Do you remember Mr. Wright Lipford? In 1985, this man was a beam of ethical light in the convoluted fog of conflicts of interest that blows into Peachtree City from time to time.

Fifteen years ago, Mr. Lipford was the attorney for the Peachtree City Development Authority. He was offered a slice of a golden apple in that he was going to be a partner in a new bank — Peachtree National Bank. The bank was requesting $1.2 million in development bonds from the city's Development Authority. Would Lipford's being the authority's attorney and a director of the new bank pose a conflict of interest?

Did you know there are no term limits for Development Authority members? In fact, some of the members have endured on the authority for almost 30 years. Long-time members include Bob Truitt (accountant), Tom Farr (banker), Jim Fulton (real estate broker) with Steve Black and Tate Godfrey representing Pathway Communities (formerly PCDC). Why would anyone spend 30 years on the development authority?

Steve Black's Georgia Utilities received millions of dollars in tax-free development bonds to build a private sewer system (Development Authority minutes, Aug. 20, 1985 and Dec. 15, 1987) that aged not so gracefully and then he sold the system to the city in a closed deal for a handsome profit.

It was later concluded that Georgia Utilities was charging homeowners substantially higher rates than the industrial customers who used considerably more water and sewer. Since PCDC owns most of the industrial land in Peachtree City, placing the burden of sewer costs on the city's homeowners aided them in marketing their industrial land.

In fact, when the city purchased the sewer system and balanced the rates, Pathway's Tate Godfrey expressed a lot of concern over such a move (Dev. Auth. minutes, Aug. 17, 1998). Godfrey later expressed a desire to deposit the burden on the homeowners once again by asking the Peachtree City Water and Sewer Authority to offer incentives to industrial clients (Dev. Auth. minutes, Oct. 19, 1998).

Even Mayor Bob Lenox's Continuous Forms and Checks (CFC) threw their hat in the ring for $750,000 in bonds. This was not an incentive to attract Lenox's business to Peachtree City, because his business was well established in the city. This particular bond request proves that conflict of interest issues cannot get in the way of a dollar.

Development Authority member Bob Truitt was the accountant and auditor for Lenox's CFC and authority member Tom Farr was an officer with C&S Bank who was financing the bond. In businesslike fashion, the authority members voted that both Truitt and Farr had no conflict of interest issues and they were allowed to cast their votes in favor of issuing the bonds to CFC (Dev. Auth. minutes, May 28, 1985). Just what exactly constitutes conflict of interest with the Development Authority?

The Development Authority has an interesting history. From October of 1996 to September of 1997, it violated opens records law and did not turn the minutes to its meetings over to the City Clerk for public viewing. It was not until November of 1997 that they even expressed the need for a public information policy.

In addition, it was not until July of 1998 that they had a policy regarding the appropriateness of providing incentives to businesses (unfortunately, the policy was introduced long after millions of dollars of incentives had already been doled out to businesses, to which some of the members had close ties). In one authority meeting, a local citizen asked to see a copy of the authority's annual budget and the authority members had to discuss the request in executive session!

I cannot help but shake my head in disbelief when I read the Development Authority minutes. Unfortunately, our city has not learned from its past mistakes. Mayor Lenox and Councilman Brooks are setting us up for more government by association. If James Webb is reappointed as City Attorney March 2 while remaining on the board of directors of the new Bank of Georgia with Steve Black and other developmental interests, the governmental process will be downgraded to constant public suspicions of developmental favoritism. The loss of the public's trust equals poor government.

We have ethics ordinances prohibiting employees from engaging in outside employment that would interfere with the interests of their city service and the City Council should enforce the law and its intent.

In the Oct 2, 1985 Development Authority minutes, it was announced that Mr. Lipford released his interest in the Peachtree National Bank, thus setting a precedent for such potential conflict of interest cases. Mr. Lipford made the ethically correct decision and we can only hope that the City Council will do the same.

Steve Brown

Peachtree City

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