Now you

must remember that this guy and his law firm is suing me,

The Citizen and a private letter writer for libel for

printing two letters to the editor about them. So take

that into account in judging whether the following is

worth your consideration.

The above is called a

"public disclosure." Remember that also for

later reference.

The Peachtree City Council

Thursday night will vote on reappointing James H. Webb,

Jr. and his law firm - Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey of

Peachtree City - to another year's term as the

official city attorney and city court solicitor.

The appointment had been

delayed from January because Councilman Bob Brooks

worried that the sealed bid process had been

"contaminated." The two jobs had been put out

for bids, and several attorneys and law firms applied,

including some who wanted only one of the two bid

positions. City staff contacted some bidders seeking

clarification: Did you mean to bid on just solicitor or

just city attorney, or what?

City staff then recommended

- politely - dumping Webb and firm for other

attorneys with lower bids. But Brooks thought the bidding

should be redone, and so it was - after everybody

knew what all the bids were.

Next time around, Webb and

firm were still high bidders, but - guess what?

- city staff had changed its collective mind and

this time recommended Webb's reappointment.

As Gomer Pyle used to say

- Gaw-uh-lee.

Meantime, local gadfly

Steve Brown had written two letters raising questions

about the propriety of one of Webb's outside business

deals.

Seems that Webb and a group

of local investors decided to pool their resources and

start a local bank. Nothing wrong with that. What raised

eyebrows was that two of the founding bank investors were

local developers, and both had litigation history with

the city while Webb was city attorney.

One had sued the city

within the past two years - with Webb defending

- and won a judgment that forced the city to accept

399 unwanted apartments on the city's west side.

The other developer

currently has a pending lawsuit against Peachtree City

contesting the traffic impact ordinance, part of the west

side Home Depot fight.

Now, it would raise my

blood pressure if my lawyer went into business with

somebody suing me at the very same time my lawyer is

supposed to be defending my interests in court. Does

anybody besides me see a problem with this scenario?

But that is the exact

situation in Peachtree City. The city's lawyer -

paid with city taxpayers' money - is defending the

city at the same time the lawyer is entering into a

for-profit start-up business relationship with a major

developer who is suing the city over an important public

issue - traffic impact and development on the city's

auto-choked west side.

How can Webb's interests

not seem conflicted? And how can he fulfill Canon 9 of

the State Bar of Georgia's Code of Conduct? That canon

says, "An attorney shall avoid even the appearance

of impropriety...."

But a majority of the city

council doesn't seem to have a problem with that. And the

law firm just doesn't see what all the fuss is about.

Brown's letters incense

Webb and firm and they take 14 minutes of unopposed city

council time to castigate Brown, The Citizen and me and

then announce their libel suit, which, they state

menacingly, "will be lengthy and expensive."

At about the same time, a

former city planning commissioner with a grudge and a

good memory filed an ethics complaint against Webb. The

complaint alleged that Webb gave advice and took part in

public discussions in 1997 about a proposed expansion of

city buffer requirements along Ga. highways 54 and 74.

The complaint charged that Webb was an officer in a

company that owned property along Hwy. 54 that was

directly affected by the buffer, the expansion of which

might have lowered the value or restricted the use of the

land.

The complaint alleged that

Webb never disclosed his potential conflict of interest

during the discussions.

The city brought in the

Griffin city attorney to advise an ethics board hearing

the complaint. The board never heard any evidence about

the alleged conflict of interest because the Griffin city

attorney told them Webb wasn't covered by the Peachtree

City ethics ordinance. Why? Because Webb was an

independent contractor and not a public official. Case

dismissed.

Gaw-uh-lee, again. How

convenient for Webb. A technical pass. But wait -

In a story in the AJC, Webb

was reported to have said that "most or all" of

the city council at the time knew of his interest in the

affected land.

But that begs some tough

questions - questions the city council should answer

for the public before reappointing Webb.

Question: Why did Webb not

file a written disclosure, or at least make a verbal

disclosure to the public about his interest in the land?

And if even one council member knew nothing of Webb's

interests, didn't Webb have an ethical obligation to

inform that unknowing council member?

Question: Was the public's

interest served by the total lack of any affirmative

disclosure by Webb of that particular conflict

possibility? Note: the buffering requirements were

subsequently watered down.

Question: If the above

allegations are true, was that not a textbook case of

conflict of interest? And if so, what are the ethical

implications?

The ethics board did not

get to the real question: Was there a conflict of

interest?

And what about the most

recent problem area: Webb's going into business with a

guy who is suing the very city that Webb is supposed to

be defending? Doesn't that arrangement cause the public

to lose confidence in their government?

Is the city council even

interested in discovering the answers?

We'll find out Thursday

night.

And to complete my own full

disclosure: Obviously, I think Jim Webb has a different

definition of conflict of interest than I do. And I

believe he has a different perspective on ethical

behavior than I do.

I suggest that the citizens

of Peachtree City deserve better than they have gotten

from Webb and firm.

And if the council ignores

all the red flags flapping in the breeze and reappoints

Webb and firm anyway without a full and complete

examination of all the areas of possible improprieties,

then the council itself will have failed the taxpaying

citizens of Peachtree City and must be held accountable.

Correction and clarification

A sentence in the opinion

column by publisher/editor Cal Beverly in The Citizen May

3 incorrectly stated that the law firm of Webb, Stuckey

and Lindsey was currently involved in defending Peachtree

City against a developer's lawsuit concerning a traffic

impact ordinance.

In fact, according to the

city's spokesperson, Betsy Tyler, an Atlanta law firm is

currently handling the defense. "The City of

Peachtree City is being defended by Kirk Fjelstul of the

Atlanta firm of McCollough & Sherrill, who was

assigned by our liability insurance firm (all such cases

will be so assigned in the future, since our purchase of

the insurance last November)," Tyler said.

It is the policy of The

Citizen to correct errors upon notification.