By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@thecitizennews.com

The effort to have all five Fayette County commissioners removed from office will continue, says organizer Denise Fair, but not right now.

Fair said last week she had intended to begin a new application for recall of the commissioners, but after reflection Tuesday changed her mind.

“Soccer is occupying a lot of my time right now,” she said. “Soccer is done in May.”

She said she still intends to begin again on the recall effort, but it will probably be too late to include the three commissioners who are currently facing reelection — Harold Bost, Herb Frady and Glen Gosa. State law forbids conducting recall elections involving public officials in the last 180 days of their terms.

Fair promised to work against Frady in his reelection bid, and against commission Chairman Bost if he should decide to run for reelection. Gosa has announced that he will retire from the board.

“I'm still going to be watching and listening,” Fair said Tuesday.

“I was stunned,” she said last week after the county Elections Board voted unanimously to disqualify recall applications filed by Fair and John Regan.

The person who notarized the applications also signed them as a sponsor, and that's not allowed according to Georgia law.

Fair and Regan began their recall campaign after commissioners unanimously voted recently to build a new county jail and courthouse on the site of the old one, in downtown Fayetteville. The two were among about 300 residents who actively pushed commissioners to build a new jail outside Fayetteville's downtown area.

The recall applications accused the commissioners of violating their oath of office, in which they promised to “work in the best interests of the entire county.” They failed to serve the best interests of Fayetteville residents by refusing to evaluate alternative locations for the planned jail, or to consider forming “a committee, to include citizens, to discuss the proposed jail issue,” according to the applications.

Recall advocates also cite a violation of the open meetings law last March. When commissioners learned that they had conducted a closed meeting in error, they alerted the press and submitted information about the mistake to local court authorities. The county solicitor's office declined to prosecute the commissioners, saying there was no intent on their part to violate the law.