By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

Now you must remember that this guy and his law firm is suing me, The Citizen and a private letter writer for libel for printing two letters to the editor about them. So take that into account in judging whether the following is worth your consideration.

The above is called a “public disclosure.” Remember that also for later reference.

The Peachtree City Council Thursday night will vote on reappointing James H. Webb, Jr. and his law firm — Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey of Peachtree City — to another year's term as the official city attorney and city court solicitor.

The appointment had been delayed from January because Councilman Bob Brooks worried that the sealed bid process had been “contaminated.” The two jobs had been put out for bids, and several attorneys and law firms applied, including some who wanted only one of the two bid positions. City staff contacted some bidders seeking clarification: Did you mean to bid on just solicitor or just city attorney, or what?

City staff then recommended — politely — dumping Webb and firm for other attorneys with lower bids. But Brooks thought the bidding should be redone, and so it was — after everybody knew what all the bids were.

Next time around, Webb and firm were still high bidders, but — guess what? — city staff had changed its collective mind and this time recommended Webb's reappointment.

As Gomer Pyle used to say — Gaw-uh-lee.

Meantime, local gadfly Steve Brown had written two letters raising questions about the propriety of one of Webb's outside business deals.

Seems that Webb and a group of local investors decided to pool their resources and start a local bank. Nothing wrong with that. What raised eyebrows was that two of the founding bank investors were local developers, and both had litigation history with the city while Webb was city attorney.

One had sued the city within the past two years — with Webb defending — and won a judgment that forced the city to accept 399 unwanted apartments on the city's west side.

The other developer currently has a pending lawsuit against Peachtree City contesting the traffic impact ordinance, part of the west side Home Depot fight.

Now, it would raise my blood pressure if my lawyer went into business with somebody suing me at the very same time my lawyer is supposed to be defending my interests in court. Does anybody besides me see a problem with this scenario?

But that is the exact situation in Peachtree City. The city's lawyer — paid with city taxpayers' money — is defending the city at the same time the lawyer is entering into a for-profit start-up business relationship with a major developer who is suing the city over an important public issue — traffic impact and development on the city's auto-choked west side.

How can Webb's interests not seem conflicted? And how can he fulfill Canon 9 of the State Bar of Georgia's Code of Conduct? That canon says, “An attorney shall avoid even the appearance of impropriety....”

But a majority of the city council doesn't seem to have a problem with that. And the law firm just doesn't see what all the fuss is about.

Brown's letters incense Webb and firm and they take 14 minutes of unopposed city council time to castigate Brown, The Citizen and me and then announce their libel suit, which, they state menacingly, “will be lengthy and expensive.”

At about the same time, a former city planning commissioner with a grudge and a good memory filed an ethics complaint against Webb. The complaint alleged that Webb gave advice and took part in public discussions in 1997 about a proposed expansion of city buffer requirements along Ga. highways 54 and 74. The complaint charged that Webb was an officer in a company that owned property along Hwy. 54 that was directly affected by the buffer, the expansion of which might have lowered the value or restricted the use of the land.

The complaint alleged that Webb never disclosed his potential conflict of interest during the discussions.

The city brought in the Griffin city attorney to advise an ethics board hearing the complaint. The board never heard any evidence about the alleged conflict of interest because the Griffin city attorney told them Webb wasn't covered by the Peachtree City ethics ordinance. Why? Because Webb was an independent contractor and not a public official. Case dismissed.

Gaw-uh-lee, again. How convenient for Webb. A technical pass. But wait —

In a story in the AJC, Webb was reported to have said that “most or all” of the city council at the time knew of his interest in the affected land.

But that begs some tough questions — questions the city council should answer for the public before reappointing Webb.

Question: Why did Webb not file a written disclosure, or at least make a verbal disclosure to the public about his interest in the land? And if even one council member knew nothing of Webb's interests, didn't Webb have an ethical obligation to inform that unknowing council member?

Question: Was the public's interest served by the total lack of any affirmative disclosure by Webb of that particular conflict possibility? Note: the buffering requirements were subsequently watered down.

Question: If the above allegations are true, was that not a textbook case of conflict of interest? And if so, what are the ethical implications?

The ethics board did not get to the real question: Was there a conflict of interest?

And what about the most recent problem area: Webb's going into business with a guy who is suing the very city that Webb is supposed to be defending? Doesn't that arrangement cause the public to lose confidence in their government?

Is the city council even interested in discovering the answers?

We'll find out Thursday night.

And to complete my own full disclosure: Obviously, I think Jim Webb has a different definition of conflict of interest than I do. And I believe he has a different perspective on ethical behavior than I do.

I suggest that the citizens of Peachtree City deserve better than they have gotten from Webb and firm.

And if the council ignores all the red flags flapping in the breeze and reappoints Webb and firm anyway without a full and complete examination of all the areas of possible improprieties, then the council itself will have failed the taxpaying citizens of Peachtree City and must be held accountable.

Correction and clarification

A sentence in the opinion column by publisher/editor Cal Beverly in The Citizen May 3 incorrectly stated that the law firm of Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey was currently involved in defending Peachtree City against a developer's lawsuit concerning a traffic impact ordinance.

In fact, according to the city's spokesperson, Betsy Tyler, an Atlanta law firm is currently handling the defense. “The City of Peachtree City is being defended by Kirk Fjelstul of the Atlanta firm of McCollough & Sherrill, who was assigned by our liability insurance firm (all such cases will be so assigned in the future, since our purchase of the insurance last November),” Tyler said.

It is the policy of The Citizen to correct errors upon notification.

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