Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee answered questions Aug. 8 about his off-the-books hiring of attorney Dan McRae to negotiate the preliminary stadium deal with the Braves. A full audio of the entire interview is above.
Why did you hire McRae to lead negotiations? "I didn't choose him to be point man. When the Braves first came to us to talk about this prospect, clearly it was a big project and it had a lot of components to it. I wanted to bounce it off someone who had experience in the bond funding market that could help me understand if it was even feasible to try and do something like this…But he was not the lead negotiator for the county at all."
Who drafted the original MOU? "That's because they have experience. They've done MOUs for other stadiums so we figured why don't you start, put it together, send it to Dan, see if that matches what we've talked about, then eventually it made its way over to (County Attorney) Deborah Dance, who actually was the lead on it … once we got to the point where we needed to make it real."
But the core negotiations didn't involve Dance, did they? "Well, the core of the MOU, I mean, the Braves took an MOU they've had in the past and said let's start here, tweak it to what we've had conversations about. So that's not negotiations, per se. That's coming up with a document and making it reflective of what our conversation was so that when — the MOU, I guess I'm assuming that you're assuming that the MOU was a negotiation. … We didn't negotiate back and forth with the MOU. … I consider it him making sure the MOU reflected what we talked about and was something that could be legally supported."
You don't consider that negotiations? "No I don't because Dan was helping us determine if the financial model could work, and then when we finally figured out that this was the model we were going to try and move forward … let's put it on paper, he worked to put it on paper."
Why didn't he have a contract? "He was someone I sought out, saying would you mind helping me figure this out, just to see if we could move forward. Just as a subject-matter expert. And we never had a conversation about compensation."
The county attorney didn't know about the negotiations. Who was providing you with legal advice, if not Dan McRae? "Until my staff … got involved, everything up until that point … was as if you would do a feasibility gut check — is this something we should even move forward with? And he played a role in that, to include can we get to the point of an MOU that we can all agree on, that we can bring forward."
So when talking about negotiations with the Braves, was that primarily you? "Primarily, yeah. In putting together what I thought would be best for the county to present to the commission for approval."
And McRae's role in that? "Just helping me understand what I could and couldn't do financially."
Isn't that the role of an attorney? "I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know what their job is."
Why didn't you ask the county attorney for help? "I chose not to do that."
Why? "We were having — this was a very — evidently this is a bigger deal than I thought it was at the time. And I was working with a small group of people trying to get an assessment whether or not this makes sense to go forward, by involving as few people as possible."
Not the county attorney? "Let's say I never knew Dan, and I never knew his capability, his reputation … then sure I would have called Deborah and asked who do you recommend. But I knew Dan and I didn't want to hire him, I just wanted to get his advice: does this make sense to move to the next level. It's not any different than you calling your uncle who happens to be a master plumber (to) say look I'm thinking about adding an outside spigot."
Did you promise McRae he'd be bond counsel? "No."
Are you aware Seyfarth Shaw was written into the MOU as bond counsel?" It's my understanding now. At the time it was done I was unaware of it."
Do you know who did that?" What I've been told is Dan inserted that language."
Why? "I don't know why. You'd have to chat with him."
Is that a concern to you? "No. Because I have an approved MOU, which doesn't have him in it."
