Regardless the words used by Senoia Councilman Jeff Fisher, the ethics committee formed to hear the complaint by Heritage Pointe subdivision resident Don Rehman decided Thursday night that there was no intention to cause harm.

The ethics violation alleged in the 33-page complaint and its addendums was dismissed on a 4-0 vote.

The ethics complaint appeared to center around a comment by Fisher to Rehman at a recent council meeting and in subsequent emails from Fisher that were posted on the Heritage Pointe subdivision email bulletin board.

But the hearing was actually a convoluted a mix of past and current events involving Rehman and Fisher and their past association on behalf of their subdivisions off Rockaway Road.

Based on the vote, it did not appear that any on the committee believed Fisher’s choice of words in emails characterizing Rehman as being “harassing” and “intimidating” to others in area communities was intended to do harm.

Rehman in his complaint described Fisher’s words as “two abusive, offensive and devastatingly harmful e-mails” which were written “in the hopes of humiliating and shaming me in the neighborhood in which I live.”

Some on the committee clearly stated that they did not like Fisher’s choice of words. But that dislike did not raise the situation to a level of an ethics violation.

If Fisher was out to do harm to Rehman it would be an ethics violation, said committee member Paul Ferguson at the end of the lengthy hearing.

“But I don’t think it was intended to harm. He was trying to follow the code,” Ferguson said immediately prior to the motion and unanimous vote to dismiss.

Several from Rockaway Road subdivisions spoke on behalf of both men, with some saying Rehman spoke for them and others saying that Rehman could be verbally intimidating and threatening.

For his part, Fisher said he had experience both pleasure and displeasure in his association with Rehman, adding that in his statements characterizing Rehman he could have substituted “harassing” and “intimidating” with words that could have been either softer or stronger as a accurate portrayal of Rehman’s tendencies. In the end, Fisher stuck by his words.

A more detailed accounting of the ethics hearing will be provided in the next edition of The Coweta Citizen.