Action taken regarding The Dougherty County Board of Education

February 5, 2010

Honorable Thurbert E. Baker
Attorney General
40 Capital Square, S.W.
Atlanta, Georgia 30334

Re: The Dougherty County Board of Education

Dear Mr. Baker:

I represent an incorporated group of taxpaying citizens, The Dougherty County Taxpayers Association, Inc., which was formed in 2006 by thousands of unhappy taxpayers who felt the need to confront ad valorem tax issues that evolved from an illegal tax assessment that was based upon inflated values derived from an out-of-state, unqualified, drive-by (windshield), real estate appraisal firm and our denial of arbitration and the administrative process by local officials. (Our lawsuits against County tax boards (and our appeals) have taken us all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court).

The rights of our taxpayers, most recently addressed by Senate Bill 346, have caused us to challenge local government corruption resulting in a November 2009 conviction of an inter-city manager, as well as exposing numerous accounts of wasteful government projects and spending at both the City and County levels. We are an organized, well informed, and engaged group of citizens who are striving to make our community a better place for its citizens to live.

Our local School Board, previously cited by our organization for wasteful spending, missing funds of $3.9 million from a school lunch program, and other infractions, has recently acted in such a way which we feel clearly violates the code of ethics of at least four Board members. In addition, their collective acts, as cited by their own attorney (see attached 2/1/10 letter from attorney Tommy Coleman of Perry & Walters, LLP) have clearly violated Article 4 of Chapter 18 of Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia.

Briefly, these four members (of a Board of seven) ignored warnings from their own attorney (and outraged citizens), by-passed the administrative and due process of the Georgia Code and the Open Records Act by holding closed sessions, and voted on and selected a new Superintendent of. Schools who, by all accounts, was ranked 34th of the 37 applicants in terms of experience and qualifications. They ignored the requirement of selecting at least three of the most qualified candidates and openly citing their qualifications to the public prior to a final vote.

Of the candidate they selected, there are not only issues of limited or educational experience in grades K-12 (a former prerequisite of candidates), but a somewhat obvious conflict of interest in his having served on another board with one of the of the School Board members who insisted on his appointment.

Our local media members WALB TV, FOX TV and The Albany Herald (The Albany Journal also dissenting) as a class, were granted an injunction on 2/5/10 by Superior Court Judge Denise Marshall delaying the seating of this questionable Superintendent and his appointment until March 1, 2010.

Our Taxpayers' Association has, as of this writing, initiated the proper steps to begin a recall under the Georgia Public Officers Recall Act of 1989 to at least hold these four School Board members accountable to the voting public for their egregious and illegal acts. Such a recall is time-consuming, and because of our March 1, 2010 deadline, (as to the injunction) we ask that your office intervene with this matter, not only from the standpoint of ethics and constitutional violations, but to protect state funds (and local funds) which will eventually fall prey to the potential misdeeds of these officials, if left unchecked.

We, as representatives of the citizens of Dougherty County, would appreciate your intervention and expedition of this matter in a most timely manner.

Richard R. Thomas
Chairman
Dougherty County Taxpayers' Association, Inc.


cc: Governor Sonny Purdue
Atlanta Journal & Constitution Tommy Coleman, Esq.
WALB TV
FOX TV
The Albany Herald
The Albany Journal

Must read! Article published in The Albany Herald, January 30,2010

Welcome to the “New Minority”

According to IRS data, the bottom 50% of wage earners in 2008 paid a total of 2.99% of all taxes – almost none. The top 50% paid 97% after OBAMA’s 2009 cash pay-out to people who pay little or no taxes (so called refundable tax credits) and for the first time in history, over 50% of American citizens will pay no federal taxes in 2010.

What does this mean for America? When more than 50% of the citizens aren’t paying for the cost of government, it becomes impossible to win an election by promising to reduce government spending or wasteful services, when over 50% of citizens depend on it and vote for it.

In Dougherty County slightly more than 15% of the population pay advalorem taxes to support a government and services supporting approximately 97,000 citizens.

Is this not an insidious form of economic, if not electoral, discrimination when such a vast minority of citizens who control the majority of investment capital, technology, and taxable resources are denied a seat at the table of governance by lesser, if not non-productive, have nots? It is in essence “taxation without representation.”

The same intellectual and capital resources that built this community and nation are now outnumbered, out voted, and void of representation in our city/county commissions, as well as government appointments, now dominated by bureaucrats who have limited or no knowledge of business, commerce, economic or risk capital concepts.

Space does not allow me to list the numerous wasteful government projects (with which we are all familiar) that are sucking the very life blood out of this once vibrant community and driving its greatest human, technological and capital resources out of the area, (the “timeliners”), just biding their time for kids to graduate, a promotion, or retirement, etc. then leave this misery behind.

Most recently, our School Board out-voted 2 prudent members (5 to 2) to by-pass state statutes and appoint an unqualified superintendent with no experience to lead an already broken and inferior public education system that receives a major part of its financial support from 15% of its working citizens, who either have no school age children or pay thousands of dollars more to send their children to private schools. The desperate cries of “foul” from productive (minority) tax paying citizens falls upon ignorant deaf ears. “They know not that they know not and they know not.”

We should not fault directly the members of school boards or city and county commissions who make these egregious decisions, but instead fault the people who elected these incompetent people who serve in these responsible positions. As a “new minority”, our silence only encourages more of the same.

It is no different from Carlton Fletcher’s report of two jurors in the Don Buie trial who refused to be a part of “sending another black man to jail”. If not for a very courageous and ambitious chief assistant D.A., who cut a last minute plea “deal” with Buie’s attorney, Buie would have walked away a free man. Those responsible for his acts still go unpunished, even without a reprimand or suspension.

Albany is on track to becoming a microcosm of Detroit and East St. Louis, where productive tax-paying citizens have been driven from the area (by taxes, crime, failed public education, etc.) and left the remaining citizens as “pawns” of the state and federal governments and elected bureaucrats to languish in 40% unemployment and abject poverty. We as the “new minority” are voluntarily surrendering our resources without a fight, consumed by public apathy.

The only hope for our community is for this “new minority” to rise up, become engaged and involved, demand accountability of its tax dollars spent, encourage qualified truthful and dedicated citizens to run for office, and then elect them by insisting that 80% of us must out-vote the margins of those who (now the majority) practice economic and racial extortion that threatens the very fabric of our community.

Richard R. Thomas, a resident of Albany for

37 years, holds a B.S. degree in economics

and a M.B.A. in finance, and is President of

Corporate and Estate Analysts, Inc. an estate

Planning and Wealth Transfer Firm. He can

be reached at richard@ceafirm.com.