Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis Jr., on Wednesday, Dec. 15 denied any wrongdoing by himself or his former chief of staff Tonia Gibbons related to a state Ethics Commission investigation.
The mayor’s office gave less than an hour’s notice of the press conference, and he declined to answer any questions.
Davis told those present that he did not know who was behind the dark money campaign to get voters to vote yes in a referendum on whether the James Brown Arena should be moved to the Regency Mall site. This was the second time he denied he was involved in the campaign. He said the same thing when questions arose at the time of the 2018 referendum.
However, email records indicate that on April 13, 2018, at 7:34 p.m., Davis sent an email to Augusta Blueprint telling the company which design to use. That company printed the billboard. The email also went to Regency Mall owner’s son, who paid for the billboard.
The emails indicate that Davis knew who was behind the campaign and that he was directly involved in deciding which billboard design would be used.
Davis has refused to sit down for an interview or answer questions about the matter.
Davis also failed to address a second ethics investigation into his own campaign. Instead, at the press conference, he focused mostly on the South of Gordon conference held in early 2017.
The mayor spent nearly $24,000 out of his budget to pay the Atlanta consulting firm Sizemore, Inc. related to the South of Gordon event as well as over $500 to produce architectural drawings for the proposed Regency Mall site. Those renderings were used on the billboards that are the subject of the ethics complaint.
Davis has previously denied knowing where the renderings had come from.
