At the May 17, 2012 Peachtree City Council meeting you shockingly refused to repay our city for approximately $10,000 in legal fees and settlement costs that you had personally incurred, but which costs were questionably paid by the city. Your refusal came despite requests made at the meeting by myself, two other citizens, and the four other council members stating that these expenses were your private responsibility and were not the responsibility of Peachtree City and its taxpayers.
I am hereby again requesting in behalf of Peachtree City’s taxpayers that you do the right thing and reimburse our city for all costs related to this lawsuit which had been filed against you as a private citizen. Our request is based on the following facts presented in their order of occurrence:
1. You publicly made false statements and defamed former Mayor Harold Logsdon in April of 2011.
2. Mr. Logsdon privately requested that you make a personal printed and public apology to him within a specific and reasonable time frame.
3. Your compliance with Mr. Logsdon’s request would have prevented a lawsuit and legal fees.
4. You did not comply with Mr. Logsdon’s simple request and continued to exhibit your personal scorn for him.
5. Mr. Logsdon subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit against you personally and he specifically excluded Peachtree City from involvement.
6. You were advised by our city attorney that this was not city business and was your own private matter.
7. Being a private matter, you chose to defend yourself without city involvement and independently selected and retained a personal attorney.
8. You then personally paid a substantial retainer and legal fees to your independently selected attorney.
9. You did not bring your legal problems to City Council for their consideration and you did not request their approval for city involvement.
10. You eventually negotiated a financial settlement with Mr. Logsdon and did not include the City Council, city attorney or city’s insurance company in the process.
11. You never submitted a request to the city for reimbursement of your personally incurred legal fees and settlement costs.
12. You then clandestinely had three separate requests sent to the city’s insurance company (GIRMA) asking for payment of your legal expenses.
13. All three requests were denied and GIRMA stated that this was a private and not a city matter.
14. You again clandestinely had a fourth request for payment sent to GIRMA which was accepted and the city thereby incurred a $10,000 expense.
15. This whole matter was discovered when the $10,000 expense appeared as a city budget-expense line item, buried in with other financial information.
Based on these facts it is apparent that Peachtree City and its taxpayers should not have incurred any expenses due to your personal lawsuit. I am again asking, will you please do the right thing and reimburse us for the full amount expended by the city?
Steve Thaxton
Peachtree City, Ga.
