Sen. Hardie Davis' Tax-Free Energy Drink

Taste Grates, Less Filling


By Al Gray 

When Augusta Democrat Senator Hardie Davis heartily endorsed Nathan Deal’s latest financial brainstorm, the elimination of sales and USE tax on energy used in manufacturing we were surprised for a host of reasons, the main one being that it will cost Augusta Richmond County $millions in lost tax revenue. In a time that the state and municipal governments are desperate for revenue Davis wants to give away stable sources of sales taxes that cannot be replaced? He wants to shift the Georgia tax burden from corporations to constituents on fixed incomes, like social security recipients? 

 

Then it hit us. Hardie Davis is switching to the Republican Party. Good for him. It will be a marriage made in haven – the Gold Dome. It might be even smart politics. Everyone involved can guzzle tax free energy drinks courtesy of the Georgia Traditional Manufacturers Association (TIPAC). The legislators have a ken for fun drinks, but to constituents this one grates the tongue and doesn’t fill the revenue coffers with anything more than hot air.

If Hardie isn’t going GOP, he has sure failed us with a stellar imitation. Now right about now, Hardie and every other GOP hawker of this money give-away is screaming about passing this exemption to become “competitive.” Change the word to “cannibalistic” and you about have it. What this give-away does is to strip Augusta Richmond County and the 13 county region of $11 million of sales tax revenues over 10 years if you believe the projections underlying the huge new transportation tax increase. This writer knows the losses to be far worse. You can multiply that $11 million (see page 7 ) by 4 – the loss on the new 1% transportation tax, plus the existing 3% local, special, and educational taxes, for a stunning $44 million over ten years! If the legislators tinker with not having the exemptions apply to local sales, that subverts the simplicity always cited for a sales tax.

Just one Augusta manufacturer provided a written statement in 2010 to the Georgia Tax Reform Council that indicated that her plant pays $2 million a year in state sales taxes on electricity and a staggering $1.5 million a year in local Augusta Richmond County taxes. Right about now some of you readers are exclaiming “The consumers of the plant’s products really pay those sales taxes!” Right. The problem is that the vast majority of consumers paying the embedded Georgia and Augusta tax of our manufacturers are in other states. Tax payments by consumers spread the revenues around so that they come to rest outside of Georgia. Does this still sound like a good idea?

The $1.5 million Augusta will lose from that plant on SALES taxes is probably dwarfed by USE taxes that are paid by every Augusta manufacturer that uses a heating process loop in any of their production and manufacturing utility systems. This new exemption also covers industrial fuels, such as coal, natural gas, or diesel fuel in addition to electricity. This revenue loss could easily be between another $2 million and $3.5 million of Augusta local taxes (without the new transportation tax). How will Augusta make up the loss of $3.5 to $5 million of local tax? Is it that easy? On the state tax side of the ledger, doesn’t Georgia need the corresponding $7 million or so to pay teachers?

 We sympathize with Georgia companies who are hurting, but what about her people?

The Hardie Davis tax free energy drink won’t sustain financial life in a host of other Georgia municipalities with similar concentrations of manufacturing, such as Chatham, Glynn, and Daugherty counties. Even worse will be the unsuspecting smaller counties with an unknown large energy user. State sales tax reporting to counties doesn’t show the source of the revenues, so many really don’t know what is about to hit them. For example, even though the textile industry has moved largely offshore, electricity-guzzling yarn plants have remained in Georgia and the USA. Can little Rabun County afford the loss of $1 million in sales taxes? Heard? Mitchell? Putnam? Effingham? Bartow?

Proponents of the tax free energy treat cite competitiveness needs between the states. This has some validity, as other states have chosen to cannibalize tax revenues in a futile attempt to overcome the $30 an hour labor cost difference with China, just as Georgia has futilely spent as much as $168,000 per $40,000 auto plant job in the race for our politicians to claim some very strange bragging rights. This will be just throwing good money after bad.

Since the justification for this tax break is to attract new plants one compromise that could be made comes out of Georgia’s own manufacturing tax rules from the 1980’s. Back then, a new manufacturer or a major plant expansion qualified for new exemptions, while existing ones had to be content with the incentive packages that they received upon building in Georgia. This would satisfy the lack of competitiveness for new plants without destroying the fruits of the past and the revenues of many Georgia counties with them. 

That we would welcome Hardily and Senator Davis could keep his Democratic Party bona fides. Who knows, Augusta even might get an energy drink bottler, with $168,000 per job incentives, of course. Better yet, let’s return good old fashioned mathematics to the legislature. Professor Davis can lead our way instead of drinking Gov. Nathan Deal's Kool-aid.***

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Exclusive: Magnolia Trace Double Take: County Attorney Worked for Developer

Angry residents gave commissioners and the county attorney an earful back in December

**City Stink Exclusive!**

By Hwy 221
Appling, GA

At the tumultuous Columbia County Commission meeting over the Magnolia Trace subsidized housing subdivision on December 6, 2011 City Stink videographer Jill Peterson caught WGAC radio talker Austin Rhodes lending sage advice to Columbia County Attorney Doug Batchelor here:

 

In case the audio was too poor for some readers, Rhodes said “From now on, you make sure that Mr. Batchelor has a standing order that if anybody like this comes in his office again – kick them out."

The double sounds of 'Kaaa-Chinngg..." might have been ringing so loud in Batchelor's ears that he missed Rhodes' imperative.

As with most City Stink pieces, let's seek guidance from the deed and court documents. Directives to mail executed sales documents to Mr. Batchelor appear on the warranty deed for the sale of the land on September 23, 2011 by Dorra LLC. To Magnolia Trace LLP recorded in Deed Book 7987 Page 196 and it looks like Mr. Batchelor signed as a witness on Page 197. Here are the delivery instructions:

PLEASE RETURN TO :
Douglas D. Batchelor

Hull Barrett, P.C.

7004 Evans Town Center Blvd., Suite 300

Evans, GA 30809

Directives to mail executed and recorded documents to Mr. Batchelor appear on the security deed from Magnolia Trace LLP on September 23, 2011 to Sterling Bank recorded in Deed Book 7995 Page 25. Here are the delivery instructions:

WHEN RECORDED MAIL TO :
Douglas D. Batchelor

801 Broad Street - 7th Floor

Augusta, Georgia 30901

Directives to mail executed sales documents to Mr. Batchelor appear on the Assignment of Rents from Magnolia Trace LLP on September 23, 2011 to Sterling Bank recorded in Deed Book 7995 Pages 35-39. Here are the delivery instructions:

WHEN RECORDED MAIL TO : 
Douglas D. Batchelor

801 Broad Street - 7th Floor

Augusta, Georgia 30901

The warranty deed was recorded in the Columbia County Clerks office on September 26, 2011, with the security deed and assignment documents being recorded on September 29, 2011, apparently after being signed by Sterling Bank of Poplar Grove, Missouri and returned for recording. The assignment was re-recorded on October 10,2011 to include a missing exhibit.

The odyssey that began in the Spring of 2010 in Mr. Batchelor's office looks to have concluded in his office in late September 2011 with Magnolia Trace LLC land purchase documents. Why were the developer's purchase documents signed in county attorney Doug Batchelor's presence? Why were the security deed and assignment papers directed to be returned to him after they were recorded? Does the county attorney usually become involved in closing developers' property? The protesting citizens were told that the county had nothing to do with the sale of the Magnolia Trace property. Was this the truth? If so, why these delivery instructions? Was Mr. Batchelor serving two masters while garnering pay from both? Why are there no other local attorney's work in evidence on the sale documents?

A decade ago a group of property rights activists was seeking support from Evans businesses in battling the Evans Town Center ordinance and thought a car dealer to be a likely ally. The manager very quickly asserted that he didn't see that they had a problem, because the county attorney who wrote the ordinance was their attorney. Frankly, that story wasn't believed then – there was no substantiation of it - and is hard to believe now.

The county video of the December 6 meeting shows uncharacteristically halting, stammering, and searching by Doug Batchelor. That was hardly reassuring.

Earlier this week, the report of the special outside counsel engaged to explore ways of halting Magnolia Trace construction was released. It said that the development cannot be stopped.

The legal work on the other side in advance was just too good to overcome.

Related Stories:

Magnolia Trace: Money Traces to the Gold Dome

Magnolia Trace: After the Storm

Magnolia Trace: No Trace of Trey

Magnolia Trace: Expect Fireworks in Evans Tonight

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City Stink Exclusive: The TEE Center LLC Trap

TEE Center under construction on Reynolds Street

**City Stink Exclusive!**

Jan. 11, 2012

Augusta, GA

By Lori Davis

On December 1, 2011, several weeks prior to the Augusta Commission's vote to engage a forensic auditor to investigate the Tee Center Deck ownership fiasco, I submitted an Open Records request To the Augusta Law Department in an attempt to get to the bottom of  the confusing procession of statements coming from Administrator Fred Russell, Mayor Pro Tem Joe Bowles, and others. I received a response to this request from Staff Attorney Kenneth Bray on December 15, 2011. (See pdfs at bottom.)

Most of the information provided dealt with the Laney Walker Overlay. Most of the rest was missing any dates, including the negotiation term sheet (see pdf at bottom) and a schedule which was labeled as a modification (see pdf). The total packet was about an inch and a half thick. After skimming the documents, I called upon Augusta Today and CityStink.net contributor and cost recovery analyst Al Gray to assist in completing my review.

What we found was stunning new information buried in the document pile. I will get to that later.

The first item requested was information relating to the land under the Tee Center Deck being security for any loans or bonds. Since the bonds were known to be general obligation bonds and were tied to the Laney Walker project funding, this was precautionary, with no documents necessarily expected to come back from the Law department. They provided the bond package for the combined Laney Walker and Tee Center funding.

Emails and any other correspondence relating to the deck between any and all Augusta government parties were requested. None were returned. The Law Department cited pretty wide attorney-client privilege. I was very disappointed by that, given publicized remarks attributed to outside counsel Jim Plunkett about events surrounding the failure to have the various parcels under the parking deck donated by Augusta Riverfront LLC. Much has been said of discussions of air rights. I hoped to get clarification of that. It looks like the forensic auditor might run into immediate stone walling, based upon the response to my inquiry.

Since Mayor Pro Tem Bowles has spoken on The Austin Rhodes Show and elsewhere of  having saved the city $1.5 million due to the ownership and financing, I thought that the request would have at least produced the analysis upon which he was basing his claimed savings. I guessed wrong. Do you suppose the savings are the same place as Augusta taxpayers' property rights with the deck, which is “up in the air?”

A really obscure document I requested was an insurance certificate from Tee Center and Deck contractor R.W. Allen to Augusta Riverfront LLC, as an additional insured during construction. While this document is not one that Augusta would have in its possession, Augusta's program manager Heery International probably should have it and it should have been accessible.  Not having this insurance document suggests that R.W. Allen thought it was working on land owned by Augusta government, not owned by Augusta Riverfront LLC. It also suggests that program manager Heery was caught off guard too.

I couldn't form any conclusions as to whether the land under the decks owned by Augusta Riverfront LLC was to be donated or not because the documents provided conflicted on this point and had no dates to tell me what the final word was. The dating is critical. There was an undated “modification” to the Augusta Riverfront Term Sheet in the package. It might have been created last week, for all the public knows.

The undated, unsigned “Management Agreement Term Sheet” between the City of Augusta and Augusta Riverfront LLC  in paragraph 6 states “LLC will transfer to Augusta that portion of its property needed to develop the Trade Center and parking, adjacent to the Convention Center. This land transfer, which will not include air rights, will be a no cost to Augusta.” This term sheet seems to have been modified to reverse this part of the transaction.  With no dates, it isn't possible to tell the sequence of events. (see pdf at bottom)

What is clear is that Commissioner Johnny Hatney was told several times by Administrator Fred Russell that the land under the deck owned by the LLC was going to be donated at the December 7, 2009 meeting  at which the Tee Center was approved by the Augusta Richmond County Commission. Russell did not clarify that only limited air rights were donated. I think most of the public thinks his talk of “property that's going to be donated” means just that, not “air rights.” Besides, there are schedules that were presented to the commission that show the value of the “Donated Property,” $464,353, as being the assessed value, not plus or minus the “air rights.”

Amazingly Parcel 037-3-047-00-0, land under the $38 million Tee Center itself,  remains owned by Augusta Riverfront LLC.  There have been no recordings with the Clerk of Court office documenting any changes in the ownership rights with this piece of land, including air rights. As precise as the legal documentation of land ownership and rights is, isn't it wild that this could happen?

Augusta built $50 million of buildings, some costing nearly $200 per square foot, on land it only partially owns. The taxpayers might get the 'air rights' to a parking deck they paid $12 million for. The LLC's get guaranteed fees and to keep the property, which gives them dominance over the entire complex forever. 1

“Donation” now means having your cake and getting paid to eat it too.

Fred thinks this was a bargain.


A forensic audit cannot happen soon enough, and trust me, we will be watching every step of the way.

1. According to the detailed term sheet, the public was guaranteed not much more than that the LLC bears losses after the operations loses $250,000 of the public's money and that figure excludes depreciation and interest. The public would bear those in addition to the losses. According to the modification provided this was changed to the LLC's getting fees and the public taking the gains and losses from operations.

**Below are some of the documents I received in my open records request. There are 5 separate PDF files in total so scroll down

Augusta Tee Deck Open Record Request Response Tee Land Acquisition Documents TEE Center Term Sheet Document Term Sheet Modifications Undated Current Tasks Including Deck Info

Lori Davis: Harrisburg Sees Lack of Action From Neighborhood Task Force

By Lori Davis, Chief Harrisburg correspondent for CityStink.net

As we begin the new year of 2012, I have begun to reflect upon the mismanagement of our city and how this is affecting our citizens…things that were supposed to get done but never did, promises made that have not been kept. The one that comes to mind is the Neighborhood Task Force that was supposed to exist to help Richmond County neighborhoods with ongoing problems of crime, prostitution, drug dealing and bad tenant behavior.  

This was offered as a last resort in the last meeting of the Chronic Nuisance Property Ordinance research committee in the spring of 2010. It was clear that a CNPO was not going to happen. The last words I remember hearing on that fateful day was, “We really need to do something to help Mrs. Davis with her issues in Harrisburg.”  I believe these words were spoken by Wayne Brown, the city attorney who drew up an ordinance for the committee and then deemed his own ordinance unconstitutional.  In my opinion one of the single best things that this city and this state could have embraced was finding a legal means for cities in the state of Georgia to institute Chronic Nuisance Property Ordinances. 

These ordinances hold landlords accountable for the bad behavior of their tenants after a certain threshold of documented police calls has been reached. These ordinances work beautifully in cities all over the United States. The ordinance does not criminalize the landlord in any way but simply asks him to become part of the problem solving process. CNPO’s in reality are created for the 2% of landlords who cannot be convinced that problems exist and therefore are not willing to help in any way with their solutions. 

The problem is that Georgia State Code stands in the way. Rather than pursue the changing of State Code, the easiest thing for our city leaders to do was to figure  something else out. You know, “We need to help Mrs. Davis with Harrisburg.” This something else was called, “The Neighborhood Task Force.”  Well, let’s see where this task force is today and what has been accomplished since it was  supposedly established.

In September of 2010, Commissioner Mason asked for an update on the progress of the Task Force from Rob Sherman, Department Head of License and Inspection. Sammy Sias brought the agenda item forth at the Augusta Commission meeting. Rob Sherman obviously got word that this was going to happen because he presented a beautiful brochure on the Task Force and how it was supposed to operate.  It seems that the task force would be made up of someone from the Marshall’s Department, someone from the Sherriff’s Office, and someone from Code Enforcement. These individuals would work as volunteers in this capacity as their workday allowed for it. Citizens would be able to file their complaints and the task force would assist.  

The brochures were even supposed to go out in the water bills so that the citizenry would know that it existed.  To this day this has never occurred. It was Fred Russell who said there would be no problem in putting them in the water bills. He’s good at that sort of problem solving you know…next agenda item please. All of this was news to me since I had heard nothing of it after Commissioner Bowles proposed, back in May of 2010, finding $150,000 for operating a task force. To my knowledge, this was never seriously considered. The only reason anything was put together to present to the Commissioners on this day is because Commissioner Mason decided to follow up on this task force idea or lack thereof. At least he had Sherman sweating bullets. That made my day because I knew all of this was bogus as was the CNPO committee on which I served. This city does not want change and they’ll be damned if any ordinary citizen is going to make them change from their familiarity of just going along with the status-quo

After all has been said and done, Harrisburg has put together our own task force which includes our Board of Directors and three wonderful employees of the city.  We have been able to weed out the bad apples and are now working with some of the best people who truly take their jobs seriously. These individuals are Sergeant Scott Reese of the Marshall’s Department and Keith Petty and Donna Tyra both of Code Enforcement.  We have yet to find a representative from the Richmond County Sherriff’s Office who spends enough time in Harrisburg to be of help.  It seems every time we get a progressive deputy who feels our pain, he is moved elsewhere. 

We have taken it upon ourselves without the help of the Augusta leadership to try and solve our own problems one house at the time. We applaud the efforts of our own task force which has made progress in our neighborhood, though at a slow pace. There has never been a time that these three individuals have not jumped right on a problem when it has been presented to them. 

The shame of all of this resides in the Augusta bureaucracy. The urban core of this city has fallen apart in the past 30 years due to the inattention of the physical needs of the neighborhoods which should have been controlled by city code enforcement. This inattention has bred the problems that now exist on monumental levels. A Chronic Nuisance Property Ordinance would be an effective tool to help with the restoration of our neighborhoods. It could be done if we had leaders willing to see the process through. Until this becomes a reality, our own citizen created task force will do just fine. Thank you Scott, Keith and Donna for all you do for Harrisburg.  You three are what it is all about!!***

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Corporal Gripweed: "Divide and Conquer", The Tired Tactic of The Cabal

Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011
By Corporal Gripweed


"It is the rule in war ….if double the enemy's strength; be able to divide them……."
            Sun Tzu's "Art of War"


I had the pleasure recently of attending a meeting of like-minded individuals from the Augusta Today group: a collection  of people  known was the "inner circle". I was immediately struck by the amount of diversity I encountered….political and racial. Some were black, some where white. Some were conservative, some were liberal. And some were in between. There may have even been an anarchist or two in the bunch.


But we were united in our stated goal of holding ALL politicians in Augusta-Richmond County government accountable when doing the people's business. When it came my turn to speak I remarked that it was the diversity of our group that makes us strong. I was also impressed that our dissatisfaction with some city leaders' recent decisions went across racial and political lines.


Mainly I wanted to make the point that for too long, local politicians, their cronies in business, and in particular the local media, have for generations used the tactic of "divide and conquer". If they can make an issue black vs. white,  liberal vs. conservative or haves vs. have nots, they can divide our voices and win the day.


The strategy of "divide and conquer" as developed by the Chinese General Sun Tzu over 2,500 years ago, has been used successfully down through the centuries by evil empire builders as a means to subdue and subjugate nations and people, thus maintaining power more easily. I submitted to the group that the issues we face in this county aren't black or white, liberal or conservative. The issues we face are mostly right vs. wrong.


Was the land swap deal involving the parking deck legal? All indications are that it was. But as my momma used to say, "That doesn't make it right".  The budget deal recently passed by the Augusta Commission included $100,000. for another assistant to the Mayor, while the city is millions in the hole. Is this legal? Of course. BUT, "That doesn't make it right. " Remember…needs before wants.


Properties surrounding the proposed  mixed-use facility are owned by a handful of well connected people who hide this information  under a myriad of LLC's because they stand to profit from the deal. Is this legal? Yes.
BUT, that doesn't make it right.


Slavery was legal for over 200 years in America….BUT...That didn't make it right.
I told my friends that night, that I hoped our common interests would overcome our differences. I have the same hope for all Augustans.  That the "divide and conquer" tactics used by the elites in this city would be diluted by the fact that we have "right" on our side. Those in power may do things legally in most cases, but if we hold them to the standard of right vs. wrong, we'll win the argument every time. And they won't be able to "divide and conquer" any longer. ***


CG
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***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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Laney-Walker Overlay Do-Over

Dec. 26, 2011

The following documents were sent to us by Dee Mathis and Michael Sheil concerning the re-application process for the W-4 Overlay Zoning District in Laney-Walker. Not much has changed from the last time and it appears as though they will not be notifying residents of the wider Laney-Walker area about future plans for the entire neighborhood. The W-4 node is just one small portion of a much larger area that will include several overlay zones. For now it appears the project developer, APD Urban Planning and Management LLC, is focusing their efforts on just the W-4 node. But as we have told you in previous stories, the master plan call for a much larger area to be affected by new zoning regulations. We do hope that the city and the developer will begin notifying the residents of the wider Laney-Walker/Bethelehem area to include them in the process for their future plans.

SKMBT_C35311122116090

Al Gray: Fraudits with Less Than a Full Deck

Fraudits with Less Than a Full Deck

By Al Gray

OK, “Fraudits” isn't really a word, but it is what one gets if he starts out with Augusta City Administrator FRed (Russell) leading AUDITS  which might find FRAUDS in Augusta-Richmond County's ill-fated Tee Center and, specifically, the $12 million parking deck built by that government on land it mostly doesn't own. Dispensing for a moment with this non-word that, in this case, makes sense with nearly perfect symmetry, Augusta's commissioners should focus on the one word that really matters – Independence.

This is written by an author from some knowledge on the subject, having served within the internal audit departments of two Fortune 500 companies for a decade. A significant number of our cost recovery consulting operations since those years have been responsive to initiatives by corporate directors of internal audit. An even more pertinent factor is that this writer once recused himself from an audit being performed by subordinates. Forensic audits are tasked with such weighty matters, including amassing evidence for criminal prosecution, that failure to achieve total independence taints and ruins the findings.

The 6-4 vote this past Tuesday by the Augusta Richmond County Commission, on a substitute motion brought by Commissioner Alvin Mason , to engage a forensic auditing firm to investigate and report on the progression of events leading to construction of the TEE center parking deck was commendable. After all, meeting minutes from December 9, 2009 show Commissioner Johnny Hatney was told very clearly by Mr. Russell that the land under the deck was to be donated to the city. Yes, there were minutes from an earlier meeting in which there was discussion of the city gaining “air rights” above the ground floor while 933 Broad Street LLC, the land owner, retained ownership of the land under it. There might be justification for such hybrid ownership by bond financing requirements of a certain percentage of private partner ownership. It might have saved financing cost at the same time it obligated taxpayers. Much has been said in the media about these things, but most information is conflicting, changing, and biased as to sourcing.

Mr. Russell is at the epicenter of the confusion. Mr. Russell is tasked with selecting the forensic auditor to investigate the confusion. The process is circuitous – it leads nowhere and no one will believe the results if the investigation proceeds on this basis.

What has been revealed also points to issues within Augusta's Law Department and special counsel it engaged for the Tee Center, associated deck construction, and financing. Answers from that quarter should have been immediately forthcoming, not three months of confused dawdling.

Forensic audits are serious business. When this writer worked for SLKP as its capital projects auditing manager within the internal audit department, our audit director and senior management without fail moved quickly to engage very tough outside forensics auditors and fraud examiners to achieve ultimate independence in every case where fraud appeared likely to have occurred. The forensics auditors quickly fire-walled off the investigations to the point that even we internal auditors who discovered the fraud were excluded. Why? Independence! This needs to be job #1 with the deck audit, as well.

One contractor payroll audit our capital projects audit unit performed at another company indicated a chance that the paymaster, a friend, had committed fraud in the form of forgery and issuing bogus paychecks. When this unhappy situation came to light, the staff auditor in charge was directed to exclude this writer who was his manager, and conduct the investigation directly with the contractor's fraud investigators and the company Director of Internal Audit. Their investigation led to an admission of guilt, dismissal,  and full restitution of the funds stolen. In that instance those directing the investigation chose not to prosecute. In other cases involving commodity procurement, accounts payable, data processing, engineering, and construction fraud, the perpetrators were prosecuted, tried, and convicted. The bare-knuckles forensic auditors handled every one of those. What looked to be overkill never failed.

That parking deck fiasco on Reynolds Street is tremendously complicated. The Limited Liability Corporations owning land under the deck and in an ongoing joint venture with Augusta's Convention and Visitor's Bureau apparently enjoy common ownership with Augusta's daily newspaper, which has understandably been almost totally silent on this matter. A state senator got caught up in this controversy inadvertently with a generous land swap. The Tee Center contract has the contractor working on cost-plus (albeit limited by a Guaranteed Maximum Price) basis on new construction, a historic building to be preserved, coordination with ongoing operations, a brown field site, and on land that the owner doesn't own. A further complication is that the contractor's CEO is running for Congress. A final consideration is that the Tee Center itself seems to have been sold on faulty premises on a foundation of years of controversial situations arising from the city's public private partnership with the LLC's, most of which were resolved at considerable expense to Augusta Richmond county taxpayers.

No forensics audit is going to clear the air from all these things. The smoke is welling up from too many places, some of them decades old.

What the immediate forensics audit can do is to report the sequence of events leading to the deck being built on mostly private land, whether that outcome was legitimately directed by financing requirements, and whether reports to the commissioners were consistent with the facts known by the city law department and the county administrator at the time of the reporting. The final product is more likely to deal with competence than fraud and whether answers to commissioners' questions by the administration have credibility. If the forensics team finds evidence of fraud, they will pursue it.

Commissioner Grady Smith's suggestion that an Augusta Richmond County grand jury investigate the situation before engaging a forensic auditor has no small degree of merit. A grand jury has subpoena power and if it strikes a brick wall of, say, the city attorneys and their outside counsel claiming attorney-client privilege with respect to the LLC's what is the point of a forensics audit? A grand jury is a least independent of Fred Russell.

Furthermore, to this observer the forensics audit should definitely extend to the Tee Center planning, design, contracting, and change orders. Since this enormous project features the same project management, construction management, and administration as much of the city's overall capital improvements program, issues that are identified, reported, and recommended upon will likely have precursors in prior projects and commonalities with current ones.

It is far from a stretch to assert, that this audit, properly done, should pay for itself.

This author has always been guided by the principle that once it is determined that someone is too crooked or too incompetent to be handling his money, it really matters not the intent, but the result. Then one removes the threat while recouping his money.

The people are watching this situation intensely as it calls into question not just governmental integrity, but that of the media, as well. Handle it will independence, diligence, and completeness Augusta Commissioners. You only have one shot at it. Don't let it be deflected by Fred Russell. That is a habit that must end. You have to be INDEPENDENT, not purveyors of a smokescreen-spewing FRaudit.

Good luck.***

City Stink contributor Al Gray is President of Cost Recovery Works, a Lincoln County-based firm providing cost recovery and cost avoidance services focused on large construction projects, contracts administration, local taxation, land use planning, public policy, manufacturing plants and incentives. Examples of his work are to be found at ConstructionAudits.com

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