The

City Council of Peachtree City is expected to end

a four-month debate with the scheduled

appointments of its various judicial positions.

The

Peachtree City firm of Webb, Stuckey &

Lindsey, which has performed the city's attorney

duties since 1992, has been recommended by city

staff for reappointment. That move was delayed by

an ethics complaint against senior partner Jim

Webb, which has since been dismissed.

Webb

and his firm are suing The Citizen, publisher Cal

Beverly and Peachtree City resident Steve Brown

in connection with two letters to the editor

Brown wrote earlier this year about the city

attorney appointment. Webb alleges the letters

libelled him by accusing him of unethical

behavior. (See Beverly's opinion column about the

issue on Page 5A.)

The

Newnan firm of Glover & Davis was initially

recommended in December, based on its low bid.

But some confusion over the positions of city

attorney and solicitor, with certain firms

bidding for only one position or the other, led

the City Council to solicit bids a second time,

with the stipulation that city attorney and

solicitor be combined in a single position.

Webb,

Stuckey & Lindsey did not offer the lowest

hourly rate, city manager Jim Basinger said in

February, but "the firm's total fees would

probably be the lowest due to increased

portal-to-portal fees for those firms outside

Peachtree City," he added.

Five

other firms were listed on the city's bid

tabulation sheet - one from Fayetteville,

one from Jonesboro and three from Atlanta. Glover

& Davis did not bid the second time because

Mitch Powell, the city's municipal judge, is a

member of that firm and the same firm could not

serve as judge and solicitor.

City

staff has provided no additional comments to the

council for tomorrow's meeting on this topic,

with the exception of an April 24 memo that

simply reads, "Staff's recommendation to

appoint the firm of Webb, Stuckey & Lindsey

as city attorney/solicitor remains

unchanged."

The

city attorney position is also the focus of

another item on the agenda, in the wake of the

city ethics board's recent dismissal of an ethics

complaint against Webb.

Ethics

board advisor Andrew Whalen II, an attorney from

Griffin, told the board that the city attorney is

not a "city official" according to the

city's own charter and ordinances, and thus is

outside the jurisdiction of the ethics board in

that case.

City

attorney Rick Lindsey has advised the council

that it may want to consider some changes to the

ethics code. He reiterated his recent statements,

made at the City Council's annual retreat, that

he believes state law has preempted local

governments from controlling the practice of law

and that only the state's Supreme Court can

govern lawyers. An ordinance requiring the city

attorney to be subject to the ethics ordinance

would then be unconstitutional, he opined.

He

did, however, say that the city could exert some

control over its attorney, by requiring financial

disclosure and possibly making the city attorney

an official of the city. Such an action would

require either a new ordinance or a change in the

city's charter, he said.

<!--

-----------