We don't know about you, but if we had been city attorney Stephen Shepard, we wouldn't have gone behind closed doors to tell commissioners they had made a million- dollar mistake when they accused him of ripping the city off with excessive legal bills.
Since Mr. Shepard was publicly excoriated based on Commissioner Betty Beard's erroneous information from the city finance department, it seems like the correction should have been likewise publicly discussed. But no. Mr. Shepard used a provision in the state's Open Meetings Act that allows elected officials to go into "executive session" to discuss employee compensation. There, he privately explained that he had not billed the city $1.5 million through October, as Mrs. Beard's information indicated, but $403,376 for the entire year. The rest - $1.19 million - went into an escrow account to be used to buy real estate for city projects.
We do empathize with Mrs. Beard about receiving bad info. City Ink has gotten bad numbers from the utility department, the tax office and the landfill all within the past three months.
And everybody thought consolidation and hiring all those "professionals" was going to make such a difference.
FROM HELL - AND BACK: Bill Kuhlke, a former Augusta commissioner and current member of the state Department of Transportation board, appeared before his old colleagues at City Hall last week.
As chairman of the oversight committee for the city's proposed judicial center, he was there to present a report on environmental testing of the site and to seek authorization to start buying the land. During the presentation, he told Commissioner Marion Williams he wished he were back up there on the dais with them. Not really. He's enjoying being on the DOT board too much.
"Going to the DOT board from here was like going to heaven from hell," he said in the hallway afterward.
YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING: The city purchasing department is now the Procurement Department, according to an e-mail sent to all city government departments last week. Maybe somebody over there should "procure" a dictionary.
WHAT GOES AROUND: When asked what he thought about former Sen. Don Cheeks' son-in-law's questionable land deal, Sen. Charles Walker said, "I want to know why everybody in Georgia is lying on Don Cheeks."
Mr. Walker, who blames Mr. Cheeks for instigating the federal indictment against him, defeated his old nemesis for the District 22 state Senate in November. During that campaign he said, "Every time Cheeks buys land, the state runs a highway down the middle."
LOST IN TRANSLATION (OR, SPRECHEN SIE DEUTSCH, HERR KOMMISSIONER?): The Augusta government's new Web site now has a feature to translate Web pages into six different languages - Korean, Italian, French, Japanese, German and Spanish. The automated translator can alter the pages so Mayor Bob Young becomes the "Burgermeister" in German, and Richmond County Sheriff Ronnie Strength becomes "Force de Ronald" in French.
Automated language translation isn't perfect. Some of the nuances of language can get lost very easily when a computer makes a one-to-one translation. Not all words have exactly equal meanings.
Some of the names of Augusta's commissioners aren't equal, either. Don Grantham is "Indossi A. Grantham" in Italian; Jimmy Smith is "Baretta Smith" in Spanish. En francais, Andy Cheek is "Joue d'Andy," and Betty Beard is "Della Barba Di Betty" in Italian.
And in the most bizarre mis-translation, Bobby Hankerson's name is transformed into the German "Schupo G. Hankerson."
We're not even going to look at the Japanese or Korean translations.
ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH: Augusta commissioners will meet this week to start putting a Phase 5 special purpose local option sales tax package together. After the embarrassment of having voters reject their last $486 million offering, they probably will be more subdued this time, but don't count on it.
Sonny Pittman, a member of last year's citizens advisory committee on the tax, said he "got tickled" when he heard that Commissioner Tommy Boyles wants to hold three meetings about the tax in each of the eight principal districts with all the commissioners "supposedly in attendance."
Sonny says public notices should read: "The circus will be coming to your district soon, and coming back a couple more times before November."
"I wonder how long the honeymoon will last before all hell breaks loose and the divorce papers are filed," he mused.
GARAGE THERAPY: Sonny also said he got his tires rotated the other day "out on Gordon Highway."
The waiting room was filled with middle-age white and black men talking about how everything in Augusta has gone to hell in a handbasket and how sorry the city commission is.
"The black fellows were more adamant about it than the white guys," he said. "I just sat and listened, but it amazed me how there was a mutual feeling that 'we need to do something' and how free-wheeling and open the discussion was. It was a little like one of those group therapy things - really strange to sit and listen to."
Maybe they ought to join Woody Merry's government reform group, Citizens Action Committee, which, in addition to criticizing the mayor and commissioners, has been bombarding the legislative delegation with e-mails and phone calls asking them to reform city government.
"If commissioners didn't like Phase 1 of the committee's attack on them, they certainly won't like Phases 2 through 16," Mr. Merry said. "We've got all these cards to play, ranging from encouraging people not to pay their property taxes in 2006 to suing the government for ineptness."
Except for Commissioner Andy Cheek, the elected officials at City Hall have managed to ignore Mr. Merry, but that tax boycott could get their attention.
UNGAGGED? The public may soon notice more information flowing from the Richmond County Board of Education.
The school board and media organizations met Friday and discussed a proposal to let principals and assistant principals talk to the media - if they want to. But it hasn't happened yet.
The board will vote on the proposal this week.
City Ink thanks Staff Writers Jeremy Craig and Greg Rickabaugh for their contributions to this week's column.
Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylvia.cooper@augustachronicle.com.
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