Here We Go Again?
Lawsuit Alleges Racial Purge
in DeKalb County Government
Posted August 25, 2004; updated August 27, 2004
Oy vey! Not only are the alleged racial remarks by a local government
official spooky echoes of William McClure's infamous utterances, but
the county employees filing the suit have hired the same law firm that
successfully sued Fulton County to the tune of over $18 million.
If this case unfolds like the one involving Fulton County's
library system, the lawyers' expensive attempts to establish the truth--
or expose the groundlessness--of the allegations will drag on for years.
Whatever the merits--if any--of this lawsuit, the taxpayers of DeKalb
County are probably going to be the losers.
Read the first two reports on this story published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Commissioners Sitting on $10 Million Surplus
Posted August 13, 2004
According to an August 12th story
in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
the government of Fulton County is expected to end the year with a $10
million surplus in its coffers.
That surplus did not magically materialize. It's going to be available
because, fearing a budget shortfall this year instead of a surplus
(much less a $10 million one), the Commissioners:
- raised certain fees it charges to businesses and individuals.
- forced county employees to "temporarily" double up on their
duties as other county employees resigned, retired, or were transferred to
other county jobs.
The good news is that by tightening its belt and raising fees--instead
of raising taxes--the county has accumulated enough money to provide
the level of services--including library services--it promised the
taxpayers it would deliver this year.
The bad news is that at its meeting this past Wednesday, the
Commissioners refused to end the county-wide hiring freeze that has
exhausted hundreds of government employees--including library
employees--who for months now have been trying to deliver county
services without adequate staffing to do that.
We've heard that the County Manager Tom Andrews urged the commissioners
to use the surplus to end the debilitating freeze on county hirings and
promotions. What we're worried about is why the commissioners refused
to take Andrews' advice.
Perhaps the commissioners were confused by Andrews' reported remark
that service delivery had not been harmed because most of the impact
had been "contained to administration"? Say whaaa?
Although library employees may not know much about the effect of the
county's hiring freeze on services rendered by other county departments,
we've heard, along with everyone else in town, about how understaffing
has adversely affected the county's ability to operate its jail. But
library employees certainly see every day how library users have been
adversely affected by the hiring freeze.
Furthermore, was Andrews implying that county services don't need
people to manage them? Where did this idea come from that county
facilities manage themselves?
We certainly hope the commissioners are not entertaining any notions
about using the expected surplus to introduce any new
government services while they undercut county employees' efforts to
provide existing services.
A third of the county's libraries are being operated without full-time
managers; the library system's headquarters administration has been so
depleted by resignations, retirements, and involuntary transfers that
proper management of the system has gone by the wayside some time ago.
That won't change until longstanding vacancies in the library's
administrative ranks are filled. And that's just the management end of
the library system's staff shortages.
County citizens should be able to obtain decent library service from
the county government. What they've been getting with the hiring
freeze is a mediocre level of service, delivered by increasingly
exhausted county employees. Library users may want to
contact
their commissioners before the Commission meets again on August
18th, and urge them to immediately declare an end to the
needless, demoralizing, and counterproductive freeze on county hirings
and promotions.
While they're at it, perhaps a few taxpayers will even venture to
suggest that the commissioners publicly register their thanks to
the many county employees who for many months now have been shouldering
the duties of others. That would be a lot more sensible than for
commissioners to blithely expect county employees to go on doing that
indefinitely.
New Library Board Ain't Very New
Posted August 9, 2004; updated August 24, 2004
Due to a host of reappointments, the library system's new board looks
a lot like the same board abolished by the state legislature this past
spring.
Six of the "new" board's eleven members served on the previous board,
thanks to various reappointments by five county commissioners and by
the Atlanta City Council.
AFPL's "new" board consists of:
- Natalyn Archibong, a new member of the board appointed by the Atlanta
City Council.
- Willie Bolden, a new member of the board appointed by
District 7 Commissioner Bill Edwards. (Many years ago, Bolden managed AFPL's
personnel department.)
- Shirley Franklin, one of the two ex officio members
of the new board (the other is the chair of the Fulton County Board of
Commissioners). Update: Mayor Franklin has
appointed Dr. Delores Stephens as her designee.
- Barbara Frolik, a new member of the board appointed by
District 4 Commissioner Tom Lowe. Frolik is reportedly a patron of the
Northside Branch, an active member of the Northside Friends of the Library,
and is a retired federal librarian.
- Karen Handel, Fulton County Commissioner At-Large and chair
of the Commission. Handel is one of two ex officio members of
the new board; the other is the mayor of Atlanta.
- Jim Maddox, a member of the previous board of trustees,
reappointed by the Atlanta City Council.
- Stephanie Moody, a member of the previous board,
reappointed by At-Large Commissioner (and Commission Chair) Karen Handel.
- Roger Rupnow, a member of the previous board, reappointed by
District 2 Commissioner Rob Pitts.
- Zeda Stanley-Sartor, a member of the previous board, reappointed
by District 5 Commissioner Emma Darnell.
- Jay Suber, a member of the previous board, reappointed
by District 6 Commissioner Nancy Boxhill.
- John Thomas, a member of the previous board, reappointed by
District 3 Commissioner Lynne Riley (who is serving out Bob Fulton's term).
Needless to say, most library employees and many library users
are disappointed that the legislation designed to reform the
notoriously meddlesome and incompetent library board didn't result in
an entirely new crew of library trustees. It's particularly difficult
to respect Boxhill's, Darnell's, Handel's and Pitts' reappointments
of previous trustees in light of the County Commission's
formal support of
the reform legislation.
Fortunately, the appointing authorities were unable to prevent the
legislature from making the library board smaller (11 vs. 17 members),
and the County Manager, rather than the library board, will be hiring
the library system's director from now on. It remains to be seen
whether the new members of the board--who are in the minority--will
make a difference in the way the board conducts itself.
The next meeting of the "new" board is scheduled for August 25th, when
board by-laws will be proposed--a prerequisite to the board's election
of its new officers.
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