It seems that city attorney Wayne Brown, has retrieved King Hardie Davis’s crown from city storage and is now sporting it on his head. There is no doubt that right now Brown is the most powerful man in government, and the consequences are showing.
Brown acts as the parliamentarian in city meetings, telling commissioners whether a motion is legal and even wording motions for them at times. He is also the one to determine if an item can be discussed in executive sessions, and he attempts to keep a firm grip on information being made public. Brown steers the conversation and direction of the city’s meetings and wields his influence both to steer his agenda and to protect his job.
Brown’s behavior with the commission behind closed doors is proof he needs to be reminded that he is not an elected official but an employee who lcan lose his job at any time six of the commissioners choose.
When faced with a $2 million bill from the IRS, Brown decided to call it a legal matter and took the opportunity to try and prevent the city’s years-long errors from becoming public by holding a legal session. An IRS bill only becomes a legal matter when the IRS makes a mistake and in this situation, the city is clearly at fault.
By “lawyering up,” Brown is only setting the stage to cost the taxpayers more money in fines and interest, not to mention the bills for the high-priced attorneys from Atlanta.
According to commissioners in the meeting, Mayor Garnett Johnson advocated negotiating with the IRS and possibly getting Congressman Rick Allen involved, Brown claimed he had already hired an outside law firm.
Documents provided to The Augusta Press prove that to be mislead at best. The contract with the Smith Gambrell Russell law firm was not signed until two days after the legal meeting with commissioners and Brown’s comments.
Instead of gaining commission approval, Brown struck off on his own and hired a law firm to further convolute an already convoluted matter.
Brown seems to not understand the open meetings laws and he struggles with following the basic tenets of the open records laws. His objective it seems is always to circumvent the law rather than assist the city in being transparent to its citizens.
Brown routinely has to be threatened with legal action for not releasing requested information and generally when he finally caves, the documents provided are littered with needless redactions.
Curiously, when the city is involved in legal action, rarely does Brown actually litigate the matters himself and instead farms the work out costing the city millions of dollars. The city law department sends out so many referrals they should change their name to “Legal subcontracting and referral.”
It is high time for the Augusta Commission to remove the crown from Brown’s head and remind him that he is an employee, not an elected official, and certainly not the emperor of Augusta.
