Jenna Garland is a sympathetic figure, a competent PR professional and an amicable mother of a 3-month-old infant who must take breaks during her criminal trial to pump breast milk.
She has also become the face of the reign of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who famously battled with the pesky press, and whose administration is being investigated by the feds.
Now, Garland, who was Reed’s press secretary, is not tied to any of the corruption that has sent some of Hizzoner’s high-level aides to prison. No, she is the unfortunate trailblazer in the state’s effort to enforce a law that requires governments to turn over public records.
Garland is the first person to be criminally tried for allegedly violating Georgia's open records law. The charge is a misdemeanor akin to a really expensive parking ticket, but Garland has brought in a high-priced lawyer to fight the prosecution and clear her name.
Garland has been charged with "attempting to frustrate the access to records." And I, for one, can vouch that frustration was a common emotion when trying to get an answer from the former Atlanta mayoral administration.
At the root of Garland's legal woes are some texts she sent in 2017, messages that unwittingly lifted the veil from the Reed administration's media strategy, one that I've dubbed P.O.O. — Prevaricate, Obfuscate and Obstruct.
The texts, “Drag this out as long as possible” and “provide information in the most confusing format available” were sent by Garland to her counterpart in the city’s water department.
Those messages came while Channel 2 Action News was looking into some water billing records for homes owned by Reed and his family, as well as members of the City Council, including then-Councilwoman Keisha Lance Bottoms, who was Reed's candidate to replace him. Turns out some of them were behind in their water bills. I mean waaaaay behind, like an $8,800 bill for Reed's brother, Tracy. Future Mayor Bottoms also was in arrears.
Prosecutor Blair McGowan told jurors, “This case is about open government and the defendant’s attempt to keep damaging information contained in public records from being released to the public.”
Reed has not been accused of telling Garland to hide or delay any information. But I think anyone in that office inherently knew that bad publicity about Hizzoner and Co.’s water bills would result in a hellish work day with their mercurial boss.
The defense insists that “Drag this out” and other comments were simply some private joshing between Garland and Lillian Govus, who was the water department’s communications director.
Govus was kind of being a pain in the mayoral office’s rear end because she kept pestering Garland about what she should do with the media’s requests. Water billing records are easy to look up and disseminate, Govus said. But the idea of releasing the utility bills of the politically powerful — especially those who are not paying on time — can make a middle-level manager gulp Mylanta.
Govus was asked in court why she didn’t just fulfill the open records request and send the records to the media.
“I wasn’t allowed to,” Govus testified Tuesday. “I knew I’d be without a job.”
And I suppose Garland’s kidding around in those texts didn’t strike Govus as all that funny. One day after those records were finally delivered to Channel 2, Govus was fired.
“Your services are no longer needed,” she was told. The actual reason for Govus’ dismissal was not made apparent in court Tuesday as Garland’s defense attorney, Scott Grubman, is afflicted with a verbal tick that makes him constantly blurt, “Objection!”
So, Govus’ firing remains unexplained, but its timing can only fuel one’s imagination.
Not long after she was canned, Govus sent screen shots of Garland’s texts to Channel 2 producer Terah Boyd, who had requested the records. Govus said she didn’t want to be known as an obstructor. It could ruin her street cred as a public relations professional. A year later, when she landed another job and moved out of the city, she allowed Channel 2 and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to make the texts public.
People in Garland’s camp are unhappy she’s being prosecuted, saying she has been made a scapegoat for a Democratic administration being targeted by a Republican state attorney general, Chris Carr. They say her tongue-in-cheek texts are being twisted to make an example out of her, and to make Carr and the media look good. (The trial is relatively low risk. There is no jail time.)
The defense points out that the city initially released records of the Reeds’ properties within the three-day timeline built into the law. However, when Channel 2 discovered that it had inadvertently asked for a wrong address and then put in more open records requests, the city worked to slow down the clock. I harbor the theory that the city figured if it delayed the info long enough, the media (which often has the attention span of a gnat) would soon forget and move on to something else. But Channel 2 producer Boyd kept coming back at the city.
Prosecutors say Garland tried to frustrate the press because she and others in the Reed administration were themselves frustrated. In March 2017, the federal corruption investigation had been made public just weeks earlier, and the media was busy turning up rocks all over City Hall.
I must add that Garland was often the helpful one in an office that was largely antagonistic.
“She felt everything they worked for was at risk,” prosecutor McGowan told jurors. Garland thought Channel 2 was on a “fishing expedition.”
Except in this one, Garland got hooked.
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