Former mayor says ‘intent’ was to vote in public

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizen.com
and MATT NOLLER
mnoller@TheCitizen.com

A Peachtree City council member criticized former mayor Steve Brown last week for his role in a $20,000 grant that helped lure Cooper Wiring to the city.

Councilwoman Judi-ann Rutherford said Brown promised the money without getting permission from council. Brown said Wednesday that’s not the case, as he personally called each council member to get their seal of approval for the grant.

Rutherford was not yet on council at the time, which would explain why she wasn’t in the loop on the project.

But Brown, who was elected as a champion of open government, couldn’t recall if council ever officially voted to issue the grant in the days and weeks after he made the initial calls. That was the intention, though, he said.

“I am not sure if we voted on that or not,” Brown said, adding that it might have been allocated in a budget that the city approved.

City staff, particularly City Manager Bernie McMullen, were fully aware of the city’s role in the project, Brown added.

Thursday night, the council approved the $20,000 grant, which was earmarked for the construction of an entrance road at the site. The road has now been completed.

“They’ve been promised the money,” Rutherford said. “We have no choice.”

Brown said when he was first contacted about the matter in late 2003, the Fayette County Development Authority was trying to lure a then-unnamed corporate entity to the city that was “on the scale” of Cooper Lighting. Brown said he was told how many jobs would be created and the tax revenues the project would bring, and he passed that information on to fellow council members.

After getting that approval, Brown wrote a letter to the authority pledging the $20,000 grant towards improving the entrance of what would later become Cooper Wiring. In that letter, he cited that the city manager and finance director “and a majority of City Council have expressed that they feel this opportunity would be beneficial to our city.”