Tom Cheek, a West Cobb resident who filed an ethics complaint against Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee in August, updated his complaint Tuesday with an email showing Lee unilaterally hired an outside attorney to be the county's bond and project counsel on the Braves stadium deal.
Only the county attorney can hire outside legal counsel.
The email was uncovered through a Georgia Open Records Act request, and reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Oct. 5.
In addition to the email, Cheek filed a rebuttal to Lee's written response to the complaint. In the rebuttal, Cheek called Lee's response a "lengthy and impertinent reply" that "does not specifically address the issues in the original complaint."
“Therefore, the Ethics Board should overlook the belligerent hectoring and diversionary grandstanding … and set a hearing to further inquire into the merits of the complaint,” the rebuttal said.
The ethics board will meet Oct. 21 and decide whether to proceed with a full-blown hearing on the complaint.
Lee did not respond to a message left on his cell phone seeking comment.
Cheek's main allegation mirrors an August story published by the AJC that found attorney Dan McRae was the county's lead negotiator with the Braves general counsel in drafting a preliminary agreement, called a Memorandum of Understanding, that sealed the $400 million public investment in a new stadium.
Lee has consistently disputed that — even after the newspaper uncovered an email in which Lee confirms hiring McRae as the county’s bond and project counsel — saying McRae was only used as a preliminary advisor in early stages of the deal.
“The real issue at hand is that Chairman Lee does not have the authority to unilaterally choose an attorney to negotiate and otherwise represent Cobb County,” Cheek’s rebuttal says. “Dan McRae did much more than personally advise Chairman Tim Lee and explore the feasibility of a deal … he was the lead negotiator for Cobb County … and was given that authority by Chairman Lee through Brooks Mathis of the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce.”
A second charge in Cheek’s complaint is that Lee used his private email account to avoid compliance with Georgia’s Open Records Act. Cheek also amended that charge to add that Lee also avoided the open records process by having Mathis use his email account at the Cobb Chamber to hire McRae and his firm, Seyfarth Shaw, on behalf of the county.
“I am passing on to you the following provided by Chairman Tim Lee on behalf of Cobb County and its entities,” the email, dated Oct. 8, 2013 email from Mathis to McRae says. “The county confirms the attorney-client relationship between it and Seyfarth Shaw as its project counsel/bond counsel” for the Braves deal.
McRae started MOU negotiations with Braves’ General Counsel Greg Heller six days later.
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