(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column of those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
We survived the Ides of March and a slew of candidates qualifying for mayor and open Augusta Commission seats, but mayoral candidate Steven Kendrick didn’t survive the week as Richmond County Chief Deputy Tax Commissioner.
Kendrick resigned as tax commissioner on March 10, to run for mayor, and his chief deputy Chris Johnson, who automatically became tax commissioner, appointed Kendrick chief deputy. Then Probate Judge Harry James administered oaths of office to both. Kendrick publicized the changes on the tax commissioner’s website, and the next thing you know, somebody noticed it, and folks started saying things like, “That job swap is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen lately in local politics. It’s so brazen and in-your-face as to be insulting.”
So, Kendrick announced he’ll take a leave of absence without pay until the May 24 election.
Still, I believe that his scheme to be named deputy tax commissioner on his resignation is a slap in the face to the honest people in Augusta (yes, there are still a few). His action reinforces the notion that everyone in government is a crook and out for himself.
To appease his critics, Kendrick offers to keep the deputy’s job but take an unpaid leave of absence. While he won’t get a check, such a move allows him to maintain his status as a public employee and keep his generous employee benefits. It also takes the position off book, so the tax commissioner is deprived of a working deputy.
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Kendrick claimed he cooked up this charade to support the new commissioner. If the new commissioner was the office’s deputy for ten years, he ought to know how things should work – or he should never have been the deputy.
Someone should file an Open Records Request for the communications between Kendrick and his then-deputy to learn just how this rotten egg was hatched. Maybe someone here at The Augusta Press will do it.
Kendrick likes to tout his work with leadership groups and mentoring young people. Is this the message he’s sending them – look out for number one, first?
“He’s the chairman of the E3 Leadership group,” said rival mayoral candidate Marion Williams. “What kind of leadership is that? If that’s leadership, I’m glad I’m not a part of it.”
Folks who keep up with such things can’t help noticing that during the past few elections, Kendrick has been in the background selecting and supporting candidates that might help further his political career.
Was it a coincidence that Augusta commissioners appointed the former director of the motor vehicle division in Kendrick’s office, Takiyah Douse, as interim city administrator. Kendrick downplayed his role, but what else would you expect? And could it be a coincidence that Democrat Lynn Gladney, director of motor vehicle registration in the tax commissioner’s office, is running for the District 130 seat in the Georgia House of Representatives and highly favored to win in that district against Republican Dan Swenson? In that position, Gladney could potentially vote on pay raises for the mayor and commissioners. After all, he’s good at getting pay raises. He managed to get the tax commissioner’s pay raised from $110,400 plus a $4,196 supplement in 2012, to $130,334 and $4,197 supplement in 2017.
Kendrick is also on record as saying he thinks the mayor’s pay should be increased. As it stands now, if he’s elected, he’ll have to take a whopping pay cut.
Another Kendrick associate, Stacey Pulliam, a member of the E3 Leadership Foundation board Kendrick chairs, is running for the District 2 Augusta Commission seat.
Someone emailed to say that Kendrick’s job-swap shenanigan has earned him the title of Hardie-Lite, but Hardie-on-Steroids might be a better title.
She Said, She Said, He Said
And after all we’ve reported and documented in The Augusta Press since this time last year about Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. playing fast and loose with taxpayer’s money, is it any surprise that two of his former executive assistants have gone public about the financial irregularities they witnessed working in the mayor’s office?
Latisha McMillan is the second former employee to corroborate claims made earlier by Jessica Buffkin that Davis used his office to enrich and promote himself.
And is it any surprise that Davis says they’re lying?
McMillan spoke to Scott Hudson, senior reporter for The Augusta Press, about her two years working for Davis, and she says the Mayor’s Office became a hostile work environment because she refused to do things she believed would break the law.
“Every time my phone rings, and I don’t recognize the number, I figure it might be the FBI,” she said.
When McMillan came on board in 2018, one of her first tasks was to help organize the Mayor’s Masters Reception. Traditionally, the annual reception was funded by private donations, but that year the Augusta Commission allocated money for it. Still, Davis kept on raising donations that might have totaled as much as $100,000. And shortly thereafter, the account was taken away from her and given to a consultant who was part of the mayor’s “outside office,” McMillan said.
Davis had two offices, the inside office and the outside office, and when it came to matters like the Masters account, he would use the outside office and pay them as consultants, McMillan said, according Hudson’s story in The Augusta Press.
“So, I saw the money being raised, but I don’t know where it went or how it was spent,” said McMillan, who has a degree in accounting from Colorado Technical University.
Consultants were also paid out of Davis’ My Brother’s Keeper’s account, which McMillan likened to a money laundering operation where almost no money went to its intended purpose of mentoring young men of color.
McMillan says she balked when told to cut checks that had nothing to do with the program, and the account was taken away from her.
Buffkin corroborates McMillan’s assertions about My Brother’s Keeper and says that “suddenly” the staff was told not to discuss the matter, that the program was being administered by the “outside” staff.
According to Buffkin and McMillan, the Mayor’s Office ran the mayor’s campaign to move the James Brown Arena to the Regency Mall site, a campaign the Georgia Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission is investigating on grounds of the use of “dark” money. Both women insist that the “outside” office was used for most of the work to afford Davis with plausible deniability.
Davis says the women’s allegations are lies.
“If they noticed any wrongdoing years ago, they could and should have spoken out,” he said.
According to McMillan, the reason she has not come forward before now is because the retaliation against her for not carrying out questionable orders continued long after her resignation. She says she almost became homeless because no one would hire her after she left the mayor’s office.
“There were several companies I applied to who told me that the mayor had told them I was incompetent and could not even use (Microsoft) Word, which is ridiculous,” McMillan said, adding, “My conscience is clear. I never used the mayor’s credit card at Honey Baked Ham, and I refused to do anything I thought could be illegal.”
Davis said his only involvement in the arena site campaign was approving one email.
“There’s a single email, that single email says, ‘I like that,’” Davis said.
Davis also said, “Every dollar that’s been spent in the Mayor’s Office can be accounted for.”
Well, it would be a whole lot easier to believe that if only we could see the receipts for every dollar that’s been spent in the mayor’s office.
Woodman Spare that Tree! Touch Not a Single Bough!
City officials met with Augusta Tree Commission members Friday to talk about Commissioner Sean Frantom’s controversial proposal to cut down 14 oak trees in the Augusta Common.
And that’s what they did.
Frantom did not attend, but Tree Commission Chairman LeRoy Simkins said a lot of other folks did.
“It was a vibrant meeting,” he said. “Trees of Augusta was there, several garden clubs. There was not one single person there that was not in total opposition to taking those trees down. Campbell Vaughn, the extension agent, spoke against it.”
Cranston Engineering Vice President Tom Robertson, who developed the original design for the Common in 1999, addressed several concerns on both sides of the issue, according to Skyler Andrews, reporter for The Augusta Press.
“It seems like an alternate solution would be to replace the sidewalk rather than cut down the trees,” Robertson said.
Commissioner Catherine McKnight was among those who vehemently opposes removing the trees, according to Andrews.
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“I’m totally against trees being removed,” McKnight said. “You go to Savannah, you go to Hilton Head, you see pines. They have trees everywhere. They have roots all over and the people don’t complain, they love it. We need to keep it and I will be totally against it on the Commission.”
According to Andrews, Ben Brewton, an attorney with the Balch & Bingham law firm and treasurer for Trees for Augusta, interjected, saying that the City of Augusta has essentially waged a “war on trees.”
“The City of Augusta does have a plan for street trees, and the plan is that no more are to be planted,” said Brewton. “We’ve dealt with the engineering department, and they’ve made it fairly clear: don’t come to us to replace trees along tree-lined streets in Augusta, because we’re not going to approve the replacement of that.”
Augusta Parks and Recreation Director Maurice McDowell, who agreed with Frantom when Frantom proposed removing the trees during a recent commission meeting, will meet with Simkins again. However, any decision about the fate of the trees would be made by the Augusta Commission.
“If they do it, they would be flying in the face of everything that was said today,” Simkins said. “I do believe they should consult an arborist to address some of the problems that exist down there with the roots and the turf without cutting down the trees.”
The city cut down the trees around the James Brown statue a few years ago and now the plaza is so hot in the summertime nobody can bear to stay there for long in the summertime.
Locked Out
To those of you who are my Facebook friends, don’t expect to hear from me for a while. I have been locked out of my Facebook account because I have so many friends, the Facebook know-it-alls think I must have two-step identification to access my account. I’ve tried to follow the instructions for setting up this two-step identification, but have failed. Miserably. I even got the Google authentication app and started doing what it told me to do. It said to use my phone camera to take a picture of the QR Code. So, I did everything up to that point, but I couldn’t find a QR code, try as I might, just a picture of my feet as I was lying in bed trying to do this idiotical electronical stuff. Did I say idiotical? That’s me for even trying. I guess Google authentication and I don’t speak the same language.
Sylvia Cooper is a columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
