Peachtree City Councilman Dan

Tennant has demanded that the city dismiss City Attorney Rick Lindsey

because of Tennant's charge that members of Lindsey's law firm have improperly

handled allegations against him.

Questions about whether Tennant

had sexually harassed a city employee were investigated by Lindsey, but

the investigation was handled as an administrative matter and not pursued

further. Tennant says he believes information about the matter improperly

leaked from Lindsey's firm to a law firm representing Tennant's wife in

the couple's divorce case.

The councilman also has filed

a complaint against Lindsey and Susan Brown, a member of his law firm,

with the State Bar of Georgia.

In a letter to Mayor Bob Lenox

Oct. 16, Tennant's attorney, Peter Wynkoop, accused Brown, a lawyer working

for Webb, Stuckey and Lindsey, of a "sordid and very unethical attempt

to unjustly portray Mr. Tennant as a sexual predator."

Brown is the daughter of City

Councilwoman Annie McMenamin, who has had frequent strong disagreements

with Tennant over city policy, including the appointment of Webb, Stuckey

and Lindsey as the city attorneys.

Brown and McMenamin also are

close friends of Nancy Faulkner, city clerk.

Faulkner was deposed Aug. 18

representing Tennant's wife, Kris, in the couple's divorce proceedings.

Wade is married to John Wade, who also is an attorney for Webb, Stuckey

and Lindsey. The Tennant's divorce since has become final.

Questions in the deposition

revolved around a variety of conversations between Faulkner and Tennant.

As city attorney, Lindsey attended

the Aug. 18 deposition because he was concerned that the questioning might

relate to Faulkner's duties at the city, he said in a memorandum filed

with the city.

Part of the questioning focused

on a conversation that took place as Tennant was helping Faulkner put

some books into a city supply closet early this year. Faulkner said Tennant

had asked if she had ever fooled around in a supply closet and, when she

answered no, joked, "wouldn't you like to."

She also testified that she

took the remark as a joke and did not consider it sexual harassment.

Faulkner also testified that

Susan Brown had later asked her to voluntarily testify against Tennant

in his divorce case after she told Brown in casual discussions about the

supply closet incident.

To Tennant, that's the key

to his complaint. "Why would Susan Brown, Annie McMenamin's daughter,

have any interest in asking any person to testify against me in my divorce?"

Tennant asked in a letter to The Citizen.

Following the deposition, Lindsey,

City Manager Jim Basinger and Mayor Bob Lenox asked Tennant about the

remark, and he said he remembered the conversation differently. "Mr.

Tennant, who was in attendance at Nancy's deposition, denied that he had

made any comments concerning 'sex in the supply closet' to Nancy and had

no recollection of ever having made such statements or similar statements

to Nancy at any time," said Lindsey.

According to Lindsey, Tennant

later sent him a memo stating that the conversation in question happened

during the time that sexual harassment allegations resulted in the dismissal

of Mike Bryant as city manager of Fayetteville this past spring. Tennant

said he jokingly told Faulkner, "I'll bet Mike Bryant would manage

to get himself into trouble in a situation like this," to which Faulkner

replied something like, "Fortunately, I've never been in that situation."

Lindsey told The Citizen this

week that he is the only person in his firm that represents the city of

Peachtree City, and "I didn't know a thing [about the entire matter]

until I was given a 'heads up' that Ms. Faulkner was being subpoenaed."

Even as city attorney, Lindsey

said, he does not represent Tennant or any council member as individuals.

"I represent the city," he said, adding that Brown and McMenamin

have agreed not to talk about city business.

Brown has denied calling Faulkner

and asking her to testify against Tennant, he added. "Susan... did

not make those calls to anybody, period," he said.

In Faulkner's sworn deposition,

she stated that Brown contacted her. "We had had a conversation and

then she [Brown] called and asked me if I would be willing to testify

about the conversation we had had a few days earlier or weeks. I don't

really recall," Faulkner testified, according to the transcript of

the deposition.

Faulkner also testified that

she had mentioned the supply closet incident to Brown's mother, Councilwoman

Annie McMenamin. McMenamin earlier this year had filed and later withdrawn

an unrelated ethics complaint against Tennant.

Tennant's attorney Wynkoop

said it's a matter of appearances. "Lawyers are supposed to avoid

even the appearance of impropriety," he said. Tennant and Wynkoop

charge that Tennant is being persecuted because he has stood up against

special interests in his actions on City Council.

As for Lindsey's assertion

that he represents the city, not individual council members, Wynkoop said

confidences still should be kept. "It's no different than if a law

firm represents a corporate board of directors and finds out something

about a member of the board of directors and gives that information to

another member to use in a political way," he said.

"Mr. Tennant will not

accept the continued employment by the city of Peachtree City of this

man or any person from his ethically challenged law firm," Wynkoop

said in his letter to Mayor Lenox.

"Pending resolution of

these complaints, Mr. Tennant requests that Mr. Lindsey be suspended as

the city attorney for Peachtree City. Failing this action, I request to

be informed of the date and time of any public hearing on any action to

continue the employment of Mr. Lindsey or any other attorney of the firm

of Webb, Stuckey & Lindsey, L.L.P.," the letter stated.

An investigation by Lindsey

into the supply closet incident was closed Sept. 20 after the city clerk

refused to be interviewed by him about the alleged Tennant remark.

"On Monday, Sept. 18,

2000, I received an e-mail message from [City Clerk] Nancy [Faulkner]

that she did not wish to be interviewed by me, that she did not feel that

she was sexually harassed by Mr. Tennant, and that being interviewed by

me would be a harassment in and of itself," Lindsey wrote in his

concluding memo to Lenox, Basinger and council members.

Lindsey in his report said

he had conducted a "thorough investigation" into the incident

and determined that "since Nancy Faulkner has continuously stated

that she does not feel that she was sexually harassed by Dan Tennant and

since both Nancy and Dan remember this event differently, it is my recommendation

that no further action take place."

The "investigation"

apparently began after Lindsey met privately with Basinger, Lenox and

Tennant Aug. 21 at City Hall, according to Lindsey's report.