Cobb County commissioners voted Tuesday to provide MUST Ministries with an unusual $85,000 grant of unused federal grant money, despite several other agencies that could have qualified for the money.
MUST has employed Cobb Chairman Tim Lee’s wife since 2006.
It was the second time in two months that the commission has approved the grant to MUST, which will use the money to provide rental assistance to poor people. MUST requested the money last year, saying that the program was running low on funds and that some people would lose their apartments at Christmas if the county couldn’t provide more funding.
The money wasn’t provided in 2014 because Lee, who participated in the first vote, asked for a do-over after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution began asking questions about his conflict of interest. None of MUST’s clients was displaced and agency officials said they used money from their savings accounts to keep their clients in their homes.
Lee abstained from voting Tuesday, but the grant was still approved 3-1. Commission Lisa Cupid cast the only vote against the grant award both times — saying she thinks other non-profit agencies should have been made aware of the available funds and had an opportunity to apply for them.
“I think we need to make sure that everybody has a fair chance that serves these communities,” Cupid said. “There are multiple organizations that provide tenant-based rental assistance. Not all leaders of nonprofits have relationships with this board, to know they can just call in and make a request” for additional money.
Newly elected commissioner Bob Weatherford asked a county staff member if MUST was the only nonprofit eligible for the unused funds.
“They are not necessarily the only one,” said Michael Hughes, the county’s economic development division manager. “They happened to contact … staff to ask for additional funds.”
Commissioners said they will develop a system in the future so that agencies are notified of unexpended grant monies so that they can apply for it on equal footing.
Although Lee recused himself from Tuesday’s vote, the AJC reported in December that the chairman has voted for MUST funding multiple times since being elected to the commission, including a few years during in which he served on the MUST board of directors.
The county’s ethics law says elected officials can’t “participate, directly or indirectly” in “any proceeding … vote … or any other matter involving an immediate relative or any interest of an immediate relative.”
Lee, who has also voted in favor of MUST rezoning matters, has continually refused to answer questions about his previous votes related to the nonprofit.
In other commission action Tuesday:
- Commissioners approved engineering and design work for a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 285, connecting the Galleria-area with the new Braves stadium site. The AJC reported in November that county tax dollars will pay for at least half the bridge construction, which has a "conceptual" cost estimate of $9 million. The newspaper also reported that the bridge will no longer carry a circulator tram planned for the area. The county removed the tram from the bridge design to save money. The engineering and design work will cost an estimated $750,000.
The board approved hiring Norcross-based Pond and Company for $298,000 worth of design and engineering work for intersection improvements near the new Braves stadium. The actual road work — at Cobb Parkway with the intersections of Spring Road and Circle 75 Parkway — will cost about $12.5 million. The improvements have been planned for years, but are needed before the stadium opens in 2017. The projects will be paid by special purpose sales tax revenues in 2016. The county will borrow the $300,000 necessary for the design work until the SPLOST revenues start being collected. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2016.
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