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Mayor: Ethics charge just more harassment

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Early last week, Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown’s biggest worry was a rumor that he was keeping an Italian restaurant chain from locating in Peachtree City.

He insists Carrabba’s Italian Grill is still coming to town, and he just asked the company to use a building design similar to a store in Savannah with a Tuscan style and a terrace roof top garden.

Now, Brown has a larger issue to worry about: defending himself from a possible state ethics charge filed by a political action committee, Direct PAC, that has made its distaste for Brown plain and clear.

Brown fired his first written response to the allegations of Direct PAC in a letter to the editor published on Page A7.

The complaint, which hadn’t been filed by Tuesday, will likely allege that Brown should have registered as a political action committee because he took to the airwaves of Comcast Cable’s local access channel to urge citizens to vote down the proposed Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for transportation projects.

Direct PAC members contend that Brown should have listed the broadcast as a contribution to his efforts to have the SPLOST voted down.

Brown noted that he avoided broadcasting his views on the city government cable channel, which would have gotten him in political hot water, he acknowledges. He said he was motivated to take to the airwaves after the questions he submitted at a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored forum on the SPLOST were not asked.

Brown has opposed the SPLOST because he feels Peachtree City should have gotten a larger share of the funds. He defended the anti-SPLOST broadcast as doing part of his job as mayor.

“My job was to negotiate the best possible solution for everybody’s concern,” Brown said.

The goal of the ethics complaint was clear, Brown said. He claimed Direct PAC was trying to bully and intimidate him.

“You can’t speak out in public against us period under any circumstances,” was the message, Brown said.

Brown also suggested that his predecessor in office was behind the ethics complaint.

“There’s a recurring theme in all of this and the recurring theme is Bob Lenox,” Brown said. Lenox confirmed he was a member of Direct PAC but he hasn’t attended a meeting of the group in about six months.

Brown referred to how Lenox applied for an arrest warrant in August 2002, alleging that Brown, then mayor for over a year, stole city services when a city employee picked up one of his daughters from a golf camp.

The warrant was later denied by a Fayette magistrate after it was determined the employee had volunteered to help, and Brown later paid the city back for the employee’s time.

Brown also pointed to how Lenox let former City Attorney Rick Lindsey “tee off” on Brown by announcing the filing of a libel lawsuit against Brown and The Citizen at a March 2000 City Council meeting.

The suit centered on a letter to the editor the month before that alleged then-City Attorney Jim Webb had a conflict of interest because he served on the board of directors of a bank with other developers who were suing the city at the time.

Lenox denied Brown the opportunity to respond at the meeting. He later said any council member could have shut Lindsey down because the matter wasn’t germane to the agenda item being discussed, which was the possible reappointment of Lindsey and Webb’s law firm as city attorney.

Lenox admits his personal distaste for Mayor Brown, and he says he’s not alone, that the “people who think he’s an idiot” are not limited to members of Direct PAC.

“I disagree with his tactics and the way he treats people,” Lenox said. “And I have expressed those sentiments.”

Lenox said after the arrest warrant hearing, he and Brown shook hands and agreed to, basically, leave each other alone. But Brown hasn’t been able to do that, Lenox said.

“The man just can’t leave me alone,” Lenox said. “I get sick and tired of seeing my name in print.”

Brown says no one from Direct PAC wants to debate him on the issues.

“We want to focus on the real issues and have a robust discussion about what counts,” Brown said. “... They don’t want to debate on another level.”

But Lenox said he is ready to take Brown on in a debate, with no attacks, just a focus on the issues, the former mayor said.

“I’d love to debate him on the issues because that’s what I hate about the guy, the ill logic of everything that he does,” Lenox said.

Brown said the lawsuit from Webb, which was ultimately dropped, particularly taught him to go on faith and trust God to resolve matters. He got word the lawsuit was dropped just as he was filling out paperwork to take a second mortgage on his family’s home to defend himself in the suit.

“I would not trade this experience for anything because it has made me a stronger Christian and made me grow closer to God.”

The ethics process

Anytime an ethics complaint is lodged at the state level, it must be under oath and in writing, according to officials with the Georgia Ethics Commission.

If the complaint is deemed to be within the commission’s jurisdiction, all parties will be notified of a preliminary, informal hearing with the commission. After that, the commission can so one of several things, depending on the circumstances:

• Dismiss the complaint

• Issue a cease and desist order in the case or

• Order a full evidentiary hearing on the matter.