Councilman’s use of brother’s company questioned

Atlanta city councilman and mayoral candidate Ceasar Mitchell authorized $49,223 in payments from his taxpayer-funded expense account to a company owned and operated by his brother and former campaign manager, according to records obtained under Georgia’s Open Records Act.

The payments were made to David Mitchell’s company — Pendulum Consulting — in 2006 and 2007 for a variety of goods and services, city invoices show.

The city’s ethics code prohibits council members from participating in city contracts in which they and/or their immediate family members, including siblings, have a “financial or personal interest.”

After The Atlanta Journal-Constitution started inquiring about the payments to Pendulum Consulting, Mitchell wrote the city Ethics Board last Friday, asking whether he had complied with the law.

“I’m asking the Ethics [Board] to look at it and give me some feedback,” he said in an interview this week, “and whatever guidance, advice, directives they give me, I’m going to follow those.”

Five days before he sent his letter to the Ethics Board, Mitchell joined all the other council members in signing a letter to the city’s Integrity Steering Committee that asks for the panel to determine whether their expenditures for the past three years have complied with city laws.

The council issued a news release Wednesday about the request for the committee’s investigation.

“The council has spent most of this year focused on understanding and controlling city expenditures, and we should be no exception to that rule,” Council President Lisa Borders said in the news release.

The steering committee includes Ethics Officer Ginny Looney, Compliance Manager Jeffrey Norman and City Auditor Leslie Ward. The council has asked the committee to report back to it within 75 days.