The City Council of

Peachtree City is to decide tomorrow night how to

handle a recent ethics complaint filed against

city attorney Jim Webb.

Mike Hyde wrote in

a Feb. 29 letter to city manager Jim Basinger

that Webb advised the council in 1996 concerning

a proposed buffer ordinance when a company in

which Webb has an interest owned property that

would be directly affected by the ordinance.

The City Council

was to consider the reappointment of Webb,

Stuckey and Lindsey as city attorney at its March

2 meeting, but that action was delayed until the

ethics complaint is dealt with.

Basinger advised

the council that under section 62-90 of the

city's ethics ordinance, a five-member ethics

board must be appointed to investigate the

complaint. The city attorney is designated as the

advisor to the board, Basinger said, but since

the city attorney is the one being investigated,

an outside attorney will be needed.

After receiving

several recommendations from the Georgia

Municipal Association, city staff met with Andrew

Whalen III, who is currently the city attorney

for Griffin. Whalen is willing to serve as the

board's advisor, Basinger said, and he

recommended that the council appoint him to that

position at an hourly rate of $150.

It has also been

recommended that the five-member ethics board be

selected by a random drawing from a 10-person

pool already established for this purpose. The

pool consists of the following citizens, listed

here along with the council members who appointed

them:

Eileen Shaw and

John Dillahunt (Carol Fritz); Lynn Gray and

Herman Pearson (Annie McMenamin); Tim Kaigler and

Jim Stienbach (Bob Lenox); Ann Matwick and Steve

Brown (Dan Tennant); Lucille Potts and former

Mayor Fred Brown (Bob Brooks).

Pool member Steve

Brown (no kin to the former mayor) is currently a

defendant in a lawsuit being filed by Webb, so

Whalen has recommended that his name be removed

from the pool before the drawing, with no need

for a replacement. Brown is codefendant along

with The Citizen newspaper and its publisher, Cal

Beverly, in an unrelated libel lawsuit filed by

Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey.

Each council member

will draw one name from the pool to form the

five-person ethics board, Basinger said. The

first meeting of the board should be held within

30 days, and Webb should be advised of the date,

time and location of the meeting at least 10

business days in advance, Basinger added.

Whalen has advised

that the procedures adopted in the city's current

ethics ordinance, adopted in January of 1999, be

used in this case. But the standards of conduct

in the previous ordinance should be applied

because the violation is alleged to have occurred

before the current ordinance was adopted, he

said.

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