Another story in The Augusta Press last week about how Mayor Hardie Davis spent money in his account last year and his failure to provide receipts and invoices for most of the spending, prompted me to write “An Open Letter to the Mayor, Part II.”
Dear King Hardie,
I’m not going to beat around the bush anymore. I’m going to get right to it with a few questions about things you spent taxpayers’ money on that nobody knows exactly what for.
First off, again I’m asking why you made a $522 donation to “Yolanda Rouse P Stroll to the Polls,” and another $500 donation to “Christi Harris C2P Stroll the Polls,” both in December. As I said last week, I’m not exactly sure what Stroll to the Polls is, but it sounds a lot like a political endeavor, but maybe not because I know you know it would be illegal to donate public money for political purposes, especially partisan ones. Donating tax money for partisan political purposes could trip you up on your way to higher office or a big government job somewhere when your term ends, and that would be a shame.
And speaking of higher office, people say you’re planning to run for a state office in the next election, like for lieutenant governor or secretary of state, maybe even governor, but that would jeopardize your close friendship with Stacey Abrams. At any rate, you’ll probably need a jam-up new resume which might explain the $436 payment to Resume Professionals in California in December and all the photography bills.
Also, becoming a member of an organization such as the Georgia Conservancy would enhance that resume which might be why you paid $2,500 for you and your wife to join. But it seems to me that you could have paid for the memberships yourself instead of billing taxpayers for them.
There are so many questions but so few answers about the money you’ve spent from your city accounts, especially your My Brother’s Keeper account. For example:
– $342 payment from the MBK account to “M Cook US Conf of Mayors” on Nov. 1? Did M Cook go to the conference too?
– $128.24 to host your staff to an off-site lunch at the Ritz Carlton’s Gaby’s by the Lake last fall. The only reason I can think of for it not costing more is that the staff must not have been as big as it is now.
– $604.34 payment to Kelly Promotion on Dec. 4, from the MBK account. We do hope you were promoting a Christmas party for the vulnerable young men of color MBK is supposed to help and not promoting yourself again.
Speaking of that, why would you make taxpayers pay $139 for your limousine service during the January U. S. Conference of Mayors? Or pay $413 for hairdos and makeup for your staff before being photographed in October?
Really though, the limousine and hairdos aren’t nearly as big a deal as the thousands of dollars of unexplained credit-card charges you could surely explain if only you would, not to mention the thousands of dollars you’ve paid to consultants. So many consultants. So many bills. But those are stories for other days.
About to Blow!
In court, they have what they call the “dynamite charge.” The judge gives the dynamite charge when a jury can’t reach a verdict and wants to call it quits. The judge calls jurors in and delivers that charge. How “dynamite” what he says is depends on the judge. But there must be a few powerful, time-tested phrases that work, such as, “You’ve had time to make up your mind about this case. God made the world in six days. You’ve had six weeks to think about a verdict. Now get back out there and try one more time to avoid a mistrial and having to do this whole miserable business all over again. I know you won’t be here, but, God forbid, I will.”
Something like that.
So, after weeks of trying to get copies of receipts and invoices from charges Davis put on his city-issued credit card and his two accounts last year, although ideally it’s only supposed to take three days, it seemed like somebody should give Davis the dynamite charge.
The Augusta Press publisher called the mayor’s office numerous times and wrote him twice asking for explanations about some of the charges. No response.
Davis’ chief of staff Petula Burks said his office had given him a copy of every receipt and invoice they could find. She tried to shift the blame to the city’s finance department, saying they had the records. But the finance department couldn’t have them because they were never turned in to finance. But even if they had been, finance wasn’t supposed to let anybody see them.
Anyway, everybody knows that leadership starts and/or stops at the top. It’s the mayor’s responsibility to get receipts and invoices for the public dollars he’s spent and turn them in to his under-worked staff whose job it is to make sure these expenses are documented and sent to finance. So why couldn’t they have done that to begin with instead of now trying to blame the finance department?
And then last week, someone must have given Davis the dynamite charge because his office suddenly agreed to supply the missing receipts and invoices within three days.
Dynamite or no dynamite, if they can do that, they either had them the whole time, or they hired David Copperfield to make them appear and Houdini to help Davis out of a bind.
Transparency, Fire Hosed
Remember the good ol’ days when interviews for high-ranking jobs were public? And don’t you think it’s still appropriate that somebody who’s in charge of protecting your life and well-being like the fire chief is vetted by the public instead of a group of secret consultants?
And don’t you think it’s a shame that Augusta commissioners were given only limited information about the finalists a day before the interviews began behind closed doors?
While state law was changed a few years ago to make closed-door interviews legal, remember, it was changed by politicians who don’t want to tell you anything, anyway.
But after all the secret stuff that went on over the finalists for the Augusta chief’s job, when the top finalist’s name reached the light of day, I understood why they kept it all secret.
His name is Antonio Burden, current deputy chief of the DeKalb County Fire and Rescue Department. He is a former fire marshal who was the subject of a 2014 investigation by WSB-TV in Atlanta. Reporters learned that a fire inspector told Burden that several church-related private schools were operating with serious fire code violations. The inspector told Burden the schools needed to be closed until they were made safe, and Burden told him not to go back onto the schools’ property.
You would think bombshell news like that would have Augusta officials rethinking their choice, especially since some commissioners have blasted the selection process.
You would think. And you would think the headhunters they hire would vet job candidates better, but they don’t. That’s how Augusta ended up with a deputy administrator who retired as county manager amid a state investigation of that county’s sales-tax program and a human resources director who fell out of his chair during a meeting at the Marble Palace one day. Well, anybody could do that if the meeting was boring enough.
Trust but Get a Receipt
In the public comment section of Tuesday’s Augusta Commission meeting, two businessmen were complaining about having to fill out forms to get COVID-19 grant money from HUD. The administrator shared with them the city had tried to make the forms as simple as possible by eliminating some of the confusing jargon. But I hope they didn’t cut out the part that getting receipts for the money they’re spending is a good business practice.
Those receipts would keep them from being criticized for wasting public money on things like haircuts, websites that don’t work and photographs that nobody has ever seen. It would keep them from looking like they were spending the money on Jose Cuervo Tequila when they were actually eating at Jose Cuervo Tequileria.
Receiving a grant like this means the public trusted you and expects you to spend the money wisely, just like they trusted elected officials, such as the mayor, to do the same thing.
Sylvia Cooper is a Columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
