In a special called closed-door meeting on May 10, Augusta Commissioners debated for an hour and a half and then came out of the secret session and voted to allocate $62,500 to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office for the purchase of surveillance cameras.
District 10 Commissioner John Clarke, who has pushed to allocate the money, heralded the decision as giving the Sheriff’s Office more tools to fight the recent spate of crime in Augusta.
The only problem is that the closed-door meeting was in violation of the Georgia Open Meetings law, according to David Hudson, attorney for the Georgia Press Association.
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Hudson says that the law states only pending litigation, pending real estate transactions and matters pertaining to a specific employee may be discussed in closed session.
“They can’t discuss policy or budgetary matters away from the public like that. It’s disgraceful that they do not have the fortitude to discuss a controversial matter in the open. It’s a shame,” Hudson said, adding, “and it is the First Amendment right of the commissioners to disclose exactly what was said in the meeting.”
Clarke says the city attorney, Wayne Brown, was present for the meeting and did not advise the commission that such conversation in secret was against the law.
“I’m not an attorney; that’s why we have an attorney. As a layman, I have to assume that our attorney knows the law,” Clarke said.
However, Hudson says that ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating the law.
The protocol breach came in a later meeting of the Public Services Committee with four alcohol license requests placed on the agenda as addendums. While it is normal for some meetings to have last minute additions to the agenda, it is not supposed to apply to alcohol licenses or zoning matters.
According to Clerk of Commission Lena Bonner, the four alcohol license requests were not sent in by the Planning and Zoning Department by the deadline for advance publication, which is the law.
All zoning and licensing petitions are supposed to be published the week prior to the hearing of the petitions to give the public time to respond and contest the petition.
Three of the four alcohol license requests were made by David Maloney of Alpharetta, Ga. for Gas Express locations at 2058 Central Avenue, 1121 15th Street and 912 Walton Way. All are existing locations.
“That’s a lot of alcohol in district one,” one unknown commissioner mused in front of a live microphone.
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The last added petition was for the Amman Food Mart, located at 1675 Olive Road.
Rather than forward the requests to the full commission with no recommendation, the committee instead went ahead and voted to approve the licenses without the window for public input. The licenses automatically now go to the full commission consent agenda.
Later, more (non-alcohol related) last minute additions were made causing a clearly frustrated District 7 Commission Sean Frantom to protest.
“This is not a good practice for us to be in,” Frantom said.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
