DA Porter to look into county’s park land acquisitions

Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said Friday that he will review the county’s park land acquisitions over the past four years at the request of a recently adjourned grand jury.

About 43 park property transactions have been completed by the county since 2004. Over the next several weeks, Porter will review them all and then make a presentation of his findings to the next grand jury panel, which organizes on Sept. 11. Porter said he is legally obligated to investigate anything related to the operation of county government at the grand jury’s request.

The issue of park land deals came up after Joe Newton, a Norcross political activist, sent the September adjourned Gwinnett grand jury information about the county’s purchase of 58 acres of land off Beaver Ruin Road near I-85. The $4.7 million land deal has been controversial ever since it came before the commission for a vote in January 2007.

Chairman Charles Bannister was the only member of the board who voted against the purchase, calling the property “landlocked” and largely unusable because of its location in a flood plain. The issue heated up again in his re-election campaign against Commissioner Lorraine Green.

Porter said it’s too early to tell whether there was anything suspicious about the land purchase. He will be looking for signs of corruption or graft in the transactions.

“As usual, I don’t know where the information is going to take us,” Porter said.