Wednesday, January 29, 2003
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Wednesday, January 29, 2003 |
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Mayor takes Council heat By JOHN
MUNFORD
It may have been an understatement to say several Peachtree City Council members were upset with Mayor Steve Brown for issuing a press release that indicated the council was responding to allegations in a letter to The Citizen from former Mayor Bob Lenox. In fact, Councilman Dan Tennant was so perturbed about the matter that he was prepared to ask council to censure the mayor with a public reprimand at last Thursday's council meeting when the matter was discussed. Tennant confirmed Tuesday that he had prepared a written motion for council to censure Brown for sending out the press release under the guise of "the city" instead of indicating he was the author of the press release. Tennant said he declined to call for the censure after seeing Brown's reaction to criticism from Tennant and council members Annie McMenamin and Murray Weed over the press release. "I was really upset about how the whole thing was handled," Tennant said, adding that he felt the mayor's action was a violation of the city charter. "... If the mayor had been defiant or been very offensive or defensive about it, I was prepared to go ahead (with the censure)." But in the end, Tennant said, "I was reasonably satisfied that it was not required." During the council meeting, Brown admitted that he wrote the release but said he felt compelled to respond. "When we have an elected official who accuses our city of financial mismanagement, I think the city needs to step forward with documented facts in order to preserve the integrity of the system," Brown said. In the letter, Lenox criticized Brown for "squandering" nearly a million dollars set aside for road projects to purchase two parcels on Ga. Highway 54 West at the entrance to the Wynnmeade subdivision. Lenox pointed out that the land was purchased "for possible use as a passive park, maybe a tot lot." The city also plans to use the property to locate a new cart path bridge that would cross over Hwy. 54. Brown agreed not to invoke the city's name in a press release without getting council approval. "I'll be glad to say who it came from," Brown said. Tennant also apologized during the meeting for earlier accusing Councilman Steve Rapson of coauthoring the press release because in fact Rapson didn't see a final copy of the release, instead only giving advice about the release to the mayor over the phone. Tennant was joined by McMenamin and Weed in criticizing Brown for failing to claim authorship of the release and instead making it look like the entire council was responding to Lenox's criticism. The conversation got heated at times, and on some issues the council had agreed to disagree. "I looked in the charter and it doesn't say the city is Steve Brown or Steve Rapson and/or both," McMenamin said. "And it came across that this was a public statement being made by the city council and that was absolutely not the case. ... I was highly insulted to pick up the paper and think that I had been bypassed when the city is going to make a press release." Tennant said he thought it was totally inappropriate for "the city" to respond to a letter to the editor in the newspaper. "If the newspaper had called the mayor or any of us to ask us what our response was to what Mr. Lenox said in his letter, that's fine, that's news, that's what they're supposed to be doing," Tennant said. "Or vice versa, Steve Brown could've picked up the phone and said, 'Hey this is bull hockey,' or whatever. "But don't be putting out releases on city letterhead stating that this is our official position," Tennant said. Brown said that he was defending the council's actions. "Mr. Mayor, I don't need you to defend anything that I've done," Weed said. "... I'm asking you not to defend my actions nor the actions of the city any further. I think you've agreed to that." "Absolutely," Brown replied.
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