No Investigation Planned for Alleged Executive Session Leaks

A call for an ethics investigation into reported leaks from Franklin County commission executive sessions is going nowhere.

At the request of the Board of Commissioners, County manager Billy Morse said he contacted the Georgia Ethics Commission only to find out that state office had changed.

“I first contacted the Georgia Transparency and Government Finance Commission, which was formerly the Georgia Ethics Commission,” Morse said. “They said they did not do that. That’s why they were no longer called the State Ethics Commission. They said they only investigate campaign finance related and they referred me to the State Inspector General.”

Morse said the Inspector General’s office was no help either and they referred him to the Georgia Attorney General’s office, but again, he received no help.

“I was informed they could not assist us and I was referred back to our county attorney,” Morse said. “In essence, I came full circle and presented that information to the commission.”

Morse said the board decided that since the State was not able to help us and did our due diligence that the matter would just be dropped,” Morse said.

At their work session last month, commissioner Clint Harper called for the investigation after learning that another commissioner, Robert Franklin said he had been approached by former county accounts payable clerk Rhonda Grizzle after an executive session on June 13th.

Franklin tells WLHR News Grizzle allegedly repeated word for word what had been discussed that night by the board in executive session concerning their choice to fill the position of county clerk.

Grizzle had been one of over 40 applicants for the job, but did not get it.   She resigned immediately after that called meeting  on the 13th.   Harper said Monday he is disappointed  that nothing can apparently be done.

“Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do about a situation and you h ave to go on,” Harper said. “It’s just kind of sad that when you have these kinds of rules and regulations and laws but they don’t have anybody when they’re broken, that even wants to look into them.”

A suggestion was made at their work session to have a law enforcement officer outside the executive session meeting room door, but Harper said that’s not the entire answer.

“We are assuming that someone was listening in, and nothing was said about the leak possibly coming from inside,” he said. “Nothing has been said about the leak coming from inside. We can make sure we have nobody listening from outside, but if it comes from within, then that’s not going to help.”

The Magistrate’s office is on the other side of the meeting room where the commission holds its executive sessions. Harper said he also tried to view surveillance video from the Magistrate’s office from the evening of June 13^th.

“We spent $12,000 last year getting these cameras installed and the one in the Magistrate’s office, the hard drive was not working,” Harper said. “I was very disappointed in that because if anybody had been in that hallway or in that office, they would have been on camera.”

Harper said he found the fact that that particular camera was not working suspicious.

“I find it interesting that out of all of the cameras we have in all of the county offices, that one was not working,” he said.

Morse said that hard drive has since been replaced.

Harper said he is not sure whether he will bring up the security issue again and says he still is not comfortable speaking openly in executive session.