3) Please

publish my letters promptly. I know you have space

limitations but you do seem to regularly find timely

space for your other regular contributors.

4) My

letters will contain no illegalities, obscenities or

threats. Please therefore print them verbatim, typeset

them carefully, and try not to spread them over three or

four pages.

5) As you

have never called me to ask if I wished to respond to an

upcoming letter, I would not expect to see

contemporaneous responses to my letters.

6) My

letters to you will be posted to the city's web site on

the Wednesday afternoon following submittal to you.

When you

run this letter - including the above preamble and

ground rules - please do so under the heading,

"The Real Facts," and please include the

underlined subheadings which follow. Thank you.

What I

Really Said

I have been

taken to task for saying I know more about Peachtree City

than anyone. I didn't say that. I said that I know more

about the proposed West Village annexation issue than

anyone. I think I do. I'm perfectly willing to be

criticized for anything I say, but it does gall me to be

castigated for something I never said. I'm plenty busy

defending my actual comments! Perhaps your paper could do

a bit of investigative journalism to determine if this

falsehood arose through a misquote by a reporter or first

surfaced in a letter from one of your regular

contributors.

What

Really Happened

Now let's

take a look at the denial of "free speech"

rights to Mr. Steve Brown. Here are the facts. On the

afternoon of our March 2 council meeting, Mr. Rick

Lindsey of the law firm Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey asked

me if he could make, and I quote, a "brief

statement" prior to our consideration of the City

Attorney appointment item on our agenda that evening. I

asked him if it was germane to the agenda item and he

assured me that it was, and could have an impact on our

decision.

I did not

ask him to define "brief," and my definition is

considerably different than his! Rumors had been running

rampant that week that Mr. Webb, one of Mr. Lindsey's law

partners, intended to sue Mr. Brown for libel. I assumed

Mr. Lindsey's "brief statement" would either

quash or confirm these rumors.

At the

meeting Mr. Lindsey spoke for precisely 13 minutes. I

know, because I subsequently pulled our audio tapes of

the meeting and timed it. At the end of his statement he

did indeed confirm that Mr. Webb had filed suit for libel

against not only Mr. Brown but also against The Citizen

newspaper and Mr. Cal Beverly, its editor and publisher.

That

announcement was germane to the agenda item - the

speech leading up to it was not. In retrospect I should

have stopped Mr. Lindsey three minutes into his speech. I

am sorry that I did not. However, if you were there, you

would know that the audience, including council, was

literally hushed and hanging on every word. It was also

one of those speeches where you always thought the next

sentence would be the last. None of us knew that Mr.

Lindsey was the Energizer Bunny in disguise.

Ironically,

any member of council, including the self-righteous,

pompously indignant - and woefully inept -

councilman Tennant could have stopped Mr. Lindsey's

speech at any time. Any one of us, under our Rules of

Procedure, could have interrupted him at any time and

pointed out that his speech was not germane to the agenda

item and therefore out of order. That would have broken

the thrall in the room. I, as the presiding officer,

would have most assuredly agreed to any such objection

because it would have been totally correct.

Once Mr.

Lindsey came to the announcement confirming the existence

of the lawsuit, I knew I had a truly devilish quandary on

my hands - and 30 seconds or less to make a very

hard decision. Mr. Brown was in the front row of the

audience and I knew he would want to speak in his own

defense. Who wouldn't? In that 30 seconds I decided that

I could not let him speak - for three reasons, in

order of importance:

1) As soon

as the lawsuit was confirmed any discussion of the merits

of the suit or arguments between the parties before City

Council during a council meeting became unthinkable.

Whatever your or my personal opinions about the rightness

or wrongness of the suit or the merits of either party's

case, this is a very serious matter which will ultimately

be decided in a court of law.

My fellow

council members and I will not even discuss a traffic

ticket, publicly or privately, with any citizen until the

case has been decided in court. There could not be, and

will not be, any discussion about this lawsuit before

City Council. I personally will not discuss it publicly

until the proper court adjudicates the matter. As an

elected official of this city, I think to do otherwise is

unseemly and inappropriate.

2) Mr.

Brown was seething - as he had every right to be. He

had no attorney present and would be arguing with an

attorney while upset and angry. I have seen Mr. Brown

make intelligent comments. I've also seen him shoot

himself in the foot. No offense intended - I'm a

little short in the toe department myself. This is a very

serious matter and I did not want Mr. Brown to do himself

irreparable harm.

3) The

entire situation had the very real potential of turning

the council meeting into a free-for-all. I will do

whatever I have to do to ensure that this never happens

while I am the presiding officer at council meetings.

My 30

seconds were up. Mr. Brown did indeed wish to speak. I

made my decision, and moments later the City Council

ratified my decision.

Was if

unfair? Certainly. Do I apologize for it? No.

My apology

is for not stopping Mr. Lindsey's speech. I have agonized

over my decision a hundred times in the last two weeks

with the benefit of time, hindsight and a good bit of

citizen input. If I had it to do over again, I would make

the same decision.

If you have

read this far, thank you. I have many other topics I

would like to address and I will try to do so in the

coming weeks. It's a little daunting to be several

hundred letters behind!! If you have any questions or

comments, please don't hesitate to e-mail me at [email protected] .

Bob

Lenox

Mayor

Peachtree City