The DeKalb County Board of Ethics moved forward Thursday with a case accusing DeKalb Commissioner Stan Watson of acting unethically when he voted to award a $1.5 million contract to a company he was working for.
The board voted 3-1 to advance the complaint to a full hearing to determine whether Watson broke the county’s code of ethics. The board has the power to reprimand, suspend or remove public officials.
Watson declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday night.
An investigator for the Board of Ethics said Watson admitted that he failed to recuse himself when he voted to award a contract to APD Solutions, a property development company that was paying him more than $500 per month for his strategic advice. Watson received $19,800 from APD Solutions from 2012 to 2014, said the investigator, attorney Robert Browning.
“He voted twice to move finances forward for this company, knowing that he had some connection to the company,” said Edwinett Fay Perkins-Murphy, a member of the board. “If he had refrained from voting altogether, then he would not be involved in an ethics violation.”
Board of Ethics Chairman John Ernst said Watson’s alleged breach was clear to him.
“He was paid as an APD Solutions employee, and he voted to approve money to APD Solutions,” Ernst said. “He has admitted that it was a direct conflict of interest, and that he’s sorry that he did it.”
Watson didn't disclose his relationship with APD Solutions before the county commission voted 7-0 on April 10, 2012, to give the company a $1 million contract to buy, rehab and sell homes in a neighborhood hit hard by the economic recession. He also voted nine months later to award the company an additional $500,000 to rehab homes in a different neighborhood.
“He did not stand up and say, ‘I have to step back.’ He went ahead and voted,” Browning told the board. “He said that he missed it … he dismissed it that it was APD Solutions being considered.”
Watson apologized for his votes on the awards earlier this year during a brief exchange with reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News.
“I don’t remember doing that, ” Watson said at the time. “If I did, that was a mistake and inadvertent.”
Watson told Browning he ended his employment with APD Solutions earlier this year.
APD Solutions is run by Vaughn Irons, the company’s CEO and founder who is running in a special election next month to represent the southeastern part of the county on the DeKalb Commission.
Irons faces an ethics complaint of his own alleging that he had a conflict of interest when he accepted county business while also serving as a board member for the DeKalb Development Authority. The Board of Ethics voted 4-0 Thursday to decide that it had jurisdiction in that case, which will now be investigated further. Irons has said he didn’t do anything wrong.
Board of Ethics member Clara Black-Delay voted against advancing Watson’s case, saying he should have recused himself but his actions didn’t rise to the level of an ethics violation.
“There was no special compensation to APD by his vote. It was 7-0; it would have passed anyway,” she said. “It didn’t impact the company one way or the other.”
The board dismissed two other allegations against Watson.
Watson had been accused of charging the county for his personal cellphone and for using county funds to build a political website that included a link where people could donate to his election campaign.
Browning told the board that Watson used his cellphone mostly for county business, and that Watson said no campaign contributions were ever paid to him through the website.
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