Dougherty County commissioners asked to join in ethics fight

ALBANY — An official with Common Cause Georgia told the Dougherty County Commission Monday the nonprofit would hold a public forum for all elected officials to discuss proposed reform of State Ethics Commission legislation.

William Perry, the executive director for Common Cause Georgia, said local public officials statewide had been punished to the tune of $8 million over the past three years for unintentional errors in filing required paperwork.

“There have been more than 4,000 instances of local officials being fined by the State Ethics Commission, sometimes for such things as misspelling a name on a form,” Perry said. “We’re inviting all local and area elected officials to join us in calling for Ethics Commission reforms. That is one of the top issues Common Cause Georgia is involved in.”

Perry said the public forum would be held at Albany Technical College on April 8.

Also at Monday’s meeting, the commission voted 7-0 to approve $261,470 in special-purpose local-option sales tax funding for the county’s share of the joint city/county Technology and Communications disaster recovery sites project. Total cost of the project, split 50-50 between the city and county, is $522,940. The board also unanimously gave the go-ahead to list Albany-Dougherty Drug Unit vehicles as surplus so that they could be sold and the money used by the drug unit.

Commissioners also heard presentations from community activist William Wright and Albany State University professor Charles Ochie.

Wright asked the commission to consider holding some type of celebration in August to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the famous Selma-to-Montgomery march that led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Wright suggested recognizing local elected officials who were beneficiaries of the Voting Rights Act.

Ochie, an outspoken proponent of the statewide “ban the box” initiative that removes acknowledgement of felony convictions from job applications, asked the county to consider action similar to that taken by Gov. Nathan Deal, who signed an executive order removing the requirement for applicants seeking employment with the state.

County Administrator Richard Crowdis said the commission had already agreed to remove questions about felony arrests from county job applications except those for law enforcement positions.

“Since we do background checks on all applicants, the board feels questions about arrest records are not necessary on the initial application,” Crowdis said.