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Alpharetta reexamines Ethics Board procedures By ALEXANDER POPP alex@appenmedia.com ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Following the first hearing held under Alpharetta’s revised 2018 Ethics Ordinance, city officials are pondering some big changes they hope will strengthen and streamline the ethics complaint and hearing process. At a City Council meeting Nov. 28, members heard from City Administrator Chris Lagerbloom, that the ethics hearing held in October exposed a number of different weaknesses in how the city’s ordinance was written, leading to inconsistencies and procedural lapses that need to be fixed. “Through that process we identified some things that went ok and some things that didn’t quite go so ok, and they didn’t go quite so ok in pretty significant ways,” Lagerbloom said. In a presentation by City Attorney Molly Esswein, councilmembers were told that issues had been identified in how complaints are vetted and filed, how members of the Ethics Board are selected and empaneled, and several other related problems. Esswein also laid out a detailed plan for how the ethics ordinance could be amended to fix the problems. The most significant proposed change, according to Lagerbloom, would be in the qualifications of future board members, and how members are
selected to serve. “When we got to the point of actually having a hearing in this case and had people who weren’t familiar with the hearing process or what was appropriate at a hearing,” Lagerbloom said. “Quite frankly the question the city attorney had to respond to about, ‘well I can’t find a date on my calendar to make this work, can I change my vote?’” “That doesn’t work when we have these quasi-judicial sorts of things,” he added. Ethics Board members are currently
ing smoothly,” she said. Nearly all of the councilmembers expressed disbelief that they would be able to find that many attorneys to sit on the Ethics Board. But Esswein said the suggestion was modeled after the City of Milton’s Ethics Ordinance, which has had success in the past years. Among the other proposed changes, Esswein said they would also impose a six-month statute of limitations on complaints with provisions for special circumstances, like if alleged unethical behavior was done secretly and only
Roswell moves to implement voter-approved bond initiatives By DELANEY TARR delaney@appenmedia.com
discovered long after the fact. “But if it was done secretively and there was no way they could have found out about it, they have six months from when they knew or should have known about it or could have reasonably found out about that,” she said. The city could also add a “tolling period” that would prevent an ethics complaint from being brought within two months of an election, she said. In that case two months would be added to the six-month statute of limitations,
ROSWELL, Ga. —Roswell City Council unanimously approved the three bond referendums Roswell residents voted on in the Nov. 8 special election during the Nov. 28 City Council meeting. The bonds will fund nearly $180 million in parks, public safety and parking decks. Mayor Wilson said the bonds had overwhelming support from the public. 74 percent of voters approved the parks and recreation bond and 73 percent of voters approved the public safety bond. The parking deck only had about 57 percent of voters’ support, but the measure was still approved. “I liked that it wasn’t up to us,” Councilman Mike Palermo said. Palermo said the council approval is simply a reflection of the vote of the people. Despite the public support for the bonds, Roswell Mayor Kurt Wilson clashed with a resident during public discussion of the bond referendums at the Nov. 28 City
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Alpharetta City Administrator Chris Lagerbloom draws five names from a jar in September, to select members for the city’s Board of Ethics. Officials are now considering changes they hope will strengthen the ethics complaint and hearing process. chosen at random from a list of citizens appointed by the city council. But Esswein suggested appointing a board of nine to 15 attorneys to sit on the board. In that scenario, Esswein said they would want to appoint only attorneys with at least five years of experience, three years of civil litigation, with no residence or office in the city and without an existing formal or familial relationship with the city. “An ethics complaint, it’s very much like a trial, so having a litigator who has experience in how that goes, could be beneficial for keeping meetings mov-
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