Citizens Urged to Pack Tomorrow's Commission Meeting

Monday, Feb. 6, 2012
Augusta, GA

UPDATE: Exclusive video from the Feb 7 Augusta Commission Meeting---> Click Here

All concerned citizens of Augusta and surrounding counties are urged to pack tomorrow's Augusta commission meeting at 5pm. On the agenda is a motion to approve a 15 year management contract with Augusta Riverfront LLC for the controversial TEE Center parking deck. We urge citizens to call or write their commissioners and ask them to vote NO! And we urge citizens to be present at tomorrow's commission meeting to show commissioners that you demand accountability. Over the past 4 months we have revealed evidence showing that commissioners were mislead by City Administrator Fred Russell. When the TEE Center and parking deck were approved back on Dec. 9, 2009, Russell explicitly told them not once, but several times that the land for the parking deck would be donated by 933 Broad Investment LLC, a subsidiary of Augusta Riverfront LLC, which has connections to William S Morris III, publisher of The Augusta Chronicle. It never was, and commissioners were never told until after they built a $12 million parking deck on land they did not even own.

But making matters worse, we discovered that the property has liens on it as collateral for over $7,000,000 in debt! That includes the city's air rights! The city administrator knew this all along as well as the real estate attorney hired by the city to facilitate the deals involved in the deck, but they never bothered to tell the commissioners! Now commissioners are being told that they must approve a very lop-sided deal to have the air rights released by the bank. They have been put in a box. It is clearly evident that there was gross malfeasance and downright deceit involved in this parking deck deal. Will commissioners just try and sweep it under the rug tomorrow by approving this very bad deal? That's up to you. Don't let them get away with it. This is your money and they have proven that they cannot be trusted with it.  That's why your presence at tomorrow's meeting is so important. The other side will try and spin this with more propaganda and more deceit (We have seen that today). Do not be fooled! Tell commissioners that they work for you, not the crony robber barons who have swindled and deceived them and the taxpayers. It is time once and for all to put an end to this madness!

Lori Davis and Al Gray are on the agenda to speak at tomorrow's commission meeting, representing the citizens activist group Augusta Today. They will make the case on behalf of the citizens as to why this bad deal should be defeated. But they need your support and your presence at the meeting will speak loud and clear. And even if you are not a resident of the city of Augusta, this still affects you. The TEE Center and parking deck were partially paid for through sales taxes, so you helped pay for this mess! So even if you live in Evans, North Augusta, Lincolnton, or Wrens, but spend money in Augusta... you are also urged to attend.
The meeting gets promptly under way at 5:00pm tomorrow (Tuesday) February 7th at the Municipal Building (Marble Palace) at 530 Greene St, Augusta GA 30901 in the Commission chambers on the 8th floor. You are encouraged to arrive early if you want a seat inside the chambers.

CityStink.net will be releasing more information regarding the TEE Center and Parking Deck Today at 2:30pm, so stay tuned.

Please see new information we uncovered here----> Parking Gate: A Grand Deception?

In addition to your attendance, please call or write the following Augusta Commissioners to vote NO to this bad deal and stand on the side of the people.


Commissioner Jerry Brigham
District 7
Contact:
Ph:             (706) 863-1698       (home)
Ph:             (706) 650-1700       (work)
Fx: (706) 650-1141
Email: Cbrigham@augustaga.gov

Commissioner Joe Jackson
District 6
Contact
Ph:             (706) 533-7839       (home)
Fx: (706) 821-1838 
Email: JtJackson@augustaga.gov

Commissioner Matt Aitken
District 1
Contact
Ph:             (706) 724-4377       (home)
Ph:             (706) 564-6281       (cell)
Fx: (706) 821-1838
Email: MAitken@augustaga.gov

Commissioner Joe Bowles

District 3

Contact
Ph:             (706) 733-9074       (home)
Ph:             (706) 825-6894       (work)
Fx: (706) 210-1871
Email: Mayorpro-temBowles@augustaga.gov

Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle

District 8

Contact
Ph:             (706) 592-2385       (home)
Ph:             (706) 796-3444       (work)
Fx: (706) 821-1838
Email: CWayneGuilfoyle@augustaga.gov

Commissioner Grady Smith

Super District 10

Contact
Ph:             (706) 825-9473       (cell)
Ph:             (706) 733-9473       (work)
Fx: (706) 821-1838

No email available

Commissioner Alvin Mason

Dist 4

Contact

Ph: (706) 955-6130
Fx: (706) 821-1838
Email: amason@augustaga.gov

Commissioner J.R. Hatney

Super District. 9

Contact

Contact
Ph: (706) 722-5035 (home)
Ph: (706) 726-8186 (cell)
Fx: (706) 821-1838
Email: Jhatney@augustaga.gov

Commissioner Corey Johnson

Dist. 2

Contact
Ph: (706) 736-4435 (home)
Ph: (706) 993-0224 (cell)
Fx: (706) 821-1838
Email: CJohnson5@augustaga.gov

Commissioner Bill Lockett

Dist. 5

Contact
Ph: (706) 798-7175 (home)
Ph: (706) 825-1847 (cell)
Fx: (706) 821-1838
Email: Wlockett@augustaga.gov

Movement on Forensic Audit; Brigham Defiant.

Augusta Commissioner Jerry brigham

Friday, Feb. 3, 2012
Augusta, GA
By The Outsider

There appears to be some traction on the forensic audit for the questionable land deals involved in the controversial new $12 million TEE Center Parking Deck. It was reported yesterday that the city's procurement department has issued a request for bid proposals for the audit. That's the first step towards choosing a forensic auditing firm and putting a price tag on the effort. The motion that the commission approved on Dec. 20, 2011 was to begin the process of looking for an auditing firm.  Once bids are submitted, commissioners would still need to approve allocating the money. And that's where Commissioner and Finance Committee Chairman Jerry Brigham vows to fight it.

A defiant Brigham told Chris Thomas of WRDW that "people are just muddying the water with a forensic audit". See Chris Thomas' report with Commissioner Jerry Brigham below:

Assuming that all the controversy surrounding the parking deck is much ado about nothing, Brigham says: "Why waste $30,000 on something where there is nothing to it?"

It's interesting that Brigham is so concerned with saving money on the audit, which is peanuts when compared  to the millions of dollars that the city may have been duped out of on the parking deck and TEE Center.

Brigham's defiance against the audit also gives the impression that he may have something to hide. If you remember, back in the fall of 2009 when the entire TEE Center project was at a stalemate over increasing funding, Brigham's name got caught up in a scandal where local attorney David Fry attempted to bribe Commissioners Alvin Mason and Corey Johnson to switch their votes on the project to get it passed. Brigham admitted back then that he had contact with Fry and was made aware of his intentions; however, he neglected to go to the police with that information. Brigham says that at the time "I did not think that this was nothing more than talk."

Commissioners Mason and Johnson ended up contacting police over the incident and Fry was arrested on charges of attempted bribery of public officials. Allegedly, Fry was offering special management concessions to the commissioners in the TEE Center parking deck, the same one at the center of the current controversy. Some people laughed that off as ludicrous at the time; that Fry had no authority to make such an offer, but many people believe that Fry was a go-between for more powerful figures who could deliver on the promise.

And just in time as the management agreement for the parking deck goes back before the commission on Tuesday, Fry's bribery trial will begin the day before on Monday, February 6th:  Talk about timing!

There is a March 16th deadline for bids on the forensic audit, and despite how it may appear politically for Brigham, he contends he will fight against its approval anyway. Brigham told Chris Thomas that if there is an audit on the parking deck then it should also include the Laney-Walker redevelopment. Actually, that is a good idea. The bond financing for the Laney-Walker/Bethlehem redevelopment project is inextricably tied to to the TEE Center and parking deck. However, Brigham's suggestion seems to be more about "muddying the waters" to direct attention away from the parking deck where there is more funny smoke than inside Willy Nelson's tour bus. And Brigham should be reminded that he opposed Commissioner Bill Lockett's request for an omnibus forensic audit that would have covered the Laney-Walker/Bethlehem Redevelopment.

Scrutiny of the Laney-Walker project will happen in due time. In fact, we here at City Stink have already raised many questions in the past several months over the Laney-Walker Overlay District, which Brigham supported.

But as this forensic audit proceeds, commissioners must make certain that a few things  happen:

#1 City Administrator Fred Russell should have absolutely NO involvement in the process of choosing the auditing firm to conduct the investigation. Russell is up to his eyeballs in this scandal, and there is ample evidence to suggest that he purposefully misled commissioners on multiple occasions.

#2 The audit should include both the TEE Center Parking Deck AND The TEE Center. The stench over this   deal wafts over both sides of Reynolds Street. We already told you about parcels under the TEE Center that were supposed to be deeded to the city that never were. A forensic audit of the entire TEE Center project would likely need to occur anyway based on what is uncovered in the investigation over the deck, so why not kill two birds with one stone, instead of having to go back and pay for a separate audit on the TEE Center?

#3 The primary  criterion for selecting the forensic auditing firm should be thoroughness and not just who is the cheapest. It is imperative to choose a firm with a stellar professional reputation in investigating these sorts of cases with no connection to Augusta's "Good-ole-Boy Network". That means it's likely best to go outside of Augusta.

We are hoping that Brigham is alone on the commission now in continuing to oppose the forensic audit. Commissioners Aitken, Bowles, and Jackson also voted along with Brigham in opposing the audit at the December 20th, 2011 commission meeting. But we hope that most of them have now changed their tune with all of the new information that has come out in the last two weeks and is expected to come out next week.

This is one issue where commissioners probably are going to want to be on the right side. If this thing continues to get much worse than it already has, then any commissioner who continues to oppose the progress of the investigation is going to look mighty foolish and suspect in the eyes of the public.***
Stay tuned, more to come.

Related Stories:

• Forensic Audit Must Proceed on TEE Center Parking Deck Debacle
• Corporal Gripweed: The People Deserve The Whole Truth
• The Ghost of David Fry

***Do you have a story idea, a tip, or would you like to write for City Stink? Then please contact us at: citystink@gmail.com***
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Al Gray: Serenading The Gold Dome Denizens

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012
Augusta, GA
By Al Gray

It's hard to be humble when you are a Georgia legislator. The Arrowflinger Al tackles the hot topic of Ethics in the Georgia Legislature - There aren't any.  So he decided to put his frustrations over Georgia Gold-Domers to song. See his video serenade below. You can see more Arrow Flinger videos at: www.arrowflingerreports.com