Text exchange between Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott and Cobb Chairman Tim Lee:
Ott: “What is your problem? You wonder why I don’t trust you. You know I’m out of town next week. Are you that insecure that you had to wait until I’m out of the country to move behind our backs. At least I made my intentions known publicly. You’re over the edge. It’s pathetic.”
Lee: “Have a great day.”
Ott: “Oh please. People are a lot smarter than you think they are. This will backfire on you. So the last laugh will not be yours. Either way I think you lose.”
A Cobb County resident filed a complaint Wednesday evening with the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation related to controversial transit projects the county is studying.
The complaint was filed just as political intrigue is heating up over the controversial $500 million bus rapid transit project, which would build bus-only lanes from Kennesaw to the Cumberland area.
As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday, there are incorrect statements made in a key environmental report, necessary for the county to qualify for up to $250 million in grants for BRT. The incorrect statements also appear in a $10 million federal grant application for a similar project.
Tom Cheek, a West Cobb software salesman who last year successfully fought for major changes in the county Medical Examiner’s Office, filed the complaint through an automated telephone process.
Cheek told the AJC that he claims “mismanagement, not fraud” in his complaint, and simply asked the inspector general to consider an investigation.
“The focus is on the mismanagement of the process that resulted in documentation that inaccurately stated the status of community acceptance of the projects in question,” Cheek said.
Meanwhile, the AJC learned Thursday that Cobb Chairman Tim Lee, who had previously waffled on whether voters would decide the BRT issue through a referendum, placed a resolution on Tuesday’s meeting agenda that states the commission’s intent to have a BRT referendum before the project is built.
Last year, after unsuccessfully trying to slip BRT projects into a special purpose sales tax vote without labeling the projects as related to BRT, Lee assured the public that there would be a referendum. Then, last month, he sponsored a long-range transportation plan that specifically allowed commissioners to approve BRT without a referendum.
That led commissioner Bob Ott, who will not be present at next week’s meeting, to announce that he would sponsor a resolution saying the commission should hold a BRT referendum.
Ott says the chairman’s resolution is an attempt to minimize the political fallout from his waffling on the issue.
“I am growing increasingly concerned about what appears to be political maneuvering to keep the public one step behind or unaware of what’s going on with their money,” Ott said. “It’s obvious what he’s doing.”
Lee didn’t return messages from the AJC asking for comment. But his resolution triggered a terse text exchange Thursday morning with Ott.
“What is your problem?” Ott wrote to Lee in the text. “You wonder why I don’t trust you? You know I’m out of town next week. Are you that insecure that you had to wait until I’m out of the country to move behind our backs. At least I made my intentions known publicly. You’re over the edge. It’s pathetic.”
Lee responded: “Have a great day.”
“People are a lot smarter than you think they are,” Ott retorted.
As the AJC reported on Wednesday, the Environmental Assessment report for BRT says commissioners were “presented the results” of a bus rapid transit analysis during a February 2012 meeting. It also says commissioners “accepted” BRT as the county’s “locally preferred alternative” among various transit options, an important designation needed to qualify for federal funding.
In fact, no analysis had been completed when that meeting was held, no vote was taken, and commissioners made no comments whatsoever after the presentation on Connect Cobb. The county still has not adopted BRT as it’s preferred alternative.
Identical incorrect language about BRT was used in a $10 million federal TIGER grant application, which would build bus-only lanes at a handful of U.S. 41 intersections.
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