What type leaders do we want on our Board of Commissioners?

5/10/08 Shortly after I was elected to the Fayette County Board of Commissioners we went into Executive Session to discuss a personnel item. Personnel, real estate acquisition and certain legal items are the only things elected Boards can discuss in other than public meetings. No problem! After discussion of the evaluation and pay status of one individual we slipped into a discussion about county pay policies in general.

The following morning a couple of us felt we had inadvertently violated the Georgia Open Meetings law. We had released all staff, including our County attorney to discuss the individual in question. Our problem would never have occurred if our County attorney had been present. We never made that mistake again!

Only the five of us knew we had erred. There were no witnesses. Nevertheless, we reported our oversight to the media and county solicitor – we turned ourselves in! The press was quite surprised by our admission; they rightfully reported it and we received some deserved criticism from the public.

Even though we made no votes, no decisions or agreements to take any action, we did it and “took our lumps”. Over time scores of people complimented us for our integrity.

By comparison lets explore a somewhat similar transgression committed by our current commissioners. Shortly after they fired our long-serving county attorney and prior to hiring his replacement they announced they were going into Executive Session (a private meeting) to discuss a legal issue. Commissioner Pfeifer cautioned the Board that he believed they could not discuss a legal issue in Executive Session without the County Attorney present (the purpose for such a discussion is to get legal advice from your attorney). The other commissioners dismissed Pfeifer’s concerns in a less than courteous manner and proceeded to discuss the issue “behind closed doors”.

The Georgia Attorney General’s office, in response to an inquiry from Commissioner Pfeifer, affirmed that he was right and they had indeed violated the law.

How did my opponent Mr. Horgan and the other commissioners react to their transgression? They simply changed the facts. Once commissioner claimed he had stated it was really a personnel issue as they were proceeding to Executive Session. They voted to change the official County records, which to this day indicate they did nothing wrong. The “cover up” was complete.

The problem they now have is that both meetings were filmed and their attempt to change the truth is known to both them and untold hundreds of others who have seen the truth on YouTube, Google video, Yahoo video and other similar sites.

The obvious question is what type leaders do we want on our Board of Commissioners? We will never get perfect people. However, some elected officials will admit to and learn from a mistake. Others choose to ignore the law and, when caught, immediately attempt a “cover up”. Unfortunately Mr. Horgan and the majority of our current Commissioners, as demonstrated by their actions, are in the latter category.