Doubts didn’t stop deal

By Tim Eberly

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Gwinnett County bought a piece of property this year for more than $1 million from a politically connected family that had abandoned plans to build an office complex on the site.

And the county will need to spend more, possibly as much as three times that amount, to build a bridge over a river to connect the land to a larger parcel it plans to develop into a park.

The purchase, made as the county faced a huge budget shortfall, is another in a string of land deals that have raised questions about the board’s financial stewardship and cozy relationships between some commissioners and developers.

In August, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published stories detailing similar and questionable purchases the county has made, or attempted to make, since 2007.

After reviewing the AJC’s reports, District Attorney Danny Porter last week asked for a special grand jury to investigate those land deals and others by the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners. After hearing from the AJC about this purchase, Porter said he would review it for possible grand jury consideration.

The land, along Lakes Parkway west of Lawrenceville, was owned by a corporation headed by Gwinnett developer Joe Dixon. Dixon is the stepson of Randall Dixon, the president and founder of prominent Gwinnett engineering and architectural design firm Precision Planning Inc.

Joe Dixon’s corporation, Elite Land Development, bought the land — 13.37 acres — in April 2005 for $300,000, records show.

Dixon planned to develop a four-building office park on the property and obtained permits to do so in 2006, county records show. His company began developing the land, including installing a parking lot, curbs and gutters, records show. However, construction halted around early 2008 and the work site was vacated.

It’s not clear why development stopped; Joe Dixon declined to comment for this article.

Around that time, Randall Dixon approached county officials, including Commissioner Lorraine Green, trying to get them to buy the land for a central library, Green said. The property was in Green’s district.

Green wasn’t interested. She said she thought it would be better to invest in existing branch libraries.

Randall Dixon did not return calls seeking comment.

Soon after, on Aug. 5, 2008, Green lost the Republican runoff for the chairman post to Charles Bannister.

Two weeks later, without Green’s knowledge and while she closed out the final months of her term, the county initiated plans to appraise the land in her district.

“It surprises me that I didn’t know about it, absolutely,” Green said. “Generally, purchases of land are done at the district commissioner level.”

Documents show that a staffer from the Support Services Department, which typically handles parkland purchases, ordered the appraisal. When asked who instructed that department to appraise the land, county spokesman Joe Sorenson said county officials could not recall.

Commissioner Shirley Lasseter won the election for Green’s vacated commissioner seat in November 2008.

When Lasseter took office the following January, one of her first actions was to push for the Lakes Parkway purchase.

Lasseter’s first commission meetings fell on Jan. 6. It was during that day’s executive session, a meeting closed to the public, that commissioners began discussing buying the Lakes Parkway land, county documents show.

In that meeting, two other top county officials appeared to be lukewarm about the property, according to a memo obtained by the AJC.

County Administrator Jock Connell told the commissioners that “while there was a need for park property in this area ... this is not staff’s top priority,” the memo states.

Community Services Director Phil Hoskins, whose department runs the parks system, told the board that developing the park would be a challenge because of the Yellow River and the floodplain, the memo states. The river separates the two pieces of land the county wants to connect to make a park.

Regardless, the board moved forward, telling staff to find out how much it would cost to build a bridge, the memo said.

Lasseter acknowledged that she championed the deal. Other commissioners say that Commission Chairman Bannister advocated for the deal, too.

Bannister refused to answer questions for this article, citing the potential grand jury investigation.

Lasseter and Bannister have several connections to those involved in the purchase.

Bannister is a longtime friend of Gwinnett Senior Judge James “Jim” Oxendine, who served as the Dixons’ attorney and negotiated the deal for them.

Lasseter works for Oxendine’s son, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, as his Director of Public Education, and said she is well acquainted with Randall Dixon.

Bannister went on a trip to a Mississippi casino with Randall Dixon, Oxendine and others in 2005. The trip stirred controversy at the time, in part because Dixon paid for the trip and bought Bannister some clothes, for which Bannister said he later repaid Dixon.

Lasseter refused to answer questions about her connections to the Dixon or Oxendine families, but said she pushed for the deal because she thought the land could be used for a park, to build a central library or both.

“Our options were open,” Lasseter said.

But county documents show the land was purchased solely for a park, which Connell confirmed.

During a closed-door session on Jan. 20, a county official told the board a bridge over the Yellow River would cost about $1 million, according to an unsigned memo included in the county file on the land purchase.

A county study obtained by the AJC, however, details three cost estimates for bridges of different sizes. They range from $1.49 million, which officials say is the likely option, to $3.57 million.

Neither Commissioners Bert Nasuti nor Mike Beaudreau recall hearing that a bridge would be needed.

“They never talked about a bridge,” Nasuti said. “I don’t recall the word ‘bridge’ ever being brought up.”

Said Beaudreau: “I really was not aware of that until after the fact.”

At that Jan. 20 meeting, the board authorized the county to negotiate the purchase of 8.27 acres, documents show.

The board formally voted one month later to approve the purchase for $1.16 million, $860,000 more than the Dixons paid for the 13 acres. The purchase was on the board’s consent agenda, a long list of actions approved in one motion and without public discussion because they had the commissioners’ unanimous approval.

At the time the commissioners approved the expenditure for the land, the county faced a revenue shortfall of $62 million. After massive budget cuts to reduce that deficit, the county’s budget woes continue. It is still $9 million short for 2010, Sorenson said.

The park site, which is tucked behind a large strip mall and has no homes nearby, will not likely be developed until 2016 or later, parks officials say.

The county has completed a concept study for the land that shows volleyball and basketball courts and a skate park.

Parks with those amenities should be in or adjacent to residential communities and have pedestrian access to them, said Mike Kane of the National Recreation and Park Association and the former head of the park system in Fairfax County, Va.

Though Lasseter said she made the best decision she could, she acknowledges now that it might not have been the best use of taxpayer money.

“I’m not perfect. Maybe I made a bad decision,” she said. “Maybe we should have had Lorraine Green vote on it.”