Commissioner Robert Horgan indicated Tuesday that he is not going to get into an ongoing battle with former County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn in the Post 1 commission race.

But he said, there are just some things that he will have to address.

Horgan said Dunn needs to worry about his own ethical issues, before accusing the County Commission of any ethical lapses.

“The lawyer who worked on the county’s Lake McIntosh project was one of Dunn’s biggest contributors,” he said.

Attorney William Thomas Craig of Covington helped the county obtain the permit for the project and contributed $2,000 to Dunn’s re-election campaign in 2006.

“I think that’s a conflict of interest,” Horgan said.

Horgan also addressed an issue that’s been on the burner for more than nine months.

“Last week, Dunn talked about us violating the Open Meetings Law, but that’s not what the Attorney General said,” Horgan said.

The issue that Horgan referenced concerned the County Commission’s actions during its Aug. 1 workshop meeting. The commissioners said they were going into an executive session to discuss a legal issue and a real estate matter. The problem, though, was the county did not have an attorney present to discuss the legal issue.

“The attorney/client privilege only permits an executive session when the attorney for the commissioners is present and then only to discuss litigation. Further, it cannot be used when there is a mere threat of litigation, but the litigation must be ongoing or the government entity must show a realistic and tangible threat of legal action against it or its officer or employee,” wrote Senior Assistant Attorney General Stefan Ritter.

After discovering the state was looking into the matter, the County Commission used part of the Sept. 5 meeting to try and fix the problem.

Commissioner Eric Maxwell asked that the minutes for the Aug. 1 meeting be amended to reflect that the County Commission discussed real estate and personnel matters in executive session.

Maxwell said he remembered that at the Aug. 1 meeting he had left the dais and moved away from the microphone and said the legal issue was really a personnel issue.

The problem is the meeting was not held in the main commission meeting room, but in the smaller conference room, so there was no dais and microphone for Maxwell to leave.

When he was contacted about the issue, Maxwell did admit the meeting took place in the smaller room, but said he was sure he mentioned the personnel issue.

The County Commission also voted unanimously to amend the legal affidavit it signed after the Aug. 1 meeting. The affidavit now reads the county discussed real estate and personnel issues, instead of real estate and a legal issue.

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