Ferdinand backtracks on tip that led to commissioner spat

Last May, Ferdinand said a constituent told him that Commissioner Liz Hausmann, a north Fulton Republican, was living in Gwinnett County. He said the tip prompted his office to investigate her residency — an investigation that later led Ferdinand to revoke Hausmann’s vehicle registration.

But in a deposition in a lawsuit Hausmann filed against him, Ferdinand now says no one told him she was living in Gwinnett County. Instead, he says it was common knowledge that she was getting a divorce and had moved from her Johns Creek home, though he doesn’t remember who told him.

Hausmann — who says she never lived outsider her district — says the tax commissioner’s changing story supports her contention that he revoked her registration as political payback after she questioned his need for a county take-home vehicle.

“Initially, he indicated there was a tip of some sort. In the deposition, he admitted there was no tip,” Hausmann said in an interview last week. “It shows the whole reason this even started was baseless.”

Ferdinand, who has denied retaliating against Hausmann, did not respond to requests for comment. In an e-mail, his attorney, Randy Turner, said it doesn’t matter how Ferdinand discovered that Hausmann was no longer living at her old address. He said Hausmann has no valid complaint.

“The tax commissioner has a legal obligation to ensure that people registering automobiles in Fulton County do so correctly, and this includes Commissioner Hausmann,” Turner said.

The dueling claims come as Hausmann’s lawsuit against the tax commissioner may be headed toward resolution. Ferdinand has asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kelly Lee to dismiss the case, saying the facts don’t support Hausmann’s argument. If the judge permits the case to move forward, a trial is scheduled to begin in June.

The dispute stems from Hausmann’s efforts to renew the registration of a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee. She owns the vehicle, though it is driven by her daughter.

Last April, her daughter renewed the vehicle registration in Hausmann’s name using Hausmann’s longtime Johns Creek address. But Hausmann and her estranged husband had sold the home in 2012, and the address was no longer valid.

In May, Ferdinand notified Hausmann that it had come to his attention that she had sold her home and would need to provide proof of her current address. That same day, he wrote a memo to interim County Attorney Larry Ramsey and to county commissioners, saying a constituent had questioned Hausmann’s residence, prompting him to look into the matter.

“The constituent alleged Ms. Hausmann is no longer a resident of the district to which she was elected and currently resides in Gwinnett County,” Ferdinand wrote. He also questioned her “appropriateness to serve the citizens of District 3.”

But under oath during a January deposition, Ferdinand said no one had told him Hausmann was living in Gwinnett County. Instead, he noted that her daughter had paid for the vehicle registration with a check that had a Gwinnett address.

At another point during the questioning, Ferdinand said he didn’t remember the identity of the constituent referenced in his memo. When asked who told him Hausmann was getting divorced and had moved, he said it was common knowledge.

“It was just general discussion around the place,” he said. “I don’t think I had a specific discussion with somebody about that. I don’t get into people’s business that way.”

Hausmann’s attorney, Josh Belinfante, said Ferdinand’s testimony about the unnamed constituent “suggests he did this on his own.”

“It speaks to what were his motivations at the time he wrote this memorandum to the members of the Fulton County Commission,” Belinfante said.

Ferdinand asked Hausmann to provide proof of her current address. She provided several documents, including her sister’s lease and utility bills and a sworn statement from her sister and brother-in-law. But Ferdinand rejected them as inadequate and revoked her registration.

He later accepted Hausmann’s voter registration as evidence of her address and reinstated the Jeep’s registration.

In her own deposition and in interviews, Hausmann said she moved in with her sister after separating from her husband but never lived outside her commission district. She admitted she failed to update her address after moving, saying she was distracted by the divorce and the death of her father. She said her daughter paid for the registration using a check with her father’s Gwinnett address.

“It could have easily been solved with a phone call,” Hausmann said last week. “The whole process was arbitrary.”

In the lawsuit, Hausmann said Ferdinand’s actions were payback for criticisms she’s leveled against him. Among other things, she said the tax commissioner violated her due process and free speech rights and abused his authority by retaliating against her. She is seeking unspecified damages and attorney’s fees.

In court documents, Ferdinand says he complied with state law throughout the process of verifying Hausmann’s residency.

“How Dr. Ferdinand came to discover that Commissioner Hausmann had registered her car to an address that she no longer owned and hadn’t lived at for eight months is really not important to this issue of whether she has a legal claim against him,” said Turner, the tax commissioner’s attorney. “She does not.”