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DEL.ICIO.USSnellville residents making mudpies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The rhetoric’s getting a bit puffy in Snellville.
Recently a backer of Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer filed a formal complaint against the incumbent’s challenger Bruce Garraway for “diversion of resources.”
The diversion? Getting the police chief to send an officer to open the former councilman’s car after Garraway had locked his keys in it. In response Garraway fired off a news release insisting that he was only taking advantage of a police service available to all Snellville residents.
(Snellville police Chief Roy Whitehead has since discontinued the practice.)
Garraway didn’t stop there.
He issued an official request that the Snellville City Council investigate “potential conflicts of interest and collusion” between Oberholtzer and Joe Anderson, the filer of the “diversion” complaint against Garraway.
“Mr. Anderson is a former City Council member who left Snellville in the middle of his term, but who’s spent the last several years as a professional gadfly and troublemaker, using leaked information from Mayor Oberholtzer to fuel his various manias,” Garraway said in his prepared statement. “His unhealthy obsession with Snellville politics now threatens the good name and professional reputation of Roy Whitehead. Frankly, that’s repugnant.”
So what we’re talking about is one accusation of inappropriate use of a car jimmie with a countercharge of consorting with a gadfly. Right?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Gwinnett Insider
Comments
By Joe Anderson
October 23, 2007 8:18 PM | Link to this
Let me be clear, the whole locked out situation has nothing to do with the kindness of a small town police chief helping out a citizen, just as am I sure you would help out your own neighbor.
This has everything to do with an attitude toward holding public office, which should be viewed as a privilege and sacred trust to serve the people, not a right or entitlement to special privileges for the office holder.
This has everything to do with power, coercion, control, waste and selfishness; and all that is bad about too many politicians today.
It may not rise to the level of criminal activity, but both Mr. Garraway’s actions in February and his current response to my complaint speak volumes about his character. Mr. Garraway no doubt knew that if he called SPD dispatch, his request to have a police car sent outside the city limits would be denied, so he called the chief of police at home. That is not an option for most of us. It is a privilege he abused. This act of coercion left the Chief with only one course of action.
Garraway faced with no possible argument for his defense has used what debaters call ad hominen argument. This is where a person replies to an argument or factual claim by attacking the charaterter of the person presenting the facts, because they have no other defense. Garraway has libeled, slandered, and harrassed me. He has even called for the City Council to set up a Star Chamber to investigate me, a private citizen. It has been very revealing of his character.
Not feeling that attacking me would be a sufficient cover for his poor judgement, he has also dragged the Chief of Police into the mess he has created. Let me be very clear about this, the Chief of Police is the victim of Garraway’s coercion and poor judgement from the beginning. It is only Garraway, seeking cover for his mistakes, that has brought the Chief into this and I find that reprehensible.
Joe Anderson
By Bruce Wicox
October 23, 2007 11:01 PM | Link to this
Wow, Snellville has a ‘Lockgate’, no that doesn’t sound right, ‘Doorgate’ maybe? No expense should be spared in this investigation, is Ken ‘Keyhole’ Starr available?