ARC is Ripe for Corruption

ARC board debates barring CID board members from ARC’s board as new rep from DeKalb County takes office, by David Pendered

Competing visions of who can serve as a citizen member of the board of the Atlanta Regional Commission emerged Wednesday as the board works to update its bylaws.

Steve Brown

Fayette County Chairman Steve Brown has asked the board to create two rules: Term limits for citizen members; and to bar citizen members from service on the ARC board if they serve on the board of a community improvement district – the self-taxing districts that have popped up around the region.

The ARC board’s bylaws working group agreed to consider Brown’s suggestions. The issue raises sensitive political issues, given that ARC Chairman Kerry Armstrong is a citizen member who serves as chairman of the North Fulton CID.

By way of quick explanation, the ARC board is comprised of two groups – elected county chairpersons and mayors, and community leaders. The community leaders, called citizen members, are elected to the ARC board by the ARC board and represent various regional districts.

Brown said he thinks the public wants greater transparency and control over the citizen members. Brown noted that voters ousted county chairs after the 2012 transportation sales tax initiative and a third chair narrowly held onto his office: Kerry Armstrong, B.J. Mathis lost her seat in Henry County; Eldrin Bell lost his seat in Clayton County; Tim Lee kept his seat in Cobb County by a slim margin.

“Citizens have the ability to extract the elected officials, but they don’t have the ability to extract the elected citizens,” Brown said. “It’s just a matter of accountability.”

Armstrong said after the ARC meeting that his goals are to ensure that the bylaw review continues on schedule for adoption of new bylaws this autumn, and that the process results in bylaws that reflect the reorganization the ARC board approved in December 2012.

ARC officials say the bylaws need to be updated to reflect the changes associated with the reorganization. The bylaws are still based on ARC being organized as four departments rather than as three centers.

The centers are intended to shift ARC’s focus from a single topic, such as transportation, to a broader issue, such as mobility. The purpose is to frame issues in ways that invite broader solutions, ARC Executive Director Doug Hooker said when he unveiled the reorganization in January 2013.

DeKalb County Interim CEO Lee May rises to congratulate newly installed ARC board member Minuard “Mickey” McGuire. Credit: David Pendered

Brown said Wednesday that his goal is for the new bylaws to curb the influence of citizen members. ARC’s board is comprised of 23 elected officials and 15 citizen members, plus a representative of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, according to ARC’s website.

Brown said the governance issue is increasingly important as metro Atlanta seeks regional solutions to its big challenges.

“We are entering an era of possible regional taxation, regional transit system, regional governance situation,” Brown said. “You better make sure you have people who understand the best interests of the citizens.”

This isn’t the first time the role of citizen members has emerged. A legal review once split hairs in determining that CID members are eligible to serve on ARC’s board. The determination was that CID service does constitute an appointment to public office. However, because a CID is not a political subdivision under state law, CID service does not render a citizen ineligible from ARC service.

The image is fuzzy, but the handshake is historic as DeKalb County Interim CEO Lee May congratulates newly installed ARC board member Minuard “Mickey” McGuire. Credit: David Pendered

Armstrong is the second citizen member to serve as ARC’s chair. Armstrong succeeds Tad Leithead, who served as chair for four years of his 14-year term on the ARC.

Leithead lost a hotly contested reelection bid to Minuard “Mickey” McGuire, an urban planner backed by DeKalb County’s interim CEO, Lee May. McGuire took the oath of office Wednesday.

Leithead made the following observation about citizen members serving as chairman in a newsletter issued by the North Fulton CID following Armstrong’s election as chairman:

• “Four years ago, I was the first citizen member ever elected chairman of ARC. I think this election shows that the citizen member experiment was a success and that citizen members are uniquely qualified to represent the entire region. Kerry has tremendous experience in both the business and civic life of metro Atlanta. He is truly committed to collaboration and to the region, both of which will serve ARC well.”
  See more at: http://saportareport.com/blog/2014/06/arc-board-debates-membership-rules-as-new-rep-from-dekalb-county-takesoffice/?utm_source=Saporta+Report+List&utm_campaign=a26c6a8b84-SR07_01_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bea7737106-a26c6a8b84-290176185&mc_cid=a26c6a8b84&mc_eid=bdc1b88e00#sthash.wAWC3vri.dpuf
  Source: Saporta Report, by David Pendered. June 25th, 2014, 5:45 pm
  Comments
  “The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Board is composed of officials of political subdivisions and private citizens representing districts of approximately the same population within the 10-county, 68-city Atlanta region.”
  The board has 2 elected officials from the 10 counties and the City of Atlanta.  Fulton has 3 elected officials or 23 members who are politicians, joined by 15 citizen members appointed by the board.  Most citizen members are bankers, developers or otherwise involved in developing commercial property as are some of the elected members.
  ARC is primarily active in Fulton, DeKalb and the City of Atlanta.  The other 8 counties are exurbs or rural and their citizens have little interest in ARC initiatives. This structure is flawed and pretends to determine the needs of the rural counties.  ARC is an unconstitutional Regional soviet that violates home rule and appears “self-dealing”. 
  These regional governance entities are creating mayhem in California and would be usurping municipal governments if we had approved the T-SPLOST and given them tax support, but we didn’t.  ARC pretends to be in charge of our transportation needs and pushes expensive public transit.  Voters remain opposed because public transit is too expensive and requires massive subsidies.  ARC is currently a toothless monster, but we need to repeal the state laws that keep it alive, namely HB 1216 and HB 277.  The purpose of regionalism is to replace elected municipal government.  Steve Brown is the only ARC board member who sees the danger. His attack on conflicts of interest are valid.  ARC is as “self-dealing” as it gets. They pretend to give voters what they need, but they tend to support whatever makes them money.
  Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader