Commissioners' ethics questioned

Web posted November 13, 1999

 Jurors call for special grand jury
 Grand jury wonders at city's purchases
 Reports: Connections play role in hiring

    Previous coverage:
 Jury resumes probing waste in government
 The grand jury's report (September 1999)

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By Sylvia Cooper
Staff Writer

A Richmond County grand jury has suggested that an Augusta commissioner lied when he testified before them that he did not own certain property.

The grand jury makes that suggestion and many others in the form of questions pertaining to commission ethics in presentments returned Friday.

The grand jury's findings are a follow-up to the previous grand jury's blistering report on city government that prompted Mayor Bob Young to propose an ethics ordinance for public officials.

Commissioners rejected the mayor's ordinance and referred the issue to a commission committee, which referred it to a commission subcommittee chaired by lame duck Commissioner J.B. Powell, who will be off the commission Dec. 31. The committee met once three weeks ago and talked about what they didn't want in an ethics ordinance.

The latest grand jury again raises questions about the city's multimillion-dollar contract with Operations Management International and its parent company, Denver-based CH2MHILL, the city's water-system consultant.

``Why were incumbent Augusta-Richmond County commissioners receiving political contributions from OMI and CH2MHILL?'' grand jurors asked in Friday's presentments.

``Why did a local non-profit organization (Project Success) operated by a county commissioner receive contributions from OMI in 1996 and 1997? Were commissioners influenced in their vote on the sewer contract by these contributions?''

The grand jury did not name Commissioner Henry Brigham as the operator of Project Success, a tutorial program for at-risk students. The grand jury is prohibited from naming individuals in presentments unless it issues an indictment.

The previous grand jury raised questions about OMI advertising on a radio station owned by a commissioner.

As The Augusta Chronicle reported in April, OMI advertised on the sports talk radio station, WRDW-AM, Mayor Pro Tem Lee Beard's family-owned business. Also in April, commissioners voted 9-1 on Mr. Powell's motion to pursue contract negotiations for the sewer operations with only one company, OMI. In July, the board voted 6-2 to award OMI a five-year contract, worth $5.99 million in just the first year.

The latest grand jury questions commissioners being involved with nonprofit and for-profit businesses involved in low-income housing, which often do business with the county and receive grant money through the city, according to the grand jury.

The grand jury recommends that someone find out if such businesses get preferential treatment by the government when collecting overdue bills.

Mr. Brigham was the president of How-Lou Inc., owner of Hale Street apartments, which received some rent subsidies, but he has not been a member of that partnership for two years, according to lawyer Maurice Steinberg.

Many Augusta public officials, past and present, have gone years without paying property taxes. Commissioner Freddie Handy paid $6,115.72 on several years of delinquent property and business taxes, penalties and interest Oct. 21.

Up until 1994, when The Chronicle reported the practice, Tax Commissioner Jerry Saul canceled penalties and interest on powerful elected officials' delinquent taxes. Mr. Saul sometimes wrote off the cost of filing liens on the property when the officials eventually paid the taxes.

Meanwhile, the identity of the commissioner who may have perjured himself before the grand jury is a matter of speculation, a circumstance that Commissioner Jerry Brigham thinks is wrong.

``I think it's bad that they would say a statement like that and not indict him,'' Mr. Brigham said. ``If they thought he perjured himself, they should have indicted him.

``They should have had the guts to go on and indict. They didn't need a special grand jury to indict. They could have indicted.''

Mr. Young said the city's existing policies are not a deterrent for unethical behavior. If they were, the grand jury wouldn't be raising the questions it is, he said.

``I think the problem is that people in this government don't know what's ethical and what's not ethical,'' Mr. Young said. ``That's the bottom line. They're just used to doing things the way they've always done it.

``And until we provide some clear direction to our employees and our fellow officials we're going to continue to have problems with defining what is ethical and what is not ethical.''

REACH

Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or

sylviaco@augustachronicle.com.