Final ethics complaint against Fulton county manager withdrawn

A Roswell man has withdrawn an ethics complaint against Fulton County Manager Dick Anderson — one of two such complaints the county’s top administrative officer had faced involving a neighborhood homeowners association dispute.

Amit Mehrotra withdrew his complaint in an email to the county ethics board Sept. 21, two months after a separate complaint by two of Anderson’s other neighbors failed to advance to a formal hearing.

“It has been almost a year since I filed the initial complaint,” Mehrotra wrote. “Given the time that has passed, I believe it is appropriate to pursue other avenues for addressing my concerns. We have submitted several open records requests and are evaluating our available options, including judicial channels.”

Anderson’s attorney, Chuck Boring, said Tuesday that neither complaint against Anderson had merit.

“As for any threatened future litigation mentioned in Mr. Mehrotra’s email, we have no idea what he is talking about,” Boring told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But if history has taught us anything in this matter, it’s that he will attempt to abuse the process if he can. And if he does, we’ll be ready to defend Mr. Anderson and respond accordingly.”

The bad blood in the gated Ellard community stemmed from a dispute pitting the Andersons against members of the HOA’s board. Neighbors have said the board forced Anderson’s wife, Maureen, to resign from it in April 2025.

Mehrotra, the HOA’s president and treasurer, accused Anderson in November of engaging in a “sustained pattern” of harassment and intimidation toward Mehrotra and his family, from February 2025 to October of that year. Mehrotra also accused Anderson of threatening to involve law enforcement “in the context of a purely private HOA dispute.”

Boring has characterized Mehrotra’s allegations as “misleading, incomplete and untrue.”

In a Sept. 9 motion, Boring asked the board to sanction Mehrotra under a section of the county’s ethics code that allows someone who gives the ethics board false or misleading information to face a fine of up to $1,000, or a public reprimand.

On Tuesday, Mehrotra called it “extraordinary” that the county’s chief administrative officer “asked a county body to fine or publicly reprimand a citizen based on his assertion that information submitted through the county’s ethics process was false or misleading.”

The other ethics complaint, filed by Matt and Laurel Nelson, alleged Anderson exerted improper influence over Fulton County police by having them conduct a follow-up investigation into Maureen Anderson’s report of the Nelsons’ dogs running loose on the Anderson property.

At a preliminary hearing in July, members of the ethics board found a lack of “substantial evidence” to support a “reasonable belief” that Anderson violated the county’s Code of Ethics.

In a statement, Anderson said he is pleased both matters have been closed.