Barry Amos is at it again

Its hard to keep a good bureaucrat down. Fired just 12 months ago from Tyrone, in part for changing zoning laws that took away property rights for downtown redevelopment, Barry became Stone Mountain’s new City Manager.

In less than 9 months on the job a business owner has a legal problem with Stone Mountain for the same reasons Tyrone is being sued. Bill & Gail Finnie, owners of Stone Mountain’s Continental Coffee & Sweets Shoppe had to go to court to keep Barry from tearing down their building and destroying their business in the name of redevelopment which is supposed to bring in more business, while running off existing businesses.

But a Dekalb County Superior Court Judge has said no to Barry and the Council. This is the second such case in the last year that Courts have ruled against local governments. Fairburn lost an identical case in Fulton County in 2008.

It is clearly against the law to use redevelopment as an excuse to violate property rights. Even with 100’s of legal precedents against this type of illegal actions by governments, Tyrone is hell bent on using taxpayers’ money to fight their lawsuit to the bitter end.

The Courts use a formula to determine damages in these type of cases which is based on time. The longer a government violates property rights, the more they have to pay property owners. Most governments try to quickly settle such disputes to avoid large judgments. But Tyrone likes to gamble with taxpayers money.

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Margot wrong as usual
Submitted by TJAM on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 8:39am.

Margot your personnel vendetta is showing again. According to court documents the case you refer to went to arbitration on Dec 21, 2007 while Barry Amos was working for Tyrone not Stone Mountain.. so for your statements to be true he would have had to be working for both cities at the same time. There are two other facts that are evident: 1. every time anyone puts in a negative blog about Grace Caldwell you attack Barry and/or the old administration; 2. Robert W. Morgan believes everything anyone puts in the blogs

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Margot not wrong
Submitted by Margot on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 1:12pm.

I will lay it out like I’m talking to a child. Tjam is a big supporter of Barry Amos and therefore attacks anyone who was not, twisting words around to make things sound like Tjam wants it to sound. The purpose of redevelopment is to rebuild rundown blighted downtowns, not to run off existing good businesses. But that’s what happened in Tyrone and is also happening in Stone Mountain and all over America. The intent of the redevelopment laws was to provide government grants to help rebuild downtowns. The cities are supposed to identify vacant rundown buildings, go through legal condemnation processes and buy these buildings, paying the owners just compensation. Then in concert with developers, rebuild those old buildings according to a set plan. The process requires an honest, experienced, professional minded city manager since mayors and council don’t have the expertise. Instead, many towns like Tyrone don’t go through condemnation. Like Tyrone, they pass zoning laws that take away land uses of good existing businesses, refuse to issue business licenses for the previous use, thereby forcing the business out. It’s called Inverse Condemnation, which is illegal and the property owner has to sue in order to obtain the just compensation value of their property, which the city didn’t pay as required. Besides being illegal, inverse condemnation is extremely unfair because the property owners’ tax money is used by the town to pay lawyers to fight him or her.

Stone Mountain had been trying to carry out their redevelopment plan but had never had a professional town manager to help them. They needed one, so Barry Amos was hired to carry it through. I didn’t say that Barry caused the lawsuit in Stone Mountain. I was saying that Barry was again involved in Downtown Redevelopment disputes. Barry won’t be able to do what he did in Tyrone, because the coffee shoppe owner won his inverse condemnation case in late 2008 while Barry was fighting for the city but Stone Mountain has agreed to pay the owner just compensation. When the case goes to trial in Tyrone, the town will also have to pay the inverse condemnation claim created by Barry and the old council. That was the point of my blog. To show the correlation between what Barry did in Tyrone and that he is involved in the same type of activities in Stone Mountain. The real issue is Tyrone, not any vendetta against Barry. It involves what is right and what is wrong under the law. The 2008 council inherited an inverse condemnation case. They had two choices, do what’s right or do what’s wrong. They choose wrong. As Mayor Rehwaldt said after his election, “We’re just going to let this dispute play out in court”. And they have tarnished their campaign promises.

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Actually the Supreme Court ruled in favor of redevelopment
Robert W. Morgan's picture
Submitted by Robert W. Morgan on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 6:59am.

The Kelso (I think) case in Connecticut upheld condemnation for the sake of redevelopment and higher tax revenue. Terrible decision that will eventually be overturned, but that ruling empowers idiots like Amos who love to stir things up in order to suck up to clueless elected officials.

Simply hiring Barry Amos makes Stone Mtn. officials clueless. That boy is poison.


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Stone Mtn is more sensible than Tyrone
Submitted by Chow on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 2:38pm.

I saw that ajc article about Barry Amos & Stone Mtn's court case against the coffee shop. Actually the judge sent the city and business owner to arbitration. A settlement was reached whereby Stone Mtn agreed to pay the owner and remodel his building to comply with downtown redevelopment. I wonder why Tyrone isn't more helpful to its businesses?????

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Ignorance is bliss
Submitted by mysteryman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 3:28pm.

Just ask the tyrone town council, big brother alive and well, sounds to me its time to call the I-team, and get the georgia state attorney general involved, for clearly peoples civil libertys and rights have been violated by the city council. Get involved people, recall the city council, and vote no confidence in the city charter, theyre broke anyway, its time to dissolve the charter, and put our future back into the hands of fayette county government...PEACE

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Tyrone Gossip - Barry in the Movies?
Submitted by Missy-Sippy on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 2:48pm.

Barry is doing just fine in Stone Mountain. He may even become a movie star. Barry is working with a Black Film Co to use Stone Mountain for scenes in a movie. The movie "Love's Triangle", is about an African-American couple who get tangled up in some crime. Stone Mountain is apparently well suited for an African-American film because Barry is pictured with the all Black Stone Mountain Council. I think Barry could play some parts well in this movie.

For more info visit: www.co.dekalb.ga.us/NewsReleases/101708HollywoodinDekalb.pdf

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