The results of the hearing are about what I expected since the Mayor and
old Council are responsible for the Board's configuration.
Board of Ethics
Special Called Meeting
August 28, 2014 Agenda
6:30 p.m.
Community Center
2753 Watts Drive, Kennesaw
1. Call to Order
2. Old business: None
3. New business: To review complaint received on 8/12/14 to determine if it is in proper form. If so, to determine if it is unjustified, frivolous, patently unfounded or fails to state facts sufficient to invoke the disciplinary jurisdiction of the board.
4. Adjourn
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8/13/14
The below complaint was filed with the Kennesaw City Clerk at 11:15 a.m. on Tues Aug 12, 2014 by myself, Bill Harris, it runs 12 pages
First page in the MDJ was the report on the Mathews complaint, you can see the article at: http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/25599487/article-Ethics-complaint-brought-against-Kennesaw-mayor?instance=home_top_bullets
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This is an Ethics Complaint regarding Malfeasance and violation of the Kennesaw Ethics Code by Mayor Mathews
Specific Allegations of Misconduct by a City Official:
As set forth in the Kennesaw Code of Ethics at Sec. 2-92 Intent, the Kennesaw mayor is required to be independent and impartial and not use his office for private gain and to hold office in a manner that gives citizens public confidence in the mayor’s actions.
These requirements were violated in:
Sec 2-93 (4), by the mayor's use of his official position to fraudulently secure personal representation by the Kennesaw City Attorney, Mr. R. Randall Bentley Sr. and his Marietta firm of Bentley, Bentley and Bentley, in pursuit of a private and personal matter by untrue claims that the legal representation was an Official Act or Action and by his misuse of City resources in this private matter.
Sec. 2-93 (5), by engaging in the described improper activity and by conduct that was incompatible with the proper discharge of his official mayoral duties in an attempt to benefit from unwarranted free legal representation.
Sec. 2-93 (6), Engaging in Malfeasance as a member of the governing authority, by requiring performance by a public official, the City Attorney, of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, and used in violation of a public trust.
By his false claims of libel and slander of himself in his position as mayor, in order to induce the City Attorney and/or the City Council to take action on his own behalf and to have his private legal cause taken up by the City by a 3 page letter being drafted and served as a 'Cease and Desist, Demand for Retraction' letter by the City Attorney on his behalf and he did, by these actions and mis-statements, cause City employees to use City resources and City funds (at least $1,055.47) in the creation of the referenced letter.
Sec. 2-93 (7) b., in that the mayor used his position to require the City Attorney to perform work outside the normal course of the City's employment by researching, drafting and making efforts to serve the letter.
Sec. 2-94, Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest. The mayor had a clear conflict of interest in attempting to bully a blogger (myself) who had been a critic of his administration over a period of 10 months. The issue was and remains one that the mayor should have taken up with a private attorney paid for out of his own funds and not by using the City Attorney to take up the matter.
Had the allegations of the libel/slander, in the quoting statements of the mayor been true, it "might" have been arguable that the drafted letter had some merit and was in the City's interest to correct alleged mis-statements, however, this contention fails entirely as the mayor knew that he had made the disputed statements before a KSU journalism class on 3/19/2014.*
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The referenced blog site is at: http://mayormathews.blogspot.com/
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