Jo Ann Browning probably should have hired someone other than her cousin, convicted child molester E. Wayne Fredericks, to represent her in a request for a special zoning exception that came before Augusta commissioners last week.

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The planning commission had already approved the petition to allow conversion of an existing duplex into a triplex, but when Augusta commissioners were told that Fredericks was passing himself off as an attorney and intimidating a Heard Avenue woman who just wanted to know what was going on in the neighborhood, they balked.

On her morning walk, Sherry Hammonds stopped to ask an 11-year-old child in the yard what was going on at the duplex and was told they were building another apartment.

Shortly thereafter, Fredericks hand-delivered what he said was a legal notice for trespassing. She said Fredericks slammed the letter into her hand and shook his fist at her. "I was frightened because I'd never seen an attorney act like that," she said.

In the letter, Fredericks accused her of "continuous inappropriate conduct and illegal behavior" on property owned by Browning at 2051 Walton Way. It was a letter filled with accusations of criminal behavior and warnings of potential arrest and lawsuits. It was "hereby" this and "hereby" that and warnings to cease her tenant stalking, etc. "instanter," which must be a lawyer word for "instantly."

When Fredericks appeared before the commission Tuesday, he denied trying to pass himself off as an attorney. Commissioner Joe Bowles wasn't buying it. Commissioners followed suit and denied the request.

Fredericks denies acting belligerently toward Hammonds or that he ever intended for anyone to think he was a lawyer. Maybe he was on the wrong side of the law so much he just started acting like one. But posing as an attorney when you're not is a misdemeanor under Georgia law.

Fredericks exposed himself to children in the Atlanta area -- leading to a new state law that made a third conviction of public indecency a felony punishable by one to five years in prison. In 1995, he was sentenced in Columbia County to 20 years in prison on eight counts of public indecency under the law created specifically for him. He was released from custody in 2002.

TOGETHER AGAIN, AND IT FEELS SO GOOD. Not quite yet, but City Ink's consultant on medical affairs, Dr. Do Right, said the Board of Regents is on the right track in talking about reuniting the Medical College of Georgia academic institution and MCG Hospital after a 10-year separation. It's also essential that MCG re-establish its relationship with University Hospital and other area hospitals so there will be enough patients to provide real-life learning experiences for the increasing numbers of medical students in Augusta and Athens. Another separation new President Ricardo Azziz and the regents need to mend is with the old MCG Foundation that former MCG President Dr. Dan Rahn tried to get rid of. After all, the old foundation raised a lot of old money with the help of old MCG graduates -- you know, the ones with money and clout.

CROSSING PARTY LINES. Some prominent Augusta Republicans and Democrats crossed party lines in holding a fundraiser for Ken Hodges, Democratic candidate for state attorney general, last week.

We can't say for sure which of the hosts are Democrats and which are Republicans, except for Tim Moses, who was the Richmond County Republican Party's appointee to the elections board for several years, and Braye and Clay Boardman. Others behind the affair for the Albany, Ga., district attorney at Enterprise Mill Events Center were Crystal Craig, Jim Ellington, Jim Overstreet, Pete Caye, Robert Osborne, Rodger Giles, George Snelling, Rich Slaby and Wyck Knox.

I called Giles to see whether Hodges raised a lot of funds, but he didn't go because he had fallen on his boat in Hilton Head four days earlier and broken three ribs. So I called Osborne, a Democrat who says he votes for good Republican candidates. He said he left before they counted the money.

"But I told Braye it was not good fundraising etiquette to count the money in the bowl before everybody leaves," he said.

"... AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE." The twilight sky was pink and blue as Ernie and I walked to the stable where we often go to get away from the dogs and talk things over. I sat in the swing. He sat in a lawn chair. We talked about the garden, the well pump going out, what he'd been doing and what I'd been doing until we'd said just about all we wanted to except for one thing I had on my mind.

"Do you know there are 108,000 homeless veterans in the United States?" I asked.

He said he didn't but wasn't surprised. He didn't ask how I knew that, but I told him anyway. Craig Taylor, a developer helping Hope House develop transitional housing for homeless veterans on the Department of Veterans Affairs property off Wrightsboro Road, told me while I was talking to him in the hallway after Tuesday's Augusta Commission meeting. That was after residents of the Highland Park neighborhood stormed commission chambers, saying "Not in our front yard!" to a rezoning request, and commissioners ran for cover.

Not literally, of course. What they actually did was table the request that called for homeless veterans' housing on VA property that would have one entrance and exit off Maryland Avenue -- too close for comfort for the residents.

When I'd laid out the main points, Ernie said, "Nobody cares about veterans. All they care about is going to Walmart and what have you given me. It's all me, me, me."

I went on and told him how Commissioner Bill Lockett said the veterans should access the property through the main gate off Wrightsboro Road, and that when he was growing up he'd been made to use side and back entrances. It was a clear case of obfuscation, if there is such a thing.

Anyway, to reach the place they call home, the veterans would wind their way from the front gate 0.3 mile past the boiler and chiller plants, maintenance shops, underground storage tanks, mechanical engineering shop, loading dock, food service, Dumpsters and warehouse.

Taylor called it going through the "bowels" of the VA complex.

He also said Lockett was mistaken in saying they were treating veterans like second-class citizens by having them come in the back door. He said it wasn't a first-class route or a second-class route but an underclass route.

"These are veterans," he said. "They've served their country. They've paid taxes. Why not allow them to use a public street to get to their home?"

Down the hall, Sammie Sias, who hopes to unseat Commissioner Alvin Mason from his District 4 commission seat this fall, was getting some TV face time speaking for the residents.

One of them said she didn't want to make it sound like she didn't appreciate what the veterans have done for us, but "that's not who you want living in your front yard."

"I told you, nobody cares about veterans," Ernie said. "Thousands of men gave everything they had in World War II to give us freedom and allow us to live the way we do. They sacrificed everything! And people today don't even know it. They're throwing it all away. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, all of them. And they don't even know it."

His daddy was overseas for four years in World War II, and he was in Vietnam "only a year," as though that weren't enough. Ernie said he thinks dishonoring veterans who survived whatever war they fought is an even worse offense toward those who died. It's the veterans living here with us we have the chance to thank for the sacrifices they all made, he said.

"I've seen bodies in bags stacked up like cordwood, waiting for a body plane," he said. "Stacked up like cordwood! Those boys died hard. I wish I could get it out of my mind. I've tried. I've tried everything. Everything."

We walked back to the house under a sky that had turned pale gray.

City Ink thanks Staff Writer Johnny Edwards for his contribution to this week's column.