Sanford Addresses Chastain Investigation in Town Hall Meeting
Featured Stories, News July 12, 2012
On Saturday, July 7th, Gilmer County Board of Commissioners Chairman JC Sanford conducted a town hall meeting in order to give his personal response to the Grand Jury Report concerning a civil investigation done of the Board of Commissioners.
On October 14, 2011 the Gilmer County Grand Jury voted to conduct a civil investigation of the BOC’s office after the Grand Jury was unable to return a true bill for charges against Former Chair Commissioner Mark Chastain related to the misappropriation of County funds. In a Grand Jury trial, the Jury hears information presented to them about a specific investigation, and then based on the information given the Grand Jury will then return a true bill or no bill on the case that decides if further action should be taken.
After nearly three months of investigating, on January 18, 2012 the civil investigation was released to the public. In their report, the Grand Jury made several recommendations for corrections to the BOC. Perhaps the biggest recommendation made by the Grand Jury was that the oath contained in the charter be administered to each member of the Board of Commissioners. This recommendation came as a result after the Grand Jury found that
“since this oath was not administered, a commissioner who violated its terms could not be prosecuted for violation of oath of office.”
The Commissioners had previously taken an oath given to them sent by the governor’s office, but an oath of the county charter was not administered. This meant that any violations involving a commissioner not upholding his duties to the county could not be prosecuted.
On May 14th, Ellijay resident Greg Altman sent Sanford a letter saying that the BOC had had six months to reply to the citizens of Gilmer County referring to the recommendations and also wrote in the letter of how he and the citizens of Gilmer County want to know their answers. Altman also publicly announced later that he had asked Sanford to reply to the letter by June 14th, but it had been over a month and he had still not received an answer. All of the above would lead to the town hall meeting on Saturday.
In the meeting on Saturday, Sanford opened the meeting by explaining to the citizens his spiritual beliefs, what he thinks needs to be done to fix the situation, and some history of how he thought the County had got in the situation it is in.
“It’s extremely important that we always do what we believe to be right,”
Sanford said, saying he had been like this since he was a child,
“To take advantage of someone, put someone down, or disrespect someone just to make things better for me…I couldn’t bring myself to do that.”
Sanford then said,
“Money is the easy one to fix. It’s the people working together rather than being torn apart is the difficult thing.”
“You were put in debt by just right around an extra $100,000,000 in addition to the general fund budget.”
“I can go on and on with figures, (but) it doesn’t make any difference what the figures are. It’s like anything else, you can twist them around and make them into something their not or you can really get down and study the actual facts, and know what they are.”
Afterwards, Sanford began to list each of the Grand Jury’s 13 Recommendations, addressed Altman’s letter after each recommendation, and his opinion of each.
The first recommendation of the report read,
“The Grand Jury Acknowledges the current Board of Commissioners are in the process of deciding as to what limitations the charter should have as to the bidding requirements and whether the $20,000 limitation should be applied on a per vendor, per year, or per project basis. The Grand Jury acknowledges that each proposal has its advantages and disadvantages.”
Sanford stated that the current charter had been changed already, and that he had let the other commissioneras decide this, deciding to stay out of the matter.
The second recommendation read,
“The Grand Jury recommends that the oath contained in the charter be administered to each member of the Board of Commissioners.”
Sanford said,
“As far as I’m concerned, the Gilmer County Charter is part of the laws of this state, and I took that.”
Sanford then read aloud the oath that he had been given to take by the Governor’s office saying afterwards,
“To ask me to redo something that I consider myself already having done, you are telling me I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you, and I want you to do it over…I won’t do it.”
said Sanford
Also when giving his personal report of the Grand Jury recommendations Sanford addressed such matters as the Grand Jury Report’s number three recommendation;
“The Grand Jury recommends that Gilmer County’s legislative delegation consider legislation imposing criminal penalties for violation of the County’s Code of Ethics.”
Sanford said that imposing these kinds of penalties would create problems that would make people afraid to run for office, adding that this would also keep the people that would do the right thing out of office.
“The more jeopardy you put them in, the less of those people you will have running for office.”
said Sanford.
When speaking of the number nine recommendation from the Grand Jury Report;
“The Grand Jury recommends that the code of ethics be amended to explicitly provide that abstention from voting or disclosure of a potential conflict of interest shall not permit a member of the board or a related party as defined in the code of ethics to receive payment from the County for goods or services,”
Sanford explained that he has never received a payment from the County for contract services for his former grading service now belonging to his son. Sanford then mentioned an instance when his son’s business had done work on a County project before, but explained that they had been paid by a subcontractor and not the County. However, Sanford said,
“We will never again do work for the County itself on a volunteer basis.”
Sanford also said of this,
“The code of ethics…covers a lot of ground. It is in my opinion more than adequate.”
Sanford then said that the Grand Jury Report would be on the agenda at the next BOC meeting on July 12th, and that this change would be a decision made by the board and not by him.
Following giving his opinion of each of the recommendations, Sanford then allowed for public questions from the people in attendance.
Altman, who was in attendance, was the first to ask a question.
Altman, in his first question would ask what the current procedure process of the BOC is. Altman asked this question because he wanted to know why it had taken so long for the BOC to answer his letter. Sanford responded by saying,
“Sometimes I am a little resistant to demands.”
Altman who also addressed item one and two of the Grand Jury Report recommendations in his comments explained how that in his opinion he thought the Grand Jury was just asking the BOC to improve the process so that situations such as the Chastain case would not happen again.
“I think there is a misunderstanding. The Grand Jury nor I are accusing the present day administration or specifically you of any wrong doing. It has nothing to do with you. The Grand Jury is just making recommendations that the BOC needs to implement to improve government and build a better trust between government and the people,”
said Altman.
Altman also spoke of the oath in his comments. Altman said that in the Gilmer County Charter its states
“that the chairperson and each member of said board before entering upon the discharge of his or her duties shall take the subscribed oath before the judge of the probate court of Gilmer County.”
“That statement ‘shall take’ is law,”
said Altman,
“Our probate judge has failed to issue this oath to this administration and the previous administration. That is what the Grand Jury is really telling us in their recommendations.”
James Holt, former pastor of First Baptist Church of Ellijay spoke after Altman. Holt in his speech was passionate and expressed the need for a better relationship between the County and its citizens or else he thought there would be nothing accomplished. Holt also gave his opinion of how he thinks the County should hire a County manager to look out for each project the County does.
“I suggest you hire somebody to save us money.”
said Holt.
“I suggest you hire an assistant Commissioner whose sole job is to do nothing but keep the cost overruns down. I pray we stop this adversary relationship or we will get nowhere.”
Gilmer County Tea Party Member Joenne DePlanke chose to speak after Holt. DePlanke in her questions also brought up recommendation number two from the Grand Jury. DePlanke asked if Sanford was refusing to take the oath mentioned by Altman in his address. Sanford responded by saying,
“I will because of the insinuations it points at me.”
DePlanke like Altman also would also say that she didn’t think Sanford should take recommendations personally. “This is not personal about you. I feel like you work extremely hard for this County. I think you love this County and I think you go out of your way to do the right thing for this County.
DePlanke next said that she even thought that making the oath where an officer couldn’t do anything to help the County would hurt the County.
“Taking this oath has nothing to do with having anything against you. It’s just a matter that that is the oath that should be taken by the Commissioners of Gilmer County just so we all feel that the County is protected and it sits the precedent of going forward.”
In the meeting, other concerned citizens also spoke about the issues of County spending, and the relationship between the County and its people. The next BOC is Thursday, July 12 at 6:00 p.m.