The City Council of Stockbridge voted Monday night to censure Mayor Lee Stuart, who council members accuse of harassing city employees and disrupting the government's functions.
The 4-1 vote occurred after Stuart allegedly accused the city's municipal court of ticket fixing and demanded that court employees increase security measures to avoid potential attack by angry citizens.
"He has no respect for us as other elected officials," Councilman Mark Alarcon told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "He has no respect for staff."
The AJC was attempting to contact Stuart for comment Tuesday.
Stuart, who took office in 2010, previously served in the military for more than 30 years. His critics said that he has applied military discipline to the city with disastrous results.
"I appreciate and respect his military service," Alarcon said. "[But] you cannot take a military structure into a civilian, municipal structure. Staff are supposed to snap-to and ten-hut any time he speaks. That just doesn't work. We're in the civilian world. We're not in Baghdad."
Councilman Richard Steinberg told the AJC that the mayor has harassed, belittled and undermined employees.
"He has verbally and in writing berated officials on a continuing basis," he said, adding that the mayor has also monitored employee emails and hidden in trees to observe employees at work.
Monday, municipal court clerk Annita Gunnoe wrote a memo criticizing Stuart for comments he allegedly made in a private conversation with her. She emailed the memo, which the AJC obtained, to multiple city officials.
According to Gunnoe's memo, the mayor accused the court of "fixing tickets," and said that citizens refer to it as a "Kangaroo Court." Stuart also warned that court officials were vulnerable to violent attack, based on the findings of a report from the city police department, Gunnoe said.
"He said file cabinets needed to be moved in front of the windows and the wall and new door near the reception area needed to be installed" to protect employees from "sniper fire," Gunnoe said.
She questioned the necessity of those measures. Steinberg said that the mayor had yet to provide any evidence of a threat.
At its Monday night meeting, the council directed the city attorney to investigate the mayor's allegation of ticket fixing. During the same meeting, the council censured Stuart.
"Our goal is to let him know that we have employees that are so scared and so upset and so nervous," Alarcon said of the vote. "There's a very big potential for lawsuits or other types of actions against the city. He's putting the city in financial risk."
The censure will not have any practical affect on the mayor, but council members said it was nonetheless necessary.
"It's nothing more than a slap on the wrist, but it makes him aware that we're not going to tolerate that behavior towards our city employees," Steinberg said.
Council members said the vote follows months of growing tension between the mayor, council and staff.
Alarcon said that if Stuart's alleged treatment of city employees continues, removing the mayor from office was an option, but not the preferred one.
"The charter and our ordinances give us mechanisms to remove a mayor," he said. "That is not our goal. Our goal is to continue trying to get him to communicate."
But Alarcon added, "I'm going to do whatever I need to do to fulfill...my sworn duty to my citizens. If it means removing him, that's fine and good."
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