The Peachtree City Water and Sewerage Authority board, composed of Mayor Fleisch and the Peachtree City council members, may have violated O.C.G.A. 50-14, the Open and Public Meetings law again.
The public meetings law requires that an agency “shall make available an agenda of all matters to come before the agency.”
There’s no WASA meeting agenda showing the board was to consider the WASA employee dental, vision, life insurance and disability insurance policies; and no official meeting minutes showing the board approved renewing those policies.
However, Dan Davis, the Integrated Science & Engineering contractor managing WASA and the acting WASA general manager, says those policies were renewed Dec. 1, 2018.
Davis replied to a question about those plans’ renewal deadline in a Dec. 6, 2018, email, “The Dental, Vision, Life and Disability Plans were renewed for 2019 plan year that started December 1st.” He also wrote there was a 0 percent increase in the dental and vision policies, a 14 percent increase in the life insurance policy and a 13 percent increase in the disability policy.
In another matter, there’s no WASA meeting agenda showing the board was to consider a change to the ISE Work Authorization Agreement, aka contract; and no official meeting minutes showing the board approved a contract change.
The contract between WASA and ISE states in Task 2: Financial Services Management, “Note that ISE will process payment requests to vendors, but will not have the authority to sign on the WASA bank accounts.”
Davis responded to a request to review the WASA account signature card in a Jan. 23, 2019, email, “The three individuals on the signature card are Mike King, Terry Ernst and Bo Davis.” Bo Davis is an ISE employee.
Asked if Bo Davis had signed any WASA checks, neither Dan Davis nor Terry Ernst, PTC councilman and WASA secretary/treasurer, replied.
Mayor Fleisch is the WASA board chairman. She should know it’s her responsibility to enforce the public meeting laws when conducting WASA business. Mayor Fleisch and the council members know that WASA is a public agency and subject to the same public meeting laws as the city.
John Dufresne
Former WASA Board member
Peachtree City, Ga.
