Atlanta’s ethics officer has filed a formal complaint against Councilman Michael Julian Bond over his spending habits.
Bond has come under fire following news reports that he used public tax dollars on personal items, including party favors for a high school reunion, a private math tutor and a four-day business trip to Washington in which he also attended a family reunion, according to a report by television station WXIA.
The at-large councilman, son of famed civil rights activist Julian Bond, has pledged to aid in the investigation. He declined to discuss specific details of the ongoing inquiry Friday, but said: “I contend and I believe that I have not violated any laws or policies or procedures of the city.”
Bond has until mid-September to respond to Ethics Officer Nina Hickson’s letter, in which she said she’s investigating other “potential violations” that could result in additional complaints.
Once he responds, Hickson could decide whether to dismiss the complaint or bring the matter to her board.
“I was elected to public office 20 years ago this year,” Bond said, adding this is the first ethics complaint against him. “I’ve never been through anything like this.”
Hickson’s office is also examining District 4 Councilwoman Cleta Winslow’s expenses following an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of her spending habits earlier this year. The AJC found that Winslow used taxpayer dollars to pay a political ally $65,000 over five years to mow lawns in her district, a potential violation of the city’s ethics code and state gratuities clause. Winslow has maintained she did not benefit from the expenditures and used the funds to improve her community.
Last year Winslow was slapped with a $2,000 fine by the ethics officer after using city funds for campaign purposes, her second offense in recent years.
Council President Ceasar Mitchell issued a memo to the council Friday calling for improvements to the expenditure reporting process. Among his suggestions, Mitchell calls for a checklist that councilmembers must fill out to ensure each expense complies with city code, noting current practices amount to little more than meeting “basic record-keeping” requirements.
Councilmembers are given wide discretion over how to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars allocated to their offices each year. Mitchell’s suggestions can only be enforced should the council agree and adopt it through legislation.
“While every council office has the individual autonomy of a city department and every councilmember is independently elected, collective adherence to a set of standard policies and procedures related to the management of our expense accounts will bolster public confidence in our work,” he wrote.
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