ARC board defers decision on seating
developers, votes to allow public comment during board meetings, by David
Pendered
The issue of whether the ARC board should
seat citizen members who are developers who lead self-taxing-and-spending
entities called CIDs gained additional clarity Wednesday.
Carl Alfred Swennson, a Stockbridge resident
with the Patrick Henry Board of Review, videotaped the ARC meeting Wednesday as
part of his effort to record an entity that he says is part of a growing system
of, “taxation without representation.” Credit: David Pendered
The ARC again released at its monthly meeting
a response that cites two legal opinions and a ruling from a former state
revenue commissioner. The opinions say, essentially, developers are not
precluded from serving on the board of the Atlanta Regional Commission even if
they serve on a board overseeing a community improvement district.
The ARC board agreed to give itself at least
another month to think through the issue. Cobb County Chairman Tim Lee urged
members to deliberate, “robustly, wholeheartedly, and with quiet thought.”
Lee, in recent times, has been the subject of
harshly worded criticism concerning the taxpayer funding of the future Braves
stadium, as well as his relations with the development community that helped
cinch the Braves deal for Cobb.
Lee helped assemble the Braves deal in
collaboration with Tad Leithead, a commercial real estate advisor. Leithead’s
former employer was involved with two anchors of the Cumberland business
district – operating Atlanta Galleria, a mixed use development, and developing
the county-owned Cobb Galleria Centre.
At the time of talks with the Braves,
Leithead chaired the boards of both the ARC and the Cumberland Community
Improvement District. The Cumberland CID is helping to pay for the Braves’
future SunTrust Park.
Incidentally, Leithead’s term on the ARC
board expired at the end of 2013 and he wanted to stay on for another term, as
a member if not as chair. His allies couldn’t muster the votes and, after
months of wrangling, the board seated Minuard “Mickey” McGuire to represent
Leithead’s former district – parts of Atlanta, Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton
counties.
In one other aside, the ARC board voted
Wednesday to allow public comment at board meetings. Previously, average
citizens could speak only during committee meetings.
The entire issue of allowing developers who
serve on a CID board to serve on the ARC board is the heart of a discussion
brought to a head by Fayette County Chairman Steve Brown. Brown also propelled
the debate over allowing public comment at board meetings.
Brown contends that public trust in the ARC
is eroded when the public sees developers serving on CIDs, where they can spend
millions of taxpayer dollars to build infrastructure to promote developments,
as well as on the ARC board – where they vote to set the region’s priorities
for spending millions of federal transportation dollars. According to Brown,
one way to promote public confidence in the ARC is to ensure that ARC’s board
is controlled by elected officials, who are accountable to their constituents.
Citizen members are accountable to other
board members, who vote to seat them. Brown went to work when the ARC began
devising new bylaws.
The first public discussion of the process
appears to have occurred in May. The process was expected to be little more
than a routine exercise needed to enable a new management structure the ARC
board had authorized in 2011. It’s been anything but routine. Brown sent a list
of eight comments about the latest bylaws proposal. The ninth comment was
personal.
Referring to Leithead, Brown wrote: “I have
personally faced the wrath of the previous ARC Chairman, a CID board member
with no accountability to the region’s citizens, being told that my opposition
to a regional proposal would make things difficult for me. The thought of no
citizen recourse to remove such ARC board members along with the enhanced
centralization of power of the ARC Chairman is indefensible to any person
claiming to want fairness and accountability in the system.”
To this comment, the bylaws committee
responded: “We cannot comment on your relationship with the prior Chairman.
However, if you believe that any current or future Chairman is acting in an
unethical or illegal manner, the agency’s bylaws enable any member to bring an
ethics complaint against that individual. Removal of an ARC member-at-large for
unethical or unbecoming conduct is a matter which the General Assembly has
delegated to the ARC board to adjudicate.” Here are some pertinent portions of
the letter to Brown from the bylaws committee. The committee is chaired by Buzz
Ahrens, the chairman of Cherokee County’s board of commissioners:
A dozen citizens signed up to speak at the
ARC board meeting Wednesday. Most called on the ARC to allow public comment, a
procedure the board added to its bylaws later in the meeting.
Brown: “Members at Large – A CID board member
cannot act as a Member at Large, providing that ‘Members at large may hold no
elective or appointed public office nor be employed by any of the political
subdivisions of the Area.’”
Committee: “You assert that a CID board
member cannot serve as a member-at-large. However, this does not align with
current legal opinions on this matter, as we are aware. Attached are the
Attorney General’s legal opinion and an Ethics Commission legal opinion from
several years ago, concerning the very question of whether CIDs’ constitute
public bodies and whether their board members are considered to be public
officials. These opinions hold that CIDs are not public agencies, nor are their
board members considered public officials. [The ARC also released a letter from
then state Revenue Commissioner Jerry Jackson.] “Until there is a new Attorney
General opinion, new case law, or a new law which alters this status, the
Atlanta Regional Commission should adhere to the standing opinions that CID’s
and their board members are not public agents; and therefore, CID board members
may serve as members-at-large on the ARC Board of Commissioners.”
Brown: “Chair – The region suffers a
significant loss of accountability by having a Member at Large as the Chairman
of the ARC. The region’s citizens have no recourse with a Member at Large as
Chairman. Lack of trust is already a crucial issue.”
Committee: “Whether or not a member-at-large
serving as Chairman leads to a loss of accountability is a matter we would
expect board members to consider when they cast their votes for chairman. The
regions’ citizens’ recourse regarding the performance of anyone serving as
chairman is vested in the board members, both public and private, who elect the
chairman every two years. “We would expect that the members will act
responsibly to select a chairman (or a new chairman, if need be), who will
comport himself or herself in a professional, responsible, and ethical manner.
We are certain that is the case when our current chairman was selected. We
should also point out that in the long history of the agency, it is only the
previous chairman and the current chairman who have been members-at-large.
Prior to this, the ARC chair has been a county commission chairman.”
Source:http://saportareport.com/blog/2014/09/arc-board-defers-decision-on-seating-developers-votes-to-allow-public-comment/
Comments
ARC was responsible for approving the project
list for the failed 2012 T-SPLOST vote.
The Georgia Legislature had approved HB 277 that empowered ARC to
compile a list of projects to correct the road traffic congestion, primarily on
I-285 in Atlanta. The project list
included a $3.5 billion MARTA expansion and $3.5 billion for disconnected roads
and “economic development” projects. It
failed to solve the congestion problem and failed to pass. Voters had ample evidence that the $7 billion
had turned into a political “slush fund” and the value of the projects didn’t
justify the costs.
The vote on July 31, 2012 reported that 66%
of voters in the Atlanta region voted NO.
Only 3 of the other 11 regions approved their project list. Voters rejected the entire notion of
“regional taxation”. They want their tax
dollars spend in their own counties.
ARC is clearly seen by voters as a
self-dealing, odd duck political entity packed with cronies looking to squander
tax dollars. The overcharges for the 167 projects voted down in the Atlanta
region averaged 50%. Plan B is to have cities and counties to do their job to
fix their roads and to have the State join with DeKalb and Fulton to fix I-285
with a grid.
ARC appears to continue to support more
attempts to expand MARTA. Voters know the $ billions this would cost would be
wasted and that ARC is a dangerous tax eater.
The real issue is whether or not ARC and the
other 11 Regional Commissions should exist at all. The Georgia State Legislature needs to repeal
HB 1216 and HB 277 that created regional commissions. Appointed, unelected
regional governance has ruined California and is damaging all States where it
exists, including Georgia. It violates
“home rule”, cuts voters out of the picture, usurps city and county decision-making
and is based on the soviet model of governance.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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