Georgia transparency headlines
From Sunshine Review
This article is a list of transparency related news from Georgia.
Ethics group calling for firing of state DOT chief
November 12, 2008: A self-proclaimed government ethics watchdog Wednesday called on Georgia leaders to fire Transportation Commissioner Gena Evans for inappropriate relationships with co-workers and former subordinates when she worked in other state agencies.
George Anderson, executive director of the Ethics in Government Group, said he had filed or planned to file a barrage of complaints against Evans with the ethics officer of the state Department of Transportation, the Office of the State Inspector General and the state Department of Law. Read the full article here.
DeKalb loses track of traffic tickets
November 8, 2008: DeKalb County Recorders Court — one of the busiest traffic courts in the state — has lost track of hundreds of thousands of citations, costing the county and the state possibly tens of millions of dollars in uncollected fines, according to internal court e-mails.
The breakdown also let people ignore citations and not face punishment — and no one has been looking for them.
The e-mails, obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act, show that a two-year communications failure in the court’s computer systems has caused citations to sit unresolved in case databases. It’s the electronic equivalent of being stuffed in a closet and forgotten. Read the full article here.
BoE argues about openness
November 4, 2008: How much internal school system information may a board of education member see before he has to ask permission from the full board?
Does a school board member have to seek advance permission from the superintendent before he visits a school in the system?
Those questions have led to a split vote on a school system policy change and acrimonious words between opposing school board members since an Oct. 20 meeting. Read the full article here.
Younger defends records policy
October 22, 2008: Albany Mayor Willie Adams cited a lack of communication as a major reason for the Albany Police Department’s ongoing battle with local media outlets over the information that is submitted by the department in its incident reports during an Albany City Commission work session Tuesday morning.
APD Chief James Younger told commissioners his officers had been directed to complete reports with the “who, what, when and where” needed by media to report on incidents that occur in the city, but that information which might “jeopordize a case or put citizens in harm’s way” would not be included in reports given to the media. Read the full article here.
Records show high spending by Atlanta City Council
October 20, 2008: Expense reports show that several Atlanta City Council members have spent tens of thousands in taxpayer money to hire their relatives and pass out gifts and food to constituents.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution obtained the records under Georgia's Open Records Act. Read the full article here.
APD responds to criticisms
October 16, 2008: The chief of the Albany Police Department said Wednesday that a policy change to withhold portions of police incident reports was a “step towards the department continuing its level of professionalism.”
Tuesday, the narrative portions of initial incident reports from the APD were withheld from reporters and the public in a move some legal experts say is a violation of Georgia’s Open Records Laws. Read the full article here.
Councilman’s use of brother’s company questioned
October 15, 2008: Atlanta city councilman and mayoral candidate Ceasar Mitchell authorized $49,223 in payments from his taxpayer-funded expense account to a company owned and operated by his brother and former campaign manager, according to records obtained under Georgia’s Open Records Act. Read the full article here.
APD hiding parts of incident reports
October 15, 2008: Police officials with the Albany Police Department withheld portions of police reports from reporters Tuesday, reversing a longtime policy of full disclosure to police documents some say Georgia law requires them to provide.
Tuesday morning, Albany police staff refused to provide narrative portions of initial incident reports to an Albany Herald and WFXL reporters who requested the reports.
Narratives, generally the last page of multipage incident reports, explain the circumstances of the event and provides a context for police action. Read the full article here.
New Education Spending Tracker Announced
September 29, 2008: The Georgia Public Policy Foundation (GPPF) announced the launch of a new interactive transparency website that tracks education spending for the state's 180 school systems. See the Show Me the Spending update, 10/01/08 for the full story.
Library board work session appears to have violated open meetings law
September 26, 2008: Coweta Library Board Attorney Pat McKee reiterated Wednesday that last week's private board work session was legal, but he refused to back up his assertion with any explanation or legal citation.
The work session appears to have been held in violation of the Georgia Open Meetings Act. Read the full article here.
Library trustees call meeting for today
September 23, 2008: Under Georgia open meetings laws, all meetings of government bodies must be open to the public. The library board is subject to the law.
A closed session, often known as an executive session, is legal, but only for specific purposes. Those are: to discuss personnel issues, to discuss acquisition or sale of real estate, and to discuss pending or potential litigation. To qualify for the litigation exemption, there must be a valid threat of litigation. Read the full article here.
Taxpayers push for public records
September 19, 2008: A judge has ruled against a taxpayer activist group, but the Association for Fair Government isn't giving up.
In an Open Records lawsuit involving access to public records in the city of Augusta's Procurement Department, Judge Carl C. Brown Jr. ruled last week in the city's favor. He ruled the documents the association was requesting were actually a compilation. Read the full article here.
Gwinnett stadium price has fluctuated all summer
September 5, 2008: The cost for Gwinnett County’s taxpayer-funded minor league Braves stadium started to exceed the county’s $40 million estimate as early as March — less than two months after the project was announced — and reached as high as $62.4 million at one point, according to internal budget documents obtained Friday under Georgia’s Open Records Act.
A small group of Gwinnett Convention and Visitors Bureau and county officials ultimately decided to make $19 million in changes and upgrades, much of which aren’t required for the Braves to play ball. Read the full article here.
Clayton board holds closed meeting; member storms out
August 29, 2008: A new member of the beleaguered Clayton County school board accused his colleagues of meeting illegally Friday; the same secrecy that led Gov. Sonny Perdue to remove four other members.
On Thursday, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools revoked Clayton schools’ accreditation, citing a dysfunctional board, among other reasons. Perdue removed the four members hours later for violating the state Open Meetings Act and state code of ethics. Read the full article here.
Georgia launches new transparency website
‘Have Your Say’ — School system not so open with SPLOST ‘public’ records
August 26, 2008: On Aug. 4, a story in The Citizen indicated there was considerable disagreement between Fayette County Board of Education members Janet Smola and Dr. Bob Todd.
This seemed to surprise many people since the school board had never made a motion or voted for the school administration to investigate a SPLOST prior to the election.
In order to find out whether Dr. Todd or Mrs. Smola was correct, I made an Open Records request on Aug. 18 to Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, the public information officer for the Fayette County school system. Read the full article here.
Anson fights inquiry on wife
August 25, 2008: The general election may be more than two months away, but the opening salvo in what may very well turn into a bitter fight for the District 1 Dougherty County School Board seat was fired Monday by candidates David Maschke and Richard Anson.
Albany attorney Dawn Benson with the Watson, Spence, Lowe & Chambless firm sent a letter dated Aug. 20 to Maschke on behalf of Anson’s wife, Nancy, advising Maschke that he was not, as a sitting board member, permitted under the state’s Open Records Act to view any of Nancy Anson’s personnel files. Read the full article here.
911 operator had history of errors, sleeping on job
August 13, 2008: It took the death of Darlene Dukes for a 911 operator to finally lose her job in Fulton County.
Gina Conteh survived nearly 12 years handling emergency calls despite a personnel record that includes fights with co-workers, chronic tardiness, insubordination, repeated sleeping on the job and numerous mistakes routing emergency calls. Read the full article here.
Cop charged with murder had been subject of probes
August 1, 2008: An Atlanta police officer who was arrested in July on a murder charge in Cobb County has been investigated six times by the department's internal affairs unit for various allegations since he joined the force in April 2002.
In five of those investigations, the police department determined that Officer John Kevin Freeman had violated department policies, according to Freeman's disciplinary files, reviewed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an Open Records Act request. Read the full article here.
Amid layoffs, some city employees got hefty raises
August 1, 2008: As Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin announced her plan to lay off nearly 80 city workers last month, more than two dozen employees received raises in July, city records show.
Four workers saw their salaries jump by more than $15,000, the records show. Read the full article here.
MARTA chief's payout swells
July 23, 2008: MARTA paid $455,609 in severance pay and benefits to then-General Manager Richard J. McCrillis last year, when the transit agency's board fired him about midway through his contract to make way for a new leader.
A 22-year veteran, McCrillis was entitled to most of that pay under the terms of his two-year contract to run the organization. But the taxpayer-funded transit agency gave him $34,550 extra as part of an agreement he signed not to badmouth or sue the organization, according to records obtained under Georgia's Open Records Act. That agreement also prohibited McCrillis from talking about it except as required by law. Read the full article here.
Stephenson frequently in feuds over her debts
July 11, 2008: Grady Memorial Hospital's old board chose interim CEO Pam Stephenson in January to usher the public hospital through its darkest financial hours.
But money troubles have plagued Stephenson's personal and campaign affairs for years, public records show. Read the full article here.
Camden sheriff may have to pay legal fees
July 10, 2008: An argument over whether Camden County Sheriff Bill Smith should pay the legal fees of an attorney who sued him for seized drug records will take at least another 28 days to resolve.
Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams ordered Smith's lawyer to file a brief explaining why St. Marys lawyer Jim Stein should not be paid for filing a suit to get copies of the Sheriff's Office's seized assets account. Williams wants lawyer Terry Readdick to explain why Smith didn't cite specific state laws that would allow his office to deny an open records request for the records. Williams gave Readdick 14 days to file his brief and Stein 14 days to respond. Read the full article here.
Ga. court rules against media in old slayings
June 30, 2008: Georgia's top court has ruled that investigators can refuse media requests in "pending investigations" even in long-running cases where police have done little work in more than a decade, according to an opinion released Monday.
The Georgia Supreme Court's 4-3 decision gives authorities more leeway to withhold documents in investigations that are still open, a blow to media companies that have long argued for more access to pending crime files. Read the full story here.
Politician used nonprofit's e-mail database
June 28, 2008: A Cobb County commissioner used an organization's private e-mail database to send political e-mails without the group's consent, potentially jeopardizing its nonprofit status.
The list of about 500 names belongs to the Friends for the East Cobb Park, a fund-raising arm of the county-managed park. It collected the private e-mail addresses through its newsletter subscription solicitation on its Web site. Read the full story here.
Sheriff sued to hand over drug records
June 24, 2008: A St. Marys lawyer has sued Camden County Sheriff Bill Smith for refusing to provide records of seized drug assets.
Robbie Morgan says in the suit that Smith violated the Georgia Open Records Act in declining to provide copies of all checks, withdrawals, bank statements and deposits from state and federal seized assets accounts maintained by the Sheriff's Office for the past year. Read the full story here.
Judge orders release of Cypert document
June 12, 2008: Muscogee Superior Court Judge Frank Jordan Jr. has ordered the Muscogee County School District to disclose a letter in which lawyers filed notice of intent to file claims against the school system on behalf of victims of a Columbus High School teacher convicted of sexual abuse.
More than six months after the Muscogee County School District received the letter, Jordan ruled Tuesday for the Ledger-Enquirer in its quest for release of the document under the Georgia Open Records Act. The Jan. 25 request for the letter was made 17 days after it was written by attorney C. Frederick Overby. Read the full story here.
