They could have put themselves

on your side, these four governing bodies we all elected.

But their chosen mouthpieces,

Peachtree City City Attorney Richard Lindsey and County Attorney Dennis

Davenport, doing the heavy lifting for our spatting governments, have

chosen to spit back-room cigar smoke at every one of us.

In response to The Citizen's

Open Records requests for materials related to their secret tax negotiations,

attorneys Lindsey and Davenport say, No way, nothing, nada, zippo. We

ask for tax negotiation documents relating to the way our tax money is

getting spent and bargained over and these lawyers being paid with public

tax money say to the public Take a hike, go fish, sit on your request.

The story of what happens when

lawyers and judges start running things is detailed on this page.

And by the way, what is this

guy Lindsey doing still running Peachtree City? Two years ago, with the

connivance of then-Mayor Bob Lenox, he stood up in City Council chambers

to slam The Citizen and a then-unknown gadfly named Steve Brown and announced

he was filing a libel suit against both of us.

The reason: Brown had written

letters to The Citizen suggesting it wasn't proper for the city attorney

to sit on a bank board with the city's major developer and simultaneously

defend the city against a suit filed by that developer. That mayor and

council voted to keep Lindsey and his law firm, despite the possible appearance

of conflicts of interest.

Two years later, the libel

suit has been utterly dismissed, the council has two fresh faces on it,

Steve Brown has been elected mayor, and the guy who sued him is STILL

calling the legal shots for Peachtree City. What gives with this new council?

Have they developed ethical amnesia?

The two attorneys must have

cribbed from each other's responses: They both dislike our use of the

word "secret" in describing the secret meetings going on among

representatives of our public elected bodies.

Let's review this for them.

The judge ordered all tax talks to be conducted in utter secrecy. No one

outside the judge and the lawyers and the appointed representatives knows

where the meetings are conducted, how often, who attends, what is being

discussed, what citizens' monies are being bargained and traded for, what

information is being used to come to decisions nor even what our elected

representatives think about the whole process.

The judge, signing off on orders

drawn up by the publicly paid lawyers, has told our elected representatives:

Shut up. Don't say a word about what you are doing to the people who elected

you. Don't even hint what is on the table for negotiations. Shut the doors

and keep the whole nosy, taxpaying public out.

Attorney Lindsey, paid for

with public tax money, says in his brief to keep the doors and records

shut: "Your choice of the word 'secret' totally mischaracterizes

the court-ordered mediation and I believe is used to inflame conditions."

County Attorney Davenport,

paid with your tax money, wrote: "Your characterization of court-ordered

mediation as being 'secret' meetings is objectionable. You have placed

a negative connotation on what has been a process which has been conducted

consistent with law."

We strongly disagree. That's

why we have asked for a court order halting the secret meetings. We think

Visiting Judge Stephen Boswell of Clayton County is wrong in his closure

ruling. We think he disregards clear state law regarding quorums and committees

of governing bodies.

Merriam-Webster defines "secret"

this way: "Kept from knowledge or view: hidden; marked by the habit

of discretion: closemouthed; working with hidden aims or methods: undercover;

not acknowledged: unavowed; conducted in secret; remote from human frequentation

or notice: secluded; revealed only to the initiated: esoteric; constructed

so as to elude observation or detection...."

Which definition do you suppose

these taxpayer-money-paid lawyers object to?

The Citizen continues to pursue

through a court challenge to the judge's closure order a fresh breath

of sunshine into those lawyer-guarded closed rooms. Meanwhile, those taxpayer-paid

lawyers are piling up the billable hours trying to keep you out of those

closed, "secret" meetings and to keep closed the records of

how your tax money is being bargained over.

How do you like that expenditure

of your tax dollars?

One judge and two lawyers all

on your payroll have told us taxpayers to get out and get over it.

And which one of our elected

representatives on the Fayette County Commission, the Peachtree City Council,

the Fayetteville City Council and the Tyrone Town Council is going to

wake up, discover some courage on behalf of the public and throw the doors

open to the taxpayers who elected them?

Is there anybody in charge

at those governing bodies? Do our elected officials approve of this secrecy,

as their attorneys suggest? Or have the taypayer-paid lawyers taken over?

We will continue to press for

answers and openness in government and report to you our progress in reminding

our public officials that they work for the public.