The two men vying to unseat Fulton County Tax Commissioner Arthur Ferdinand want voters to think of next week's election as more of a referendum than a race.
The question: Do voters want to keep a tax collector who's become the state's highest-paid elected official by pocketing personal fees, meanwhile turning taxpayers over to collections firms for late payments of less than $50?
"It's not about me," said tax activist R.J. Morris, who is in the running along with Johns Creek-based developer John Jamont. "It's about getting Arthur Ferdinand out of office."
Ferdinand says don't be fooled. He has a legal right to collect those fees, which had him earning $347,000 last year, and his methods have Fulton County, Atlanta, Johns Creek, Sandy Springs and two school systems reaping 98 percent to 99 percent tax collection rates, which keeps all residents' tax bills low, he said.
He's one of several metro Atlanta tax commissioners defending their seats next week.
DeKalb County Tax Commissioner Claudia Lawson faces a challenge from pastor Melvin Allen Tukes in the Democratic primary. In Cherokee County's Republican primary, Tax Commissioner Sonya Little is in a three-way race with Kenny Phelps, a manager for the county's Engineering Department, and appraiser Wade Wilkie.
But the Fulton race is by far the nastiest. Both of Ferdinand's opponents have personally run afoul of his system of selling property tax liens to private third parties.
"They're deadbeats," Ferdinand said of his challengers. "Little kids know, you can't put a dog to guard your lunch. They can't manage their finances."
In a race being decided in a Democratic primary, where many voters may not have caught the negative publicity about Ferdinand, he has a huge advantage, Georgia State University political science professor Steve Anthony said.
"The vast majority will have a connotation of his name but can't place it," Anthony said. "And those people, studies have shown, end up voting for the name recognition. So he's got that going for him."
Another of Ferdinand's advantages, Anthony said, is that conservative Fulton residents — most likely to be outraged by his high pay — probably won't be weighing in. He's more vulnerable if the race goes into a runoff, the professor said.
Morris blames Ferdinand for selling tax liens against dozens of his investment properties while he was still appealing his bills, causing him to lose the properties, tanking his rental business and leaving him on the verge of bankruptcy. He currently owes more than $60,000 in taxes and penalties.
Jamont is still bitter that Ferdinand sold a $78 lien against a plot of land he planned to develop into a subdivision in the early 2000s. The land got sold at auction, and it took a legal battle for Jamont to get it back.
"Theft and deception in Fulton County runs by the millions," Jamont said. "We need to stop this."
In a speech at a candidates forum earlier this month at Fulton County Democratic Party headquarters, Ferdinand said he has "very little sympathy for those who try to game the system."
"I firmly believe that we all have to pay our taxes," he said, "or the rest of us have to pay for the ones that don't."
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