Five members of DeKalb County’s ethics board have now resigned, effectively rendering it out of service once more.
The situation has spiraled so far out of control, the board can’t even muster the quorum needed to properly sub in replacements waiting in the wings, leaving bewildered state legislators to try and figure out what’s next.
Members of DeKalb’s delegation to the General Assembly crafted the law that guides the ethics board and are responsible for appointing most of its members.
“I’m still just trying to get all the facts, and some legal advice in terms of where we go from here, so to speak,” Rep. Karla Drenner, a Democrat from Avondale Estates and longtime chair of the county’s House delegation, said Tuesday.
The 2020 law that governs DeKalb’s ethics board provides for seven “regular” members and a pair of alternates. Since board chair Alex Joseph stepped down Feb. 9 — citing a culture of “bullying, undermining, and attempted manipulation” as reasons — four other members have also resigned.
Candace Walker was the first to follow suit, leaving on Feb. 14.
“I envisioned moving the needle forward from a defunct entity to a confidence-inspiring institution for the citizens of Dekalb with my and other board members’ involvement and experience,” she wrote in her resignation letter, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently obtained via open records request.
“Unfortunately, I do not have the time or capacity to continue doing so with new personal obligations and our current dysfunctional situation.”
Vice-chair David Moskowitz then resigned on the morning of Feb. 16, calling the situation “irreparable.” Shawanda Reynolds-Cobb (”competing priorities”) and Candace J. Rogers (no reason given) stepped down later the same afternoon, records show.
All of that leaves the board with just two regular members and two alternates, including Bill Clark — the colleague that Joseph had accused of demeaning comments. She tried to remove him prior to her resignation.
Four total members would, in theory, be enough for a quorum and allow the board to continue working. But internal rules say alternates can only be temporarily elevated to fill a vacancy by the board chair.
There is currently no chair to do that. And, of course, no quorum available to select one.
“Right now the board should be kind of out of commission,” Drenner, the House delegation leader, said. “I’m not sure if that has happened or if they’re still doing things.”
The remaining board members did not immediately respond to inquiries. Neither did the ethics board’s attorney.
No public meetings have been held or advertised since the spate of resignations; it’s unclear if one even could be called until the delegation appoints new members. The delegation could also, in theory, appoint existing alternates as full-time members on a permanent basis, though those alternates were originally selected for service by other entities.
If the board’s survivors are taking any official action in private, they could be in violation of their own ordinances, Georgia’s open meetings law — and the same internal rules that helped land it in this situation to begin with.
One of the root causes of tension on the board was the handling of complaints, and more recently a lawsuit, brought by now-former deputy ethics officer LaTonya Nix Wiley. Among many other things, Wiley’s lawsuit claims that, shortly before she was placed on administrative leave last spring, Moskowitz violated laws by “automatically” claiming the chair position after another member stepped down from the post.
The decision to place Wiley on leave was then made in a closed door session without a proper quorum, Wiley’s suit alleges.
Drenner, meanwhile, said the delegation is “regrouping.” The exact course of action is to be determined, but part of the weekend was spent going through a list of applicants from 2020.
Drenner said she was disappointed by the new turmoil at the ethics board, which took a lot of work to stand back up after a 2018 lawsuit challenging how certain members were appointed derailed things for more than two years.
But, she said, “boards turn over. There’s nothing fatally flawed in the legislation.”
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