College Park council under fire again. This time, for meeting in Savannah.
Even before College Park City Council members held a hastily called meeting in Savannah — more than 200 miles from their constituents — the Georgia Attorney General’s Office had already received 37 complaints alleging violations of the state’s open records and open meetings laws by the city.
That was the number filed against College Park in all of 2024.
The AG’s office said it was still reviewing those complaints and was in “ongoing discussion” with the city about compliance issues when four more complaints came in over the past few weeks — this time about a June 28 City Council meeting held in a Savannah hotel.
City leaders said they met in Savannah because they already were there for the Georgia Municipal Association’s annual convention and needed to quickly choose a new tourism marketing organization before the city’s contract with the previous one, known as the ATL Airport District Convention & Visitors Bureau, ended June 30.
College Park, a city of only 14,000 residents, regularly generates an outsized amount of controversy.
Over the past year alone, a lawsuit alleged city employees and officials conspired with others to destroy the value of an apartment complex and “steal” the property; a lawyer for the city’s development authority concluded it had executed unlawful agreements resulting in questionable payments of more than $548,000 to a real estate company; and the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office said it was investigating “a plethora of complaints” surrounding the use of public funds to pay for a festival organized by a council member running for reelection.
For some residents and government transparency advocates, the Savannah meeting is the latest outrage — a public meeting held more than 240 miles from City Hall, to choose a new marketing organization that will spend millions of dollars in restricted hotel-motel tax revenue, with some of that money earmarked for council members’ pet projects.
The city and the new organization still need to negotiate a contract.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Kristen Settlemire told College Park City Attorney Winston Denmark, in a June 30 letter, that it was unclear if the Savannah meeting technically violated the Open Meetings Act.
But she said it’s not a good practice.
“Scheduling a meeting on a weekend in a location approximately four hours away from the city most certainly does not promote public participation in city government,” Settlemire’s letter says.
Notice of the meeting was made two days prior, on June 26, and the meeting was streamed. Two council members said there was no attempt to skirt the Open Meetings Act or cut the public out of the decision to hire the new marketing firm.
But residents who drove seven hours round trip to the meeting said they saw no meeting agenda posted, either outside or inside the meeting room. The Georgia Open Meetings Act requires the agenda be available on request and be “posted at the meeting site.”
A city spokesperson acknowledged to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution there was no meeting agenda posted outside the meeting location, but said the agenda was on a table inside.
College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom, who is often at odds with council members, did not attend the Savannah meeting because she was presiding over the annual business meeting of the municipal association at the same time the council meeting was happening. Motley Broom was president of the municipal association at the time.
The mayor gets only a tiebreaker vote during council meetings, but opposed hiring a marketing organization that had incorporated only a few weeks before the meeting.
Councilman Roderick Gay denied the council sought to exclude residents or the mayor from the meeting, saying, “There was not any deliberate intent to violate the Open Meetings Act, nor am I aware that any provisions were not complied with.”
Council member Jamelle McKenzie added that all of the complaints about alleged sunshine law violations are part of a concerted attack by residents against the “new council” that began after she and council member Tracie Arnold were elected in 2023.
“This is all a political agenda,” McKenzie said. “These are people not accepting the results of an election. I serve them regardless, but they have not even given this government an opportunity.”
Arnold and Mayor Pro Tem Joe Carn did not return messages seeking comment.
Richard T. Griffiths, a spokesperson for the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, said holding a College Park council meeting in Savannah is bad government, regardless of the circumstances or the law.
“For them to hold that hearing so far away from its citizens runs counter to all the spirit of the Open Meetings Act, even if on some technicality it was legal,” Griffiths said. “It’s wrong for a city council to disrespect its citizens such that they can’t attend or have to drive four hours to get there.”
A lawsuit filed Monday by Katie Corkren, a Republican running for the Georgia Senate’s District 36 seat, alleges officials impeded the public’s access by holding the meeting in Savannah. The complaint in Fulton County Superior Court includes affidavits from six College Park residents who said they attended the meeting and saw no posted agenda.
Rusi Patel, general counsel for the Georgia Municipal Association, said a judge could render the meeting invalid if an agenda was not posted or if the meeting violated the Open Meetings Act in some other way.
Industry group asks state to investigate
The agenda for the June 28 meeting had three items: two board appointments and a review of organizations vying to be the city’s new tourism marketing firm, called a Destination Marketing Organization.
Destination Marketing Organizations use restricted hotel-motel tax dollars to promote tourism, conventions and trade shows in ways that are prescribed by state law.
The council unanimously designated a Maryland-based nonprofit, called Destination Must Visit Tourism Alliance, to take over the city’s tourism marketing.
It’s a controversial choice.
Destination Must Visit Tourism Alliance was incorporated May 29, and has been accused by several tourism organizations in Georgia of falsely listing them as past clients or partners.
In fact, an industry organization called the Georgia Hotel & Lodging Association submitted a 42-page complaint against the city and the organization on June 30, asking the Georgia Hotel-Motel Tax Performance Review Board to deny the city’s attempt to change marketing organizations and to investigate “significant violations of Georgia’s Hotel-Motel Tax Law involving” the use of restricted funds.
The allegations include College Park adopting a resolution June 15 that appears to predetermine how about $6 million in tourism-promotion funds will be spent “for projects outside the statutory” process for Destination Marketing Organizations.
That spending includes $2 million for the Roderick Gay Botanical Garden Conservancy, named after the sitting councilman, and for related botanical garden initiatives; and $1 million for the CP Historical Preservation Conservancy, and for related heritage tourism and historic preservation initiatives. The conservancy was created in November by legislation sponsored by McKenzie.
The hotel association also asked the Performance Review Board to examine the qualifications of Destination Must Visit and “its merits to receive or administer restricted hotel-motel tax revenues.”
The complaint says Destination Must Visit claimed to have successfully served numerous organizations in Georgia. The hotel association said it contacted at least 11 of them, all of whom said they had no record of ever working with Destination Must Visit or receiving any services from it.
In one of several emails included in the complaint, Lisa Anders of Explore Gwinnett wrote that Destination Must Visit’s website claimed it provided a list of services for Explore Gwinnett, including tourism marketing support.
“Consider myself astonished as every word on the page is false,” wrote Anders, who has served the organization for 30 years and is now chief operating officer. “I can unequivocally state I have never spoken with anyone, worked with anyone, or received any services from them.”
Officials with Destination Must Visit did not directly comment on the specifics of the Anders allegation or others in the complaint. But the organization’s website says a “demo” website meant only for internal use was “leaked” to the public.
“All information that caused misunderstanding was immediately removed” from the organization’s website, it says.
“We never wished to convey that Destination Must Visit Tourism Alliance Incorporated was under contract with or received an endorsement from any of them,” the organization’s website adds. “If we inadvertently did, we sincerely apologize.”
CEO Carolyn Howell said in a statement to the AJC that her team “boasts decades of experience and too many satisfied clients and industry partners to count.” She also appeared to place blame for the controversy on the tourism organizations.
“While we regret that our industry includes competitors who would use half-truths and intentionally deceptive statements to manufacture controversy about our organization, we look forward to providing the City of College Park with outstanding services,” the statement said.
An item in the website’s “Frequently Asked Questions” section includes this question: Does the city of College Park or any of its elected leaders have a “special interest” in Destination Must Visit?
“No,” is the one-word answer below the question.