Appeals Court panel orders Camilla council members to be removed from office
By Carlton Fletcher
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CAMILLA — A three-judge panel of the Georgia Court of Appeals has tossed out claims that complainants had not adequately proved Camilla City Council members Corey Morgan and Venterra Pollard did not, as required by law, establish legal residency in the city and therefore has ordered them removed from the commission.
In a 22-page ruling, Appeals Court Judges Anne Barnes, John Pipkin and Elizabeth Gobeil said that Morgan and Pollard, among other discrepancies, had engaged in “willful and intentional discovery violations” while affirming final judgment that the duo should be removed from office.
Morgan, whose current term in office expires at the end of this year, had qualified for re-election. But the court’s ruling makes him ineligible to seek office in Camilla, Chris Cohilas with the Albany-based Watson Spence law firm, who represented Camilla citizens David Cooper and Joe Bostick in the case, said.
“The meat and potatoes of the judges’ ruling is that these guys are disqualified from office,” Cohilas said Friday morning. “This is their Christmas present.
“(Morgan and Pollard) have served as minions for a corrupt mayor (Kelvin Owens) and are part of a voting bloc that has been abusing the system by illegally using city resources. Through their actions, the Camilla City Council has been violating Open Meetings and Open Records acts and have raided more than $1 million from the city’s treasury. And the defense they’ve used has been tantamount to a 5-year-old caught with his hands in a cookie jar and crumbs all over his face.”
At the crux of the case against Pollard and Morgan is the claim that they did not, in fact, live in Camilla as required by law. Pollard, Cohilas said his investigation proved, lives in an Albany complex that offers subsidized housing, while Morgan lives in the city of Pelham. The Camilla residence that Morgan claimed as his home is owned by his grandmother, while Pollard claimed residency in a home owned by his sister.
A Mitchell County Superior Court judge initially ruled that the pair should indeed be removed from office because they could not prove local residency, but the court later ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to enforce its ruling because Pollard and Morgan had appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals. And so the pair continued to attend council meetings and even voted on matters that applied to their case.
“These two gentlemen masqueraded for years as residents of Camilla, but our investigation showed that over a three-month period neither spent one night in the places they claimed were their residences,” Cohilas said. “They were simply on a taxpayer-funded field trip.
“State law says that officials elected in a specific jurisdiction must live in that jurisdiction so that they live under the laws they pass. If they vote to raise taxes, they have to spend their own dollars subject to the decisions they made. During the time they’ve been in office, though, they’ve destroyed evidence, lied in court and defied court orders. Yet as non-residents, they’ve had no skin in the game. This whole case is such a travesty.”
The Appeals Court panel noted that Pollard’s and Morgan’s responses of “I didn’t keep a record of that” and other evasive answers were evidence of “willful and intentional discovery violations.” They concluded that the pair’s actions led them to “imposing extreme sanctions of striking (the council members’) answers and entering a default judgement (on the pair).”
Cohilas said the ousted commissioners may attempt to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court but noted, “It would be very difficult, I think, for them to get their case heard.”
Meanwhile, the attorney said city officials would be prepared if the two, as they did in the past, defy court orders and show up for meetings.
“If they do, they’ll be thrown out,” Cohilas said. “If they try to violate the court’s order, they could be held in contempt of court. We’re going to see that the court’s order is strictly upheld.
“The ruling is quite clear: As soon as the order becomes effective, there two have been ordered to turn over city property and vacate their offices.”
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