Local Politics

I’ve finally discovered something that’s less than wonderful in Fannin County, and it’s the Fannin County Board of Commissioners. Inept, bumbling, amateurish, incompetent, and deceptive are all adjectives that can be applied to some of their actions.

As counties go, Fannin County is small. Its population is under 24,000. That means that Fannin County has about as many residents as the City of Tarpon Springs where I was the city attorney before I retired. But I don’t think the problem has anything to do with the size of Fannin County. Having represented small local governments, I know that they can be run professionally and efficiently.

The truth is that I’m a bit perplexed to explain why the present board is so bad. My experience is that country folk are sharp and generally will not tolerate the type of government tomfoolery that I have witnessed since moving here. Maybe that will be that the case around here during the next election cycle, though I’m beginning to think there is something in the local water that accounts for the Keystone Cops performance of the local politicians since I have not heard a lot of public outcry over their shenanigans.

I don’t believe it has anything to do with the form of government which is a little weird but not uncommon in rural Georgia counties. There are only three county commissioners. One of the commissioners (we’ll call him Moe) is chief executive officer of the county. In that respect he’s like the mayor in a strong mayor form of government. However, he gets to vote on legislative matters such as ordinance and resolutions which means that he also exercise legislative authority. The other two commissioners (we’ll call them Larry and Curley) are called post commissioners for some unknown reason. From what I gather, their role is entirely legislative. They get to vote on local legislation and policy, but they do not exercise executive power.

I don’t have enough space to give a complete list of the reason I have such a bad opinion of board, but I can give a few examples.

Would you believe that the county cannot produce a complete copy of its charter? A local newspaper has been trying for months to have the county attorney produce a complete, known-to-be-accurate copy of the county’s charter. She has been unable to do it. Trying to run the county without have a complete copy of the county charter is like trying to run the United States with a partial copy of the Constitution.

Moe recently promulgated a rule that citizens speaking at the public comment portion of the commission meetings cannot make political comments. The rule is such an obviously unconstitutional abridgment of speech that it’s astounding a public figure would even conceive of adopting it. It makes me wonder whether the county attorney knows anything about basic constitutional law.

The county recently leased a tractor from a local dealer. When things started to go wrong, Moe claimed that Larry and Curley had approved the lease. Then it was discovered that Moe signed the lease before the meeting that Larry and Curley supposedly approved it. Oops. So much for honesty and transparency.

At some point in mid-lease Moe directed that the tractor be returned to the dealer. Moe claimed he did this because the tractor was having a lot of problems and the cost of maintaining it was too high. The implication of Moe’s statement is that there was something wrong with the tractor that made it expensive to maintain. What he didn’t tell the public is that county employees had crashed the thing one or more times causing major damage which they crudely repaired. It appears that the tractor was under warranty which means that any routine repair costs would be the responsibility of the dealer, not the county. Of course, repairs necessitated because county employees had crashed the tractor are not routine repairs covered by the warranty.

Regardless, you can’t just decide that you don’t want a leased tractor halfway through the lease term. It seems that Moe was clueless as to county’s obligations under the lease. I wonder where the county attorney was in all this and what legal advice, if any, she gave Moe.

Not surprisingly, the leasing company sued the county for the unpaid balance of the lease price. The county attorney made a statement implying that (a) the county’s insurer would handle the suit and (b) the county was protected by sovereign immunity. I have never heard of insurance that covers your damages when you intentionally breach a contract. I doubt it exists. Furthermore, it took me two minutes of internet research to confirm that in Georgia (as, I imagine, in every other state of the Union) sovereign immunity does not protect local governments from being sued for breach of contract. If it did, what business would dare contract with government? This is basic knowledge that any county or city attorney in Georgia should know.

It didn’t take too long for the newspapers to report that the county had settled the suit by paying a substantial sum to the leasing company. What happened to the insurance coverage and sovereign immunity?

The lease had a choice of law clause which specified that any lawsuits over the lease had to be filed in the state where the leasing company resides (which was not Georgia). Apparently this was a great surprise to Moe, Larry and Curley. I don’t know why. Most contracts for equipment or sophisticated services have choice of law clauses. One of the commissioners was quoted as saying that in the future, the county will only deal with Georgia businesses in order to avoid choice of law issues. Good luck with that. I guess that means the county will never lease equipment from major industries, sophisticated software or computer hardware from out-of-state suppliers, or the thousands of other items or services that come with contracts with choice of law clauses.

The public should not expect perfection from government. Government is composed of human beings and, God knows, humanity is far from perfect. But the public can and should demand honesty, transparency and basic competence from government. On those counts, the Fannin County Board of Commissioners is falling short in my opinion.

The reason that all this bothers me is that I pay county property taxes, and this is a good example of the county pissing away my tax dollars. Does this mean that I will become involved in local politics? Not on your life. Thirty-seven years of watching from the sidelines as a city attorney cured me of that urge. But I may write a few letters to the editor and provide information and advice to others who want to weigh into the fray.

I realize that this post is not relevant to the readers of this blog who live in Florida, so thank you for your patience in allowing me to unburden myself. It’s been very cathartic, and I feel better already. It’s been an Oprah Winfrey moment for me.