3 Atlanta council members spend donors’ money to woo voters

Through an unusual financial arrangement, three Atlanta City Council members have showered thousands of dollars’ worth of prizes, parties and food on their constituents with donations from dozens of local businesses, city records show.

The council members solicited the donations from the companies, some of which have had business before the council. And the contributions have come in the form of checks written to, and held by, the city in special “trust fund” accounts. Expense records and interviews with the council members suggest that they spend the money as they see fit with little oversight from the city.

Councilman Ivory Lee Young Jr., for example, has spent the money to bus hundreds of his 3rd District constituents to his annual Sun ‘N’ Fun Senior Citizen Beach Extravaganza at a Clayton County park, according to documents obtained under Georgia’s Open Records Act. The parties featured a reggae band and donated prizes such as free round-trip airplane tickets to anywhere in the United States.

Young also bought toys and thousands of Thanksgiving turkeys he handed out to his constituents around the holidays.

“I played Santa at a couple of sites,” Young said.

In recent years, Young spent more than $50,000 from trust fund accounts, city records show.

Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd has spent more than $5,000 on holiday parties for her 12th District constituents while supplementing money from her trust fund with money from her campaign account.

Mayoral candidate and at-large Councilman Ceasar Mitchell spent at least $2,200 from his trust fund to take constituents to the Georgia Aquarium and feed them lunch.

The council members say they are trying to help needy children and elderly and poor residents. “This is just an opportunity to reach out to them and give them a day of rest,” Young said of the Sun ‘N’ Fun parties for his elderly constituents. “We rely heavily on their involvement in our council office to help us be our eyes and ears on the streets for crime and other issues.”

Critics, however, say these types of events amount to campaigning for re-election.

“They are certainly advancing their own political ambitions by that sort of thing,” said Emmet Bondurant, a city resident, trial lawyer and former chairman of Common Cause Georgia, a government watchdog group. “There are a vast number of nonpolitical, charitable organizations that are fully capable of accepting and administering those funds without a council member, in effect setting the stage for the next election by currying favor with members of the district.”

A city watchdog panel is investigating the legality of the spending. A report is due by year’s end. The council requested the probe Oct. 5 after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution started examining the council’s expenditures. The AJC later reported that several council members had spent tens of thousands of dollars from their taxpayer-funded expense accounts over the past two years hiring their relatives for city work and handing out flowers, gifts and food to constituents. Mitchell and Councilwoman Natalyn Mosby Archibong have since announced they would refund taxpayer money they had paid their relatives.

Since 2004, Mitchell, Young and Sheperd have sponsored measures to establish their trust funds. The council approved unanimously.

Though state law limits how much money donors can give to election campaigns for council candidates, the council didn’t limit contributions to the trust fund accounts.

A spokeswoman for the Georgia Municipal Association said her organization is not aware of any other cities that have such trust funds. Officials in Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties say they do not have such trust fund accounts.

Young is chairman of the council’s Zoning Committee, which makes recommendations to the council on rezonings and other development matters. Among the donors to his Sun ‘N’ Fun event in past years are real estate investors, developers and builders.

H.J. Russell & Co. and its development arm, Russell New Urban Development LLC, each gave $500 for the event last year. Wayne Mason, a Gwinnett County real estate investor, gave $3,000 for the event in 2006.

“There is absolutely no connection between Mr. Mason’s contribution to help seniors and Councilman Young’s activities in City Hall,” said Mason’s spokeswoman, Jane Langley.

Some of Young’s donors also gave political donations to his City Council campaign. For example, the Sembler Co., a commercial real estate company with offices in Atlanta, gave Young $500 for his Sun ‘N’ Fun event in July 2005 and then gave his political campaign the maximum allowed under state law — $2,000 — in September of that same year.

Donors to the council’s trust funds say they contributed to support community events and received nothing more than recognition in return.

“They don’t receive favors. They don’t receive any personal treatment or anything,” Young said. “It doesn’t get them any brownie points when it comes to going through the legislative processes that are required for a rezoning.”

Donors to Sheperd’s holiday party have included Georgia Power, an Atlanta-based electric utility, which gave $1,500; Brock Built, an Atlanta-area home builder, which gave $300; and NorSouth Housing Partners, a developer that has offices in Atlanta, which donated $300.

City records show $2,500 in donations went to Mitchell’s trust fund for a “senior day at the aquarium,” with $1,000 coming from Georgia Power.

When council members want to spend money from their trust funds, they submit requests to the city’s Finance Department, which cuts the checks. City records do not indicate that the spending requires further approval. The city’s newly hired chief financial officer, Jim Glass, did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the trust funds.

State law requires elected officials to list on their annual financial disclosures all fiduciary positions they hold with trusts. Mitchell, Sheperd and Young failed to mention the trust funds on their 2008 disclosures.

After the AJC questioned them, all three indicated they would amend their state forms to reflect the trust funds.

Also, earlier this month, no city gift disclosure forms were on file for the donations to the council members’ trust funds, as is required. Sheperd and Young filed city disclosure forms Dec. 10 and Dec. 11, respectively. Mitchell said he would file his forms.

In one case, Mitchell paid a relative out of his trust fund.

Mitchell said he hired Pendulum Consulting to buy the aquarium tickets and boxed lunches from a Subway restaurant for his constituents. Pendulum is owned and operated by his brother and former council campaign manager, David Mitchell. City records show Pendulum was paid $2,263 from Ceasar Mitchell’s city trust fund.

City law prohibits council members from participating in city contracts in which they or their immediate family members — including siblings — have a “financial or personal interest.” Mitchell said his brother’s company did not profit on the goods he provided but merely expedited purchases and was later reimbursed by the trust fund. The councilman provided the AJC with copies of invoices from Pendulum that appear to back up his claim.

City records indicate that only three of the council’s 16 members have their own trust funds.

“I don’t need a trust fund, and I keep my campaign funds totally separate from city expenses,” said Councilwoman Anne Fauver, who voted to create the trust funds for her colleagues.

Mayor Shirley Franklin said the city has accounts set up for various activities connected to her office, but she does not personally direct spending from them.

“I think the council very rightly has asked the ethics officer to look at the ethical question,” Franklin said.

About the council’s trust funds, Franklin said: “I don’t operate that way. But just because I don’t operate that way doesn’t mean there is not a way to do this that meets all the ethics standards and the transparency standards.”