry moved forward. The truck started taking on water while the driver was still in the truck. The ferry backed into the truck’s windshield and smashed it to allow the driver to escape.
Memoranda reveal that the reason the ferry passenger’s truck fell into the water was because the vehicle was not properly secured. No one was injured in the incident.
While the crew was retrained on safety tie-down procedures, reports show they were still not doing them.
On Oct. 31, 2020, Captain Embly arrived at the ferry to pull a heater out of the wheelhouse and saw crews still not implementing safety protocols, according to his captain’s notes and video footage obtained through requests. registration open.
“The deckhands were not tying the boat down properly or using chains even though they had been trained to do so only 10 days earlier, and Todd Lockhart and George Dean (members of the VVFA) had told them to do so,” the report said. bed.
According to meeting minutes, the captain’s report, and video footage obtained by the Registry, Embly confronted a former deckhand and asked why he wasn’t securing the ropes as instructed by the U.S. Coast Guard and recent training.
In the video footage, Embly then confronts Captain Ross, who said the boat wasn’t tied down because it was “at his discretion.”
“Our security procedures and US Coast Guard security procedures are not at your discretion,” Embly replied to Captain Ross in the video footage.
Upon exiting the ship and leaving the ramp, Embly was confronted by a former deckhand who repeatedly insulted him by saying “Get off the fucking boat”, and can be seen pushing Embly in the video .
When the Ferry Board viewed the video, a motion was made to fire both the deckhand and Captain Ross, which was defeated in a five-to-one motion, according to minutes of the 11 meeting. November 2020.
Instead, Ross received a written warning that the registry also obtained through open case requests. The deckhand who appeared to be pushing Embly was fired and Captain Embly received a verbal warning, according to meeting minutes.
According to meeting minutes and payroll records, Ross continued to work on the ferry from November 2020 until June 2021, when his furlough was announced and the ferry began closing weekly. He was paid until he was officially fired in a letter dated August 2021 for his failure to produce a doctor’s note at the ferry.
The Ferry Board has since hired another captain to share duties with Embly and some deckhands have returned to work at higher pay levels.
