College Park officials say they are launching an investigation into how confidential city documents came to be thrown into a recycling center dumpster near City Hall.
The approximately 1,000 pages of documents included private financial information of employees and vendors, and the probe could lead to criminal charges against whoever discarded them, according to a statement issued by city officials.
City attorney Winston Denmark declined to comment when asked who will lead the investigation.
Resident Bob Van Orden discovered the documents June 30. They included emails and letters signed by Interim City Manager Emmanuel Adediran; contracts; bids from vendors; and a list of city employees with bank account information and Social Security numbers, Van Orden said.
Before removing the documents from the dumpster, Van Orden contacted three neighbors who came to the site to witness what he found and help remove the papers. He and one of the neighbors hand-delivered the documents to the Chief Deputy Attorney General’s Office on July 10.
“They’re independent,” Van Orden said why he took the documents to the AG’s office.
The Attorney General’s Office did not return messages seeking comment. Residents have filed multiple complaints against the city with the AG, including alleged violations of state’s open meetings and open records acts.
“There’s a lot of folks that are upset with the city these days,” Van Orden said.
Van Orden says he and the neighbors who retrieved the documents are being criticized by College Park officials on social media and in Monday’s media release, which appears to complain that neither the city nor police department were notified when the documents were found.
Van Orden copied city council members, Adediran and others in a July 10 email that he sent to Georgia Senators Kim Schofield and Nan Orrock informing them of the discovery.
“The email says if you have any questions or you want to see the documents, they’re in the AG’s possession. Contact them,” Van Orden said. “There was really damaging information in a dumpster and it came from the city”
Van Orden and his fellow neighbors have been trying to conduct their own investigation through an open records request. They suspect the documents were thrown into the dumpster on the day Van Orden discovered them, because due to rain all of the materials in the structure were wet except for the College Park documents.
Fellow neighbor Julie McGourik submitted an open records request for video footage of each entry and exit from City Hall on June 30, as well as employee badge swipes on that day.
A letter to McGourik from Denmark’s office and cc’d to Adediran denied the request stating that it compromises public security and that of public facilities.
Mayor Bianca Motley Broom said the discarded documents are a serious matter and she will push for stricter protocols, compliance measures, audits and accountability from all staff.
“Please know I have and will continue to urge swift and decisive action to address this matter and safeguard your trust in our city’s administration,” Motley Broom wrote on her website.
Motley Broom is among those who have filed complaints about College Park with the state attorney’s office. She separately has a pending lawsuit against the city.
