Stone Mountain mayor sues to block City Council’s effort to unseat her
Stone Mountain Mayor Beverly Jones is suing City Council members to stop their effort to oust her from office for assuming sole control of city bank accounts — which occurred inadvertently, her attorney says.
Jones argues in the suit that she was acting in good faith by signing documents prepared by the bank, and that her removal of other city officials from the accounts was unintentional.
The first-term mayor, who faces a challenger in her bid for reelection in November, faces no accusation of misappropriating city funds.
But the council began efforts to remove Jones in August after an attorney for the city found she allegedly violated sections of the city’s charter, state law, and her oath of office.
The mayor’s lawsuit, first reported by Decaturish, was filed this week in DeKalb County Superior Court.
It argues that Jones, the first Black woman to be mayor of Stone Mountain, violated neither her oath of office nor any ordinances, describing a notice alleging violations against her as “legally insufficient.”
“For anyone to try to make out that the mayor did anything unethical, illegal, intentional — it’s just wrong,” her attorney, Mark Anthony Scott, said in an interview. “And this is political season, this is small-town politics, and it really, really doesn’t speak well to the citizens of Stone Mountain.”
Mayor Pro Tem Ryan Smith said the city hired Lawrenceville attorney Robert Jackson Wilson to investigate because something appeared to be amiss with the accounts. Wilson’s findings prompted the City Council’s 4-2 vote on Aug. 19 to initiate removal proceedings, Smith said.
Wilson’s report, dated Aug. 1, laid out the following findings:
Jones visited Truist bank’s Stone Mountain branch April 2 to sign new signature cards. She has indicated she did so after the bank informed her that some former city employees still had signature authority on city bank accounts, putting the accounts at risk.
The mayor maintained she consulted with the then-city attorney before visiting the branch, a claim the attorney has denied, according to Wilson’s report.
The report says Jones signed a preprinted form generated by Truist for corporate deposit accounts, and that the document contained inaccurate statements at odds with the city charter.
Wilson also found that the mayor’s signing of signature cards for three accounts of the Downtown Development Authority was “inconsistent with state law and city regulations” because the mayor is not a member of the authority.
Bank employees repeatedly encouraged Jones to add additional signers to the accounts, according to Wilson’s report. But there’s no indication Jones did so or informed other city officials about her actions before they were discovered May 7.
Jones’ lawsuit says her failure to update signature cards without having another person sign was a “minor deficiency.”
Councilman Smith told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the mayor removed his and City Council member Teresa Crowe’s authority to sign checks for the city.
“The biggest concern that the city has is elected officials are not supposed to deal with city funds,” Smith said. “Our mayor went to the neighborhood bank and took people’s names off ... and left our names off and didn’t tell the council anything about it.”
About a month later, the then-city manager discovered something was wrong when he tried to wire payroll taxes to the state and was locked out of all city accounts, according to Smith.
The mayor’s lawsuit says the City Council enacted a new ordinance this month laying out proceedings for removing an elected official from office. But Scott, the mayor’s attorney, argues the ordinance was not “officially adopted” and therefore does not apply.
The ordinance calls for creation of an “impartial hearing panel” made up of three people, including the chief judge of the city’s municipal court or the judge’s designee, and two other people appointed by a majority vote of the council.
Smith said a public hearing of the panel is set for Oct. 29 at Stone Mountain City Hall, 875 Main St.
About the Author
Reed Williams is an enterprise reporter on the Local team at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
